Agrasánchez Collection of Mexican Cinema, 1931-2001

Historical Note

Rogelio Agrasánchez, Jr. of Harlingen, Texas is a collector of Mexican movie materials and an expert on vintage cine mexicano materials. He is the owner and curator of the Agrasánchez Film Archive in Harlingen, the world’s largest private collection of its kind. The Agrasánchez Film Archive’s holdings include 1,400 movies, 2,000 posters, 12,000 lobby cards, and 60,000 still photographs originally produced and distributed by major Mexican film companies such as Azteca Films, Inc. and Clasa-Mohme, Inc. Rogelio Agrasánchez, Jr. now holds the rights to many of these materials.

It was his father, Rogelio Agrasánchez, Sr., who introduced Agrasánchez, Jr. to the world of cine mexicano. His father worked in movie production and distribution in Mexico and Texas from the 1960s through the 1980s, and three of Agrasánchez, Jr.’s brothers were actors in many of the films their father produced. Late in his career, when independent film production in Mexico became difficult, Agrasánchez, Sr. began collecting and preserving the treasures of Mexican cinema. He started acquiring film negatives of many of the classic movies and transferring them to video to be shown on Spanish-language television stations. It was at this time that Agrasánchez, Jr. began to take an interest in his fathers work in Mexican cinema. As a graduate student at the University of Texas in the late 1980s, he started to appreciate his father’s preservation initiative as he watched the video copies of these classic films.

Agrasánchez, Jr. began collecting Mexican movie memorabilia while working on his Ph.D. in Latin American Studies, when he received a set of old Mexican movie posters from his younger brother Julio, an actor in several of the wrestler films produced by his father. As his brother brought him more posters the collection grew, and he decided to search for film publicity materials on his own. Agrasánchez, Jr. traveled to Mexico City to view the poster collection at the Cineteca Nacional (national film archive). He discovered that a 1982 fire had destroyed many of the materials there, and what was left was uncatalogued. While there Agrasánchez, Jr. spoke with the few poster artists who were still living, and they explained some of the design and production process to him. He also visited the Churubusco Studios in Mexico City and in their vault found piles of materials that had been sent there when Azteca Films closed their U.S. offices. He was told he could take what he wanted of the posters, lobby cards, stills, and scripts, thus adding to his growing cine mexicano collection.

While at U.T. Rogelio Agrasánchez, Jr. also met Charles Ramírez Berg, a professor in the Department of Radio, Television, and Film, who was looking for material for his course on the history of Mexican cinema. Ramírez Bergpersuaded Agrasánchez, Jr. to turn his poster art collection into an archive, and the pair collaborated on two books showcasing hundreds of images of select samples of the cine mexicano posters, complete with narrative about the films’ plots, movie stars, and impacts on Mexican film history. Together they created Carteles de la epoca de oro del cine mexicano = Poster Art from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema (published in 1997 by Agrasánchez himself in collaboration with the Universidad de Guadalajara and the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía) and Cine Mexicano: Poster Art from the Golden Age, 1936-1956 = Carteles de la época de oro, 1936-1956 (published in 2001 by Chronicle Books in San Francisco).

Rogelio Agrasánchez, Jr. also authored several books on his own including: Mexican Horror Cinema: Posters from Mexican Fantasy Films = Cine mexicano de horror: carteles del cine fantástico mexicano (Agrasánchez Film Archive, 1999), Miguel Zacarias : creador de estrellas (Universidad de Guadalajara; Agrasánchez Film Archive, 2000), Beauties of Mexican Cinema = Bellezas del cine mexicano (Agrasánchez Film Archive, 2001), and Mexican Movies in the United States: a History of the Films, Theaters, and Audiences, 1920-1960 (McFarland and Co., 2006).

Works Referenced:

Agrasánchez, Rogelio. Cine Mexicano de Horror: Carteles del Cine Fantástico Mexicano. Harlingen, Tex.: Archivo Filmco Agrasánchez, 1999.

Agrasánchez, Rogelio, and Charles Ramírez Berg. Cine Mexicano: Poster Art from the Golden Age, 1936-1956 = Carteles de la Época de Oro, 1936-1956. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001.

Nafus, Charles. "Screens: Poster Art of Mexican Cinema." The Austin Chronicle, 9 Jul. 1998.

Scope and Contents Note

The bulk of the Agrasánchez Collection of Mexican Cinema consists of 400 movie posters, approximately 2,400 lobby cards, and approximately 8,000 still photographs of cine mexicano from 1931 through 1992. The posters, lobby cards, and stills are organized alphabetically within their respective series. The collection also includes a number of additional materials such as flyers, broadsides, and VHS videos. All of the items in the collection (excluding VHS movies) are originals that were meant to promote the Mexican movies for which they were created. The collection measures 27 linear feet, plus 400 posters and 103 cataloged videos and is arranged into 5 series: Posters, Lobby Cards, Stills, Various Materials, and Mexican Movies.

The materials in the collection represent a wide variety of genres and dates in the history of Mexican cinema. The film titles vary from format to format (posters, lobby cards, stills, VHS videos), although many of the titles can be found in more than one category. For example, there are still photographs and the VHS movie for Santa (1931), Mexico's first motion picture with sound, and there are a poster and a set of stills for Sargento Capulina (1981), one of the later films represented in the collection. In one of his books Agrasánchez describes the types of films in Mexican cinema in six main genres: comedia, cabareteras, charros y folklor, historia y religión, melodrama, and misterio y aventura. All of these genres are represented in the in the Agrasánchez Collection of Mexican Cinema. There are materials for comedies such as Romeo y Julieta starring Cantinflas and Mátenme porque me muero with Tin-Tan and Tongolele, as well as cabaret films like Coqueta featuring Ninón Sevilla and Agustín Lara. Classic "Mexican cowboy" movies are characterized with films such as Cartas marcadas starring Pedro Infante and Marga López and Allá en el rancho grande with Jorge Negrete. El joven Juárez with Humberto Almazán and María Elena Marques and María Magdalena featuring actress Medea de Novara represent the history and religion category. Also noteworthy in the collection are melodramas like María Candelaria starring Dolores del Río and Rio Escondido starring María Felix, both of which helped to make these actress two of the most beloved in cine mexicano history. Finally, there are numerous materials denoting the mystery and adventure movies of Mexico's past inlcluding many with the lucha libre stars like Santo, Blue Demon, and Mil Mascaras, as well as other types of horror films without the famed masked wrestlers.

The    Posters, found in series one of the collection, each measure roughly 37 inches tall by 27 inches wide and are housed in flat files, five posters per file. The poster designs range from simple with cartoons and drawings to more elaborate with multiple photographs. Some of the posters are printed on fragile, newprint-type paper, and some are on slick, glossy paper. Most of the posters list actors' and directors' names, as well as production company information.

The second series consists of    Lobby Cards, so called because they were made to be hung in theatre lobbies. There are about eight lobby cards per film title. They contain identically printed designs and promotional information, with each card displaying a different still photograph from the movie. The lobby cards measure 11 inches tall by 14 inches wide.

   Stills, series three, are grouped in folders by film title, usually twelve or fewer stills per film. The stills are 8 by 10 inch black and white photographs showing various scenes and characters from the films.

The fourth series,    Various Materials, contains a folder of flyers called "Press Sheet" distributed by Azteca Films, Inc. and a folder of flyers called "Box Offic Tonic/Refuerce su taquilla" distributed by Clasa-Mohme, Inc. films. Both of these sets of flyers are printed in English and Spanish with promotional information and copies of photos meant to advertise individual films. Also in Various Materials is a folder of broadside-size posters printed and distributed by Azteca Films, Inc.

There are also 103    Mexican Movies which Rogelio Agrasánchez, Jr. donated to the Benson Latin American Collection at the time when his collection was acquired. Many of these movies are considered classics of Mexican cinema. These VHS videos have been cataloged and can be found by searching the University of Texas Libraries online catalog (UTNetCat) by the film's title. These titles are listed in the Box and Folder Inventory as series five.

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

Unrestricted.

Use Restrictions

Standard copyright restrictions apply.

Related Material

Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Cite as: Agrasánchez Collection of Mexican Cinema, Benson Latin American Collection, the University of Texas at Austin Libraries.

Box and Folder Inventory