El secreto de Tomy (1963)
18 Dec 1963 1h 28m
By 1963,Joselito was no longer a child.And his voice was irremediably changing.He was no longer the vocal phenomenon he was in the late fifties /early sixties.He sings only four or five songs ,and although it's lip-synching,we feel he is ill-at-ease,one sees little of the unqualified enthusiasm which accompanied him through his early career . He was no longer a child ,and as a teenager he seems to have lost all the qualities he formerly displayed :spontaneity,good humor and of course his golden voice .The times were changing.When the 1963 audience saw the short scene when Tomy's pals are twistin',they perhaps thought that Joselito Jimenez's bel canto was perhaps quickly becoming a thing of the past.And maybe JJ himself was beginning to be fed up with the poor screenplays left for him to play.This one is absolutely dumb,not even redeemed by the pristine charm of the star's former melodramas ("escucha mi cancion" is perhaps his most satisfying effort).The spell,like the voice,was broken.This is really dreadful stuff:bland teenage love (Joselito's co-star is a pain in the neck;besides she is taller than he is),bland grown-ups love (Joselito's airline pilot father's affair with a journalist),horse races (after all,if Liz Taylor did it in "National Velvet" ,why not Joselito?),wicked businessmen,and ,for all that, a song contest.The song contest is particularly painful to watch.We only see one of Joselito's rivals :it's a fat ridiculous boy who makes the audience roar in laughter.The director obviously wanted to divert attention from how badly damaged the star's voice was.And what about the secret of the title?There is none.
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Language:
Spanish
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Country:
Spain, France
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