The story of Perdida is interesting enough. In more skilled hands it could have become a classic Mexican melodrama, but the film sometimes plods along and the story loses some of its effectiveness. In films like "Victimas del Pecado" and "Aventurera" (both featuring Niñon Sevilla), the musical numbers mix effortlessly with the plot. Fernando Rivero, the director, is sometimes heavy-handed - some scenes drag a bit too much, but all in all, it is still fun to see the film - Niñon Sevilla and the musical numbers take charge of that.
The story is traditional enough. It talks about a naive country girl who is raped by her stepfather, runs away and goes to the big city, looking for a job. Needless to say, she ends up in a brothel and all kinds of misfortunes befall the poor girl. I think that I'm not spoiling anything because this is a traditional story line that many Mexican films followed at the time.
There is one scene in particular that I like a lot: Niñon Sevilla is sitting sadly on an armchair in the brothel where she had been trapped, and the trio "Los Panchos" descends slowly the staircase with their guitars singing "Perdida" (perdida could be translated in English as "fallen woman". They stop in front of her, always singing, and whenever they sing the refrain Perdida (Fallen Woman) the camera shows Niñon Sevilla's face bathed in tears. It's unbelievable! But you have to think that scenes like that made many people cry in the movie theater at the time.
In one of her musical performances, Niñon Sevilla (dressed as Carmen Miranda), with the Anjos do Inferno as backing group, sings "Nego" in Portuguese - her Spanish accent is very sexy!
Unfortunately Fernando Rivero hasn't got the handicraft ability of Alberto Gout, or the melodramatic poetry of Emilio Fernandez. Even so Perdida is worth to see for the fans of Niñon Sevilla and the Mexican melodrama.
