Scriabin: Prometheus/ Graham Greene: From a Review of `The Black Room´/ Stills from `The Black Room´(1935) (Continued)

“I liked this wildly artificial film, in which Karloff acts both a wicked central European count and his virtuous, cultured twin of the Byronic period…

“Mr Boris Karloff has been allowed to act at last… “

“The direction is good: it has caught, as Mr James Whale never did with Frankenstein, the genuine Gothic note. Mrs. Radcliffe would not have been ashamed of this absurd and exciting film, of the bones in the oubliette…

“…of the Count’s wild drive back to the castle, the lashing whip, the rearing horses, the rocketing coach, the strange volley of rocks with its leading cross and neglected Christ, the graveyard with owls and ivy. There is much more historical sense in this film than in any of… the ‘scholarly’ works of Mr Korda. A whole literary period comes to life…”

 

Stephen Crane: A man feared that he might find an assassin

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.

Madame Guillotine

John O. West: La Llorona

LA LLORONA. The ghostly woman who wanders along canals and rivers crying for her missing children, called in Spanish La Llorona, “the Weeping Woman,” is found in many cultures and regions. Her story includes some strong similarities to that of Medea. She is perhaps the most widely known ghost in Texas. Her New World history goes back to the time of Hernán Cortés and links her with La Malinche, the mistress of the conquistador. As tradition has it, after having borne a child to Cortés, La Malinche, who aided in the conquest of Mexico as a translator for the Spanish, was replaced by a highborn Spanish wife. Her Aztec pride plus her jealousy drove her, according to the story, to acts of vengeance against the intruders from across the sea. Sometimes the story is told about a Spanish nobleman and a peasant girl. Some years ago, the story goes, a young hidalgo fell in love with a lowly girl, usually named María, who over a period of time bore him two or three children. She had a casita-a little house-where the young man visited and brought his friends, and in almost every way they shared a happy life together, except that their union was not blessed by the church. His parents, of course, knew nothing of the arrangement and would not have allowed him to marry beneath his station. They urged him to marry a suitable lady and give them grandchildren. Finally he gave in, and sadly he told María that he must marry another. But he would not desert her, he promised-he would still take care of her and the children and visit them as often as he could. Enraged, she drove him away, and when the wedding took place she stood veiled in her shawl at the back of the church. Once the ceremony was over she went home, and in a crazed state killed the children, threw them into a nearby body of water, and then drowned herself. But when her soul applied for admission to heaven, el Señor refused her entry. “Where are your children?” He asked her. Ashamed, she confessed she did not know. “Go and bring them here,” the Lord said. “You cannot rest until they are found.” And ever since, La Llorona wanders along streams at night, weeping and crying for her children-”Ay, mis hijos!” According to some, she has been known to take revenge on men she comes across in her journey. She usually dresses in black. Her face is sometimes that of a horse, but more often horribly blank, and her long fingernails gleam like polished in in the moonlight.

The story of the Weeping Woman is told to youngsters as a “true” story of what might get you if you’re out after dark. But the most frequent use of the story is to warn romantic teenage girls against falling for boys who may have nice clothes and money but are too far above them to consider marriage. The Cortés variant is said to be used in the late twentieth century to express hostility to European culture. La Llorona’s loss is compared to the demise of indigenous culture after the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish.

via

Thomas Allibone Janvier: Legend of the Llorona

AS is generally known, Senor, many bad things 
are met with by night in the streets of 
the City; but this Wailing Woman, La Llorona, 
is the very worst of them all. She is worse by 
far than the vaca de lumbre that at midnight 
comes forth from the potrero of San Pablo and 
goes galloping through the streets like a blazing 
whirlwind, breathing forth from her nostrils 
smoke and sparks and flames: because the 
Fiery Cow, Senor, while a dangerous animal to 
look at, really does no harm whatever and 
La Llorona is as harmful as she can be ! 

Seeing her walking quietly along the quiet 
street at the times when she is not running, 
and shrieking for her lost children she seems 
a respectable person, only odd looking because 
of her white petticoat and the white reboso 
with which her head is covered, and anybody 
might speak to her. But whoever does speak 
to her, in that very same moment dies! 

The beginning of her was so long ago that no 
one knows when was the beginning of her; nor 
does any one know anything about her at all. 
But it is known certainly that at the beginning 
of her, when she was a living woman, she com- 
mitted bad sins. As soon as ever a child was 
born to her she would throw it into one of the 
canals which surround the City, and so would 
drown it; and she had a great many children, 
and this practice in regard to them she con- 
tinued for a long time. At last her conscience 
began to prick her about what she did with her 
children; but whether it was that the priest 
spoke to her, or that some of the saints cau- 
tioned her in the matter, no one knows. But 
it is certain that because of her sinnings she 
began to go through the streets in the darkness 
weeping and wailing. And presently it was 
said that from night till morning there was a 
wailing woman in the streets; and to see her, 
being in terror of her, many people went forth 
at midnight ; but none did see her, because she 
could be seen only when the street was deserted 
and she was alone. 

Sometimes she would come to a sleeping 
watchman, and would waken him by asking: 
"What time is it?" And he would see a 
woman clad in white standing beside him with 
her reboso drawn over her face. And he would 
answer: "It is twelve hours of the night." 
And she would say: "At twelve hours of this 
day I must be in Guadalajara!" or it might 
be in San Luis Potosi, or in some other far- 
distant city and, so speaking, she would 
shriek bitterly: "Where shall I find my 
children?" and would vanish instantly and 
utterly away. And the watchman would feel 
as though all his senses had gone from him, 
and would become as a dead man. This hap- 
pened many times to many watchmen, who 
made report of it to their officers; but their 
officers would not believe what they told. But 
it happened, on a night, that an officer of the 
watch was passing by the lonely street beside 
the church of Santa Anita. And there he 
met with a woman wearing a white reboso and 
a white petticoat ; and to her he began to make 
love. He urged her, saying: "Throw off your 
reboso that I may see your pretty face!" 
And suddenly she uncovered her face and 
what he beheld was a bare grinning skull set 
fast to the bare bones of a skeleton! And 
while he looked at her, being in horror, there 
came from her fleshless jaws an icy breath; and 
the iciness of it froze the very heart's blood 
in him, and he fell to the earth heavily in a 
deathly swoon. When his senses came back 
to him he was greatly troubled. In fear he 
returned to the Diputacion, and there told 
what had befallen him. And in a little while 
his life forsook him and he died. 

What is most wonderful about this Wailing 
Woman, Senor, is that she is seen in the same 
moment by different people in places widely 
apart: one seeing her hurrying across the 
atrium of the Cathedral; another beside the 
Arcos de San Cosme; and yet another near the 
Salto del Agua, over by the prison of Belen. 
More than that, in one single night she will be 
seen in Monterey and in Oaxaca and in Acapulco 
the whole width and length of the land apart 
and whoever speaks with her in those far 
cities, as here in Mexico, immediately dies in 
fright. Also, she is seen at times in the country. 
Once some travellers coming along a lonely 
road met with her, and asked: " Where go you 
on this lonely road ?" And for answer she cried : 
"Where shall I find my children?" and, shriek- 
ing, disappeared. And one of the travellers 
went mad. Being come here to the City they 
told what they had seen; and were told that 
this same Wailing Woman had maddened or 
killed many people here also. 

Because the Wailing Woman is so generally 
known, Senior, and so greatly feared, few 
people now stop her when they meet with her 
to speak with her therefore few now die of 
her, and that is fortunate. But her loud keen 
waitings, and the sound of her running feet, 
are heard often; and especially in nights of 
storm. I myself, Senor, have heard the run- 
ning of her feet and her wailings; but I never 
have seen her. God forbid that I ever shall ! 

Thomas Allibone Janvier: Note – Legend of La Llorona

THIS legend is not, as all of the other legends are, of 
Spanish-Mexican origin : it is wholly Mexican a direct 
survival from primitive times. Seemingly without 
perceiving certainly without noting the connection 
between an Aztec goddess and this the most widely 
distributed of all Mexican folk-stories, Senor Orozco y 
Berra wrote: 

"The Tloque Nahuaque [Universal Creator] created 
in a garden a man and a woman who were the pro- 
genitors of the human race. . . . The woman was called 
Cihuacohuatl, 'the woman snake,' 'the female snake'; 
Tititl, 'our mother,' or 'the womb whence we were 
born'; Teoyaominqui, 'the goddess who gathers the 
souls of the dead ' ; and Quilaztli, implying that she 
bears twins. She appears dressed in white, bearing 
on her shoulder a little cradle, as though she were 
carrying a child; and she can be heard sobbing and 
shrieking. This apparition was considered a bad 
omen." Referring to the same goddess, Fray Ber- 
nardino de Sahagun thus admonished (circa 1585) the 
Mexican converts to Christianity: "Your ancestors 
also erred in the adoration of a demon whom they 
represented as a woman, and to whom they gave the 
name of Cioacoatl. She appeared clad as a lady of the 
palace [clad in white ?]. She terrified (espantadd) , she 
frightened (asombraba) , and cried aloud at night." It 
is evident from these citations that La Llorona is a 
stray from Aztec mythology; an ancient powerful 
goddess living on her power for evil lessened, but still 
potent into modern times. 

She does not belong especially to the City of Mexico. 
The belief in her once confined to, and still strongest 
in, the region primitively under Aztec domination now 
has become localized in many other places throughout 
the country. This diffusion is in conformity with the 
recognized characteristic of folk-myths to migrate with 
those who believe in them ; and in the case of La Llorona 
reasonably may be traced to the custom adopted by the 
Conquistadores of strengthening their frontier settle- 
ments by planting beside them settlements of loyal 
Aztecs : who, under their Christian veneering, would hold 
to as to this day the so-called Christian Indians of Mex- 
ico hold to their old-time faith in their old-time gods. 
Being transplanted, folk-myths are liable to modi- 
fication by a new environment. The Fiery Cow of the 
City of Mexico, for instance, not improbably is a re- 
casting of the Basque vaca de lumbre; or, possibly, of 
the goblin horse, El Belludo, of Grenada who comes 
forth at midnight from the Siete Suelos tower of the 
Alhambra and scours the streets pursued by a pack 
of hell-hounds. But in her migrations, while given 
varying settings, La Llorona has remained unchanged. 
Always and everywhere she is the same: a woman 
clad in white who by night in lonely places goes wailing 
for her lost children ; a creature of evil from whom none 
who hold converse with her may escape alive. 

Don Vicente Riva Palacio's metrical version of this 
legend seems to be composite : a blending ot the primi- 
tive myth with a real tragedy of Viceregal times. In- 
troductorily, he tells that for more than two hundred 
years a popular tale has been current in varying forms 
of a mysterious woman, clad in white, who runs through 
the streets of the City at midnight uttering wailings 
so keen and so woful that whoever hears them swoons 
in a horror of fear. Then follows the story: Luisa, 
the Wailer, in life was a woman of the people, very 
beautiful. By her lover, Don Muno de Montes Claros, 
she had three children. That he might make a marriage 
with a lady of his own rank, he deserted her. Through 
a window of his house she saw him at his marriage 
feast; and then sped homeward and killed with a 
dagger that Don Muno had left in her keeping her 
children as they lay sleeping. Her white garments all 
spattered with their blood, she left her dead children 
and rushed wildly through the streets of the City- 
shrieking in the agony of her sorrow and her sin. In the
end, " a great crowd gathered to see a woman garroted 
because she had killed her three children"; and on that 
same day " a grand funeral procession" went with Don 
Mufio to his grave. And it is this Luisa who goes 
shrieking at night through the streets of the City even 
now. 

My friend Gilberto Cano is my authority for the 
version of the legend the popular version that I 
have given in my text. It seems to me to preserve, 
in its awed mystery and in its vague fearsomeness, the 
very feeling with which the malignant Aztec goddess 
assuredly was regarded in primitive times. 


Wikipedia Llorona via 

The War of the Worlds – Orson Welles

Orson Welles on `War of the Worlds´

The Night America Trembled (1957)

Orson Welles Meets H.G. Wells