Cuna de lobos
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| Cuna de lobos | |
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| Directed by | Carlos Téllez Antonio Acevedo |
| Written by | Carlos Olmos |
| Script by | Margarita Villaseñor |
| Cinematography by | Carlos S. Zúñiga |
| Produced by | Carlos Téllez |
| Starring | María Rubio Gonzalo Vega Diana Bracho Alejandro Camacho |
| Music by | Pedro Plascencia Salinas |
| Theme song | — |
| Performed by | — |
| Country | Mexico |
| Language | Spanish |
| Network | Televisa |
| Broadcast | 1986 |
| No. of episodes | 170 |
Cuna de lobos is a Mexican telenovela, which was produced by and broadcast on Televisa from 1986- 1987. The serial, about the struggle for power within a wealthy Mexican dynasty, was enormously popular in its native Mexico, and also as an export to several countries, including the United States and Australia.
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[edit] Profile
The most memorable character in Cuna de Lobos, and central to its storylines and themes, is matriarch Catalina Creel, played by actress María Rubio, a villainess in the grand dramatic tradition of Dynasty's Alexis Carrington, or Dallas' J.R. Ewing.
The main character is Leonora, played by Diana Bracho, who portrays the victim of the "lobos", only to "become" a "loba" herself to seek revenge.
Catalina's unnatural devotion to her eldest son caused her conceal a healthy eye behind the lie of blindness, commit a series of murders beginning with her own husband, Carlos (his crime: realising how truly evil she was) and finally to participate in the abduction of a child to ensure her son's inheritance was confirmed.
Such is the impact of her performance, that telenovela's villainess take her as a role model, and when a program parodies a telenovela, the main villain is usually based on her.
[edit] Popularity
Cuna de Lobos was so popular in its native country that on the night of the final broadcast, the streets of Mexico City - famously choked with traffic - were deserted as the locals were in their homes glued to their TV screens. It has been re-screened several times in the United States and Australia in recent years. A remake has been in talks for several years, but has not yet surfaced as of 2008.
[edit] Other versions
The storyline of "Cuna de Lobos" is somewhat similar to the story of the movie "The Anniversary" (1968), starring Bette Davis.
There is a version of "Cuna de Lobos" produced in Spain (2002), called "La Verdad de Laura", with Mónica Estarreado, Mariano Alameda and Mirtha Ibarra.
[edit] Awards
The Best Telenovela of the Year", TVyNovelas Award in 1987. In 2006 TvyNovelas named it the best telenovela ever[citation needed].
[edit] Cast
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[edit] Plot
Carlos Larios, the CEO of the international pharmaceutical company Lar-Creel informs Catalina Creel, his wife, that he's become privy to the secret she has concealed for many years, and that he intends to expose her and change his will. To protect such a secret and to stop him from changing the will, she poisons Carlos' orange juice, which he drinks. Ignorant of what he's just ingested Larios drives off to work. Little does he know that his drive will have him cross paths with Leonora Navarro (Diana Bracho), when Larios suffers a fatal heart attack, sending his vehicle through the office building where she works. Leonora contacts Larios' son Alejandro (Alejandro Camacho) and returns his father's wallet. In gratitude they decide to keep in touch.
With Larios dead, the will gets revealed: it stipulates that whichever of his sons - Alejandro (Alejandro Camacho) or José Carlos (Gonzalo Vega) - produces an heir first shall inherit control of Lar-Creel and its fortune. Catalina is privately pushing for her son Alejandro, who is married, to be the first instead of her stepson José Carlos whom she maintains at bay of the family business. She exploits Jose Carlos' weak nature through guilt (by reminding him it's his fault she wears an eye-patch - which is the heart of the secret Larios was about to disclose) and by making him totally dependent on her paying off his debts. At the same time Catalina fends off a young woman he has begun to date and in a series of events she manages to frame him for the murder of a man who'd been sending threats to the Larios' house, a murder she committed dressed in a blond wig and dark overcoat.
What Catalina ignores is that Alejandro's wife Vilma (Rebecca Jones) is sterile. Alejandro, fully aware of the family tradition, knows Catalina will force him to divorce Vilma. Divided by his devotion for Vilma and his need to control the family business, he decides to contact Leonora clandestinely while having Vilma fake a pregnancy. Esperanza (Carmen Montejo), Leonora's godmother, is wary, but allows Leonora to get involved with him when he wins her over. The relationship deepens, but when Leonora becomes pregnant and Catalina discovers Vilma's fake pregnancy, the stakes are raised. In a bold move to save his marriage Alejandro reveals to Catalina what he's been doing on his own which prompts Catalina to take matters into her own hands: she has Alejandro "marry" Leonora with the intention of taking the child once it's born. Esperanza is unable to warn Leonora of the danger she faces because she suffers a stroke, is rendered mute, and winds up in a nursing home paid for by Catalina.
It seems Leonora is passively becoming an unwilling patsy. She has now been taken to a remote clinic also paid by Catalina, and there she awaits going into labor as she gets careful medical attention from Dr. Zindel and his accomplice Rosalía. Once the baby is born, Alejandro and Vilma drive off. Catalina orders Dr. Zindel to kill Leonora so as to remove evidence. Rosalia is the one to do the task, but fails: Leonora escapes into the night, narrowly avoiding getting attacked by guard dogs, and gets picked up by a woman who drives her back to Mexico City where she receives medical attention, and slowly she regains her sanity, her life, and her determination to get her son back. She begins following the Larios' every movements and showing up at events. However, once she sets her sights on José Carlos, who's been released from jail, she uses him to get into the Larios' house by having him marry her and introduce him as his wife. It's there where Leonora truly tightens her grip on the Larios family.
From here on, subplots come into play at this time. Bertha Moscoso, Catalina's secretary, no longer wanting to be privy to her machinations, has found herself at the same clinic where Leonora once stayed. Dr. Zindel tries to rape her, but Rosalia's jealousy burns the clinic down and shows up at the Larios' house demanding help from Catalina who instead frames her for her crimes in a vicious turn of events by dressing her in the disguise she used for her murders. Bertha later shows up, also in disguise, and with the help of a friend (and because she has insider information on the Larios' dirty laundry which she takes to the police investigating the murders that seem to tie themselves to the Larios family) is able to go even further than Leonora in hurting the Larios, not without nearly escaping death by Catalina who tracks her down. It's after this showdown between Bertha and Catalina where José Carlos becomes aware that all this time he'd been duped by her - he'd never been responsible for maiming Catalina's eye and her hold on him disappears.
Not so with Alejandro: discovering Catalina killed his father by Leonora's unwavering proof (having been there when he died) destroys him emotionally. Events take a turn for the worse when Vilma gets stomach cancer which spreads rapidly. Vilma has a change of heart and gives Leonora's son back to her. As Alejandro prepares to fly Vilma to a medical facility in the family jet (which Catalina, believing José Carlos and Leonora were going to fly had rigged to malfunction) the plane explodes in mid-flight. Catalina receives news that her son is dead. At this time the police are narrowing in on Catalina, her crimes exposed. She, in turn, decides to commit suicide by drinking the same poison she gave her husband, dressed in the blond wig and overcoat she used so many times.
[edit] Open Ending
5 years later, Leonora's two sons stumble upon the eye patches Catalina wore so many times, and the quote from Leonora's oldest son Braulio - "I'm not Braulio. I'm little Edgar" raised the question that this story might have had a sequel. However, producer Carlos Téllez died in 1994 and writer Carlos Olmos died in 2003, and a sequel was not made by them.
[edit] DVD
The first DVD of "Cuna de lobos" came out in 2002. It was a single-disc DVD that contained the entire novela edited down to a little over 230 minutes. A second DVD release came on March 8th, 2007. While it expanded the novela to over 11 hours played in a 3-disc DVD, some purist fans felt cheated upon realizing that the original instrumental music and soundtrack had been erased and substituted by new music. According to Televisa, this was due to a disagreement with Mexican actress and producer Carmen Salinas, who owns the music copyrights after her deceased son Pedro Plascencia Salinas, who produced the music of the novela.
[edit] External links
- Cuna de Lobos at the Telenovela Database.
- Cuna de lobos at the Internet Movie Database
- Beyond soap - BBC embraces villains, plot twists and Latin style of telenovela at The Guardian contains a significant mention of Cuna de Lobos
