Alma de gaucho
Cast & Crew
Henry Otto
Manuel Granado
Mona Rico
Francisco Amerise
Christina Montt
Humberto Bonavia
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Elsa, a young girl from Buenos Aires, visits her aunt and uncle, Don Alfredo and Doña Cristina, at their ranch. While playing golf, Elsa meets a gaucho, Antonio, and is enchanted by his exquisite singing voice. When she loses a golf ball, she explains the game to the gaucho. Elsa, Don Alfredo, Doña Cristina, and two other rich visitors, Carlos and Arturo, attend a a rodeo, where Elsa dares one of the gauchos to ride a wild, unbroken colt named Moro. Antonio takes the challenge, and after he succeeds in breaking the horse, Don Alfredo gives it to Elsa. She grows fond of Antonio, and when she teaches him to play golf, Doña Cristina decides to intercede, but before she arrives, she and the gaucho agree to meet in the garden that night. During the evening card game, Cristina becomes angry that Elsa is preoccupied. Elsa meets Antonio as planned and he sings for her. Cristina takes Elsa away from her lover. Later, at a family tea, Doña Cristina argues that Antonio is too uncultured and uneducated for the girl. Elsa assures her that she is only carrying on an innocent flirtation with Antonio. Believing Elsa is sincere in this claim, Antonio is broken-hearted, and Don Casimiro tries to comfort him. At a fiesta, couples dance the Argentinian national dance, the Pericon. Elsa convinces the sorrowful Antonio to sing a song, and when she tries to flee the fiesta, he carries her off into the night. Arturo tells Alfredo and Casimiro what has occurred and they chase the pair on horseback. Antonio tells Elsa that despite his lack of education, he is a man with feelings and dignity. He chides her for playing with him, and then lets her go, telling her that he did not avenge his wrongs to prove to her the nobility of the gauchos. Elsa returns to her aunt and uncle, and falls into a delirium, calling incessantly for Antonio. Antonio finally comes to her and they embrace, reunited.
Director
Henry Otto
Cast
Manuel Granado
Mona Rico
Francisco Amerise
Christina Montt
Humberto Bonavia
George Rigas
Alberto Mendoza
Emma Mora
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The plot summary was based on a dialogue continuity deposited at the NYSA of a dubbed Italian version of this film, entitled Povero cuore (Poor Heart). Newsreel footage of the premiere of Alma de gaucho, in the AMPAS archive, reveals that director Henry Otto was not Spanish-speaking. Paul Ellis and Manuel Granado were pseudonyms used by Argentine-born Benjamín Ingenito Paralupi. The dubbed Italian version, which was also advertised under the title Poor Heart, contained the following written foreward, translated from the Italian: "Italians in Italy and outside, we sincerely dedicate this first work to you, without pretense but animated with great enthusiasm for our faraway country and with the firm will to make some more pictures. This typical drama of Argentine life comes to you from Hollywood, and we hope you will accept it as a start for taking the Italian language all over the world."
