Prisoner 13
The original film in what has come to be known as the Mexican Revolution Trilogy (with EL COMPADRE MENDOZA, 1934, and VAMONOS CON PANCHO VILLA, 1936), all written and directed by Fernando de Fuentes, perhaps the greatest filmmaker of Mexico’s "Golden Age" of cinema. Two stories unfold in PRISONER 13: a son who pays for his father’s faults and a desperate mother who tries at any cost to save her son’s life. Colonel Carrasco is abandoned by his discarded wife Martha who takes their son Juan with her. Destiny and corruption play a joke on Carrasco when he accepts a bribe to set free a revolutionary and arrest someone in his place. Unbeknownst to him, he ends up arresting his own son.De Fuentes’ stories of ordinary people caught up in tumultuous events of their times, told with gentle humor and deep compassion, have led critics such as The New York Times’ A.O. Scott to dub him "the Mexican John Ford." His films are indispensable viewing for anyone interested in this important period of cinema history.