Queer mexican kidnapper film?

July 19, 2007 10:32 PM

Please help me remember the name of a 1970's Mexican film about homosexual kidnappers.

The only other details I remember are that the kidnapee was a young boy and that it took place in Mexico City.

I saw it at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin one afternoon in the spring of 2002. I'm pretty certain the screening I attended was the only one given and that it might've been part of a series of similarly themed movies. Or not.

posted by Item to media & arts (8 comments total)

If all else fails try IMDB power search. Enter Mexico for "country of origin"; enter some range of years that seems reasonable (maybe 1967-1987?) and try one keyword at a time (homosexual; gay; kidnapping).
Best I found by this method was Matinee, but there were other titles that had empty plot synopses, where you might recognize it from just the title.

You could also try getting in touch with someone at the Alamo and asking.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:22 PM on July 19, 2007

Matinee it is. Thank you, Lobster Mitten!
posted by Item at 11:34 PM on July 19, 2007

From the description at IMDB it sounds really cool - was it? Should I seek this out?
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:40 PM on July 19, 2007

I am too late for this, I could have answered from the top of my head 'Matinee', which I have never watched, but I have watched Doña Herlinda y su Hijo (IMBD), which is considered the most openly gay Mexican comedy ever (at least in 1984 it was).


The reason I know this is that Doña Herlinda was the first Mexican movie to be picked up by an international distribution company, and it can be argued that it opened the doors to the Mexican takeover of hollywod :).

Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, the director, then proceeded to make one of the worst movies ever made (I am told), 'Clandestino Destino' (IMDB). It is a science fiction movie, set in 2000, in which the USA extends to downtown Guadalajara, and people get shot.

I was 9 at the time, and an actor in that movie. I was not allowed to watch it, and it has become a minor quest in my life to get a copy before I die.

The scene I remember the most is me standing on a yacht's deck, shouting at an island "Daddy, please come back!", while the actress playing my mother shouts, raising a tube of lotion triumphantly in her hand, "They have found the cure for it", followed by shots from the island that kill my real life father, a last minute extra, and splatter my favorite Bugle Boy baggy shorts with warm sweet fake blood.

The "it" in "the cure for it" being homosexuality.

I will use my next AskMe to try to find a copy.
posted by Dataphage at 12:23 AM on July 20, 2007 [6 favorites]

Yeah, it was great. I remember it being very darkly funny and sleazy in all the right places. I'm going to try to hunt down a copy.
posted by Item at 12:23 AM on July 20, 2007

FWIW, both of the films mentioned in this thread are available through Netflix.
posted by boreddusty at 5:33 AM on July 20, 2007

Unfortunately, although Doña Herlinda y su Hijo and Matinee are available through Netflix, Clandestino Destino is not.
posted by painquale at 12:49 PM on July 20, 2007

1. Look out Netflix.
2. Dataphage, that's way cool.
posted by LobsterMitten at 5:50 PM on July 20, 2007