The loves of Maria (Aurora Bautista) , nicknamed 'La Gata', daughter of the 'Mayoral' (José Nieto) of an Andalusian farmhouse, a ¨cortijo¨, where fighting bulls are raised. She is wooed by several men of the village, among them the young Joselillo, but the Gata (Cat) only feels love for Juan (Jorge Mistral), a handsome and cocky worker who dreams of being a bullfighter. Jealousy emerges when Joseli (Felipe Simón), a teenager, is also in love with her.
A romantic film with intense drama, desire, sex, temptation and tragedy. An impressive love melodrama filmed in technicolor, and in scope, it also had French financing and got a long-awaited success at the time. In the middle of a well-shot documentary about how a cattle ranch works and throughout a long flashback, it is narrated how Maria's jealousy is born from the presence among Carmen's reapers: Nani Fernández, Juan's former lover, and causing a fight between both women.
Contributing to its success was being the first film to be shown in Spain in CinemaScope format, a cinematographic technique that consists of laterally compressing the images during filming, expanding the visual field, so that when projected on panoramic screens they recover their proportions. Being the first Spanish film in the CinemaScope system, this elongated screen system was launched by the North Americans in 1953 with Henry Koster's The Robe, in order to fight against the emerging television, and carried out here by the notorious cameraman Juan Mariné who, to his more than 100 years old this same year receives a special Goya award for his long career. In "La Gata" he proceeds with much longer shots than usual, sometimes using ingenious aesthetic solutions utilizing a restricted range of lenses.
The film dilutes its drama in the documentary part, but partially fails because the erotic atmosphere, essential for the proper development of the story, is very contained by the inevitable censorship of the Franco regime. Developed almost entirely in the Marshes, in the Andalusian fields where the fighting bulls grew freely. The wild bulls that were later used for the popular bullfights and particularly in the Plaza de la Maestranza in Seville. It is curious the various accents of the actors, all dubbed, according to the bad custom of the time, by themselves or by professional dubbers.
The actress Aurora Bautista had become a true idol of Spain in the 1950s after making her debut with great success in "Locura de Amor" and establishing herself on celluloid thanks to playing various historical characters for the production company Cifesa. In this version, the screenwriter Cesar Férnandez Ardavín (¨El Lazarillo de Tormes¨ wrote this melodrama for her, in which love and heartbreak are the essential part of the plot. She is well accompanied by the 50's idol, Jorge Mistral, who unfortunately committed suicide, along with a plethora de fine secondaries, such as: Nani fernandez, José Nieto, José Guardiola, José Sepúlveda, Santiago Rivero, Felipe Simón, Guillermo Méndez, among others.
The main interest lies in being the last of the three films directed by the former actress Margarita Aleixandre and the producer Rafael Torrecilla. They also directed other two nice films: a ciudad perdida (1955) and Cristo (1954). Rating: 6.5/10. Better than average, wellworth watching.
