La vida bohemia
Cast & Crew
Rosita Díaz
Gilbert Roland
Miguel Ligero
José Crespo
Romualdo Tirado
Juan Torena
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Mimí, a poor seamstress, comes to live in the same lodgings as Rodolfo, a struggling writer. Rodolfo is intrigued by Mimí's beauty and introduces her to his Bohemian friends. Later, when Rodolfo writes for a periodical without realizing that it is no longer publishing, Mimí fakes delivery of the articles and substitutes her earnings for the fee. A viscount, in love with Mimí, is persuaded by her to commission Rodolfo to write a play. However, although he is now in love with her, Rodolfo believes that Mimí, his inspiration, is deceiving him with the viscount and throws her out. Later, Mimí takes work making artificial flowers but becomes ill. One of Rodolfo's friends encounters her and invites her back to the lodgings for a meal. Although Rodolfo, now successful, no longer lives there, he returns for the dinner and reunites with Mimí. However, she is now very ill and is moved to a hospital where she dies with Rodolfo at her side.
Cast
Rosita Díaz
Gilbert Roland
Miguel Ligero
José Crespo
Romualdo Tirado
Juan Torena
Blanca Poza
Anita Campillo
Tina Menard
Carlos Villarías
José Peña Pepet
Crew
John Alton
Jaime Del Amo
Irving Applebaum
Martha Austin
Josef Berne
Stanley Blyth
Alexander Borisoff
Bartlett Carré
George Ellis
Max Factor
José López Rubio
Jack Mosser
F. Paul Sylos
Miguel De Zárraga Jr.
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
This film was released as Tragedias de la vida bohemia in Santiago, Chile. According to Film Daily and Hollywood Reporter news items beginning in May 1937, Jaime del Amo and Josef Berne, co-directors of Cantabria Productions, signed Rosita Díaz to star in a series of twelve Spanish films to be made in Hollywood. The company's first film was to be El camino de Hollywood; however, in June 1937, the company shelved plans for that film because of story difficulties and substituted La vida bohemia. Cantabria produced only one other film, the 1938 Verbena trágica, which did not star Díaz. A Hollywood Reporter news item stated that actor Miguel Ligero was known as "the Charlie Chaplin of Spain" and that he was married to Blanca Poza, who was also in the cast. The film, in a revised edition, was approved for exhibition by the New York State censors at a length of 7,647 feet. New York Times, in reviewing the February 1939 New York screening, remarked, "Thanks to the high moral standards obtaining in Hollywood's film factories, Mimi, the unfortunate heroine of La Boheme, has been made an 'honest woman' at last." The review noted the insertion of two or three English titles between scenes, "assuring the spectators that Rodolfo and Mimi were married right away and that, when tempted later, she was a guest of the handsome Viscount for only 12 hours and that her love for her husband prevented her from 'falling.'" Among the many film adaptations of Henri Murger's novel or of the 1896 opera La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini, which was inspired by the novel, are the following: the 1916 Paragon Film La Vie de Boheme, directed by Albert Capellani and starring Alice Brady and Paul Capellani; the 1926 M-G-M film La Boheme, directed by King Vidor and starring Lillian Gish and John Gilbert; the 1935 British production Mimi, directed by Paul Stein and starring Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Gertrude Lawrence; the 1945 French film La Vie de Boheme, directed by Marcel L'Herbier and starring Louis Jordan; and the 1965 Italian-French opera film La Boheme, directed by Franco Zeffirelli.
