El Mariachi” was a very early film from Robert Rodriguez. He apparently made this for $7,000 in 1992. The title role being played by Carlos Gallardo. As IMDB says “A travelling mariachi (guitarist/singer) is mistaken for a murderous criminal and must hide from a gang bent on killing him.” Mayhem and stylized action and violence follow.’,’It was quite a (cult) hit. Armed with a larger budget he went on to make the semi sequel “Desperado” in 1995. This time Antonio Banderas playing the role of El Mariachi. Salma Hayek lit up the screen as the female lead. Quentin Tarantino and his pal Steve Buscemi were in the cast too.
Semi-sequel?
Desperado is a sequel to El Mariachi, but enough is shown in Desperado (as flashbacks) so that viewing El Mariachi is not really needed. However that would be a mistake as you’d be depriving yourself of a very good film. It’s amazing to see what the guy achieved on such a tiny budget. Well worth a look and then see Desperado. Both are on tape (my store did NOT have DVD versions; I’m sure they exist)
The lead character is the same in both, but the film makers swapped actors! In something of an in-joke, the original lead actor from El Mariachi (Gallardo) returns in a supporting role in Desperado . He’s in the band at the start, literally backing Antonio (who, as I said, replaced him as lead). He reappears later on too.
Two down, one to go to make a trilogy. Albeit an unplanned one. It looks like the new Rodriguez movie “Once Upon A Time In Mexico” has Antonio and Salma from Desperado returning…i.e. they filmed new scenes, but these are shown as flashbacks in Once Upon A Time In Mexico. Guess we’ll all find out when it opens in a week or so.
In a great piece of timing, A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More are showing at the Astor. For those who don’t know, these are the first two in Sergio Leone’s very influential Dollars Trilogy of 1960s. The last was The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
Also known as spaghetti westerns, this trilogy sent their star, a certain Mr Clint Eastwood, rocketing into mega-star land.
Now, the 4th Sergio Leone SpagWes film – but not with Clint this time – was Once Upon a Time in the West. Whilst acting in Desperado, it was that great movie buff Tarantino who suggested that “El Mariachi 3″ be made and named “Once Upon A Time In Mexico.”