Monerías (1930) - Scratchy, Loud, and Weirdly Fun

If you have thirty minutes to spare and love old-school slapstick, Monerías is a weird little trip worth taking. But if scratchy 1930s audio and actors shouting Spanish phonetically make your head hurt, stay far away. 😅

It is basically Charley Chase doing his usual clumsy-man routine, but for a Spanish-speaking audience. They did this a lot back then, filming the same scenes twice with different casts because dubbing wasn't really a thing yet.

The plot is super thin, mostly just Charley getting into trouble with some very angry people. Honestly, the story do not matter at all here.

What is funny is how awkward some of the transitions are. You can tell they were still figuring out how to record sound without making everyone stand completely still like statues.

There is this one bit with a hat that goes on for way too long. I think I counted three times where Charley looks like he is waiting for the director to yell cut.

Luis Llaneza is pretty great here though. He has this wildly expressive face that does most of the heavy lifting when the dialogue gets too clunky.

It reminds me of those other early sound experiments, like how they tried to force audio into silents like The Black Ace, but this one has a lot more screaming.

The print I saw had these huge black lines running down the middle of the screen. It actually added to the charm, like watching a old home movie from a dusty attic.

Angelita Benítez does her best with a pretty thankless role as the love interest. She mostly just stands there looking shocked while men fall over furniture.

And my god, the sound of the doors slamming is so loud. It sounds like a actual gunshot every time someone exits a room.

It is definetly not a masterpiece. But there is a loose, chaotic energy here that modern comedies just can't replicate.

Sometimes the jokes fail completely, and that is okay. You can almost feel the crew laughing behind the camera anyway.