Los Olvidados, the masterpiece by Spanish-born Mexican director Luis Buñuel considered one of the best films of all-time according to numerous international polls, premiered in Mexican theaters today, December 9, in 1950. The film starring Roberto Cobo, Estela Inda, Miguel Inclán, Alfonso Mejía, and Alma Delia Fuentes, and shot by the acclaimed cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, follows El Jaibo, as he resumes his role as the ringleader of a gang of young delinquents in the slums of Mexico City. A few days later, El Jaibo kills— in the presence of his friend Pedro—the boy who was supposedly to blame for being sent to jail. From then on, the destinies of Pedro and El Jaibo will be tragically united.
Buñuel’s unsentimental and frank depiction of Mexico’s poverty, with equal parts of cruelty and surrealism, caused a local uproar and the film played only for four days in theaters before it was taken out. Nevertheless, the following year, Los Olvidados (which literally translates as “The Forgotten”) was selected in the official selection of the 1951 Cannes Film Festival, where Buñuel received the Best Director Award, which prompted the international discovery of the film.
Acclaimed Mexican writer and Nobel Prize-winner Octavio Paz, who was at the time cultural attaché of the Mexican Embassy in France, championed the film and wrote a piece celebrating the artistic and social merits of Buñuel’s film, which is also known internationally as The Young and the Damned.
Octavio Paz (left) and Luis Buñuel
More recently, in 1996, Mexico’s Filmoteca de la UNAM found a seconding ending film for the film, which was contrary to the tragic sense of the original one, and reportedly was shot by the producer Oscar Dancingers in secret—without the director’s consent—in case the film faced censorship. In 2002, Los Olvidados was inscribed on UNESCO's "Memory of the World" Register in 2003 in recognition of its historical significance.
