“Eisenstein, forever… always Eisenstein. Sergej M. Eisenstein, genial filmmaker, has left his mark everywhere he passed through, by inspiring and motivating other artists. In Mexico he was particularly worshipped: there one of his best friends was a man with a rather picturesque name, Adolfo Best Maugard. A friend of arts and cinema, painter, pedagogue and political party member, he was officially placed at Eisenstein’s side for his shooting in Mexico, in order to assure that images would be authentic. A few years later – Eisenstein had already gone back to the Soviet Union – Best Maugard made a film, La mancha de sangre, a masterpiece of Mexican cinema quite unknown in the rest of the world. An extraordinary film noir, a flamboyant, burning expression of nightlife in the metropolis, men and women of the night in their feverish dance for money, love and power. Best Maugard did not need actors as he shot ‘live’ in a night club with whores and friends. In the middle of the film there is such a fiery stripping number that the screen seems to tear up. In 1943 the film was released, after the ‘adjustments’ made by Best Maugard for censorship, but a few weeks later the film was totally forbidden and it disappeared forever. Only a few years ago did a nitrate print come back to light, later to be restored by Mexico City Film Archive. La mancha de sangre is an effective example of revolutionary cinema in Eisenstein’s and Bunuel’s tradition (L’Àge d’or), one of the few films which would rightly merit the label of ‘maudit’”.

(Fritz Göttler)