El Quelite

Call it a sort of gag parody of Enamorada.

Somewhere between the playhouse and the sound stage this acquired an objectivity and a stance that make it amazingly funny as the director winds his way in and out of his tale about a careless bandito and a fearless señorita who corners him around a table and kisses him onto the floor whilst a señora looks on appreciatively saying, “¡Ah, muchacha!”

She has to be brave because he’s a filthy hombre who only takes a hot bath at the insistence of his compadres, and with both pistolas blazing as he sinks beneath the steaming suds.

Then, of course, as Robert Joy says in Louis Malle’s Atlantic City, he’s “a fucking Prince Charles”, and the señorita swoons to the ground at the sight of him. Together, there, they smooch some more.

It’s a touching, eloquent love story.