Do People Even Know Who Cantinflas Is?
For those of you not familiar with the actor, Cantinflas was Mexico’s Charlie Chaplin—wait, do people even know who Charlie Chaplin is anymore? For those of you not familiar with the actor, Charlie Chaplin was the greatest star of the silent-film era—wait, do people even know what silent films are anymore? Sorry for the digressions, but your pregunta is so wonderfully anachronistic that most people might think it’s as relevant to the present day as the Nez Perce. But Cantinflas (born Mario Moreno) offers a valuable lesson to today’s Mexican thespians. Instead of accepting every stereotypical Mexican role Hollywood offered, Cantinflas signed on for only two: the butler Passepartout in the 1956 film Around the World in 80 Days and the titular character in 1960’s Pepe. He drew praise for his acting in the first but bombed in the second, mostly because of a linguistic comedic barrier: his verbal humor, a mishmash of double-entendres, non sequiturs and puns so genius it notched its own verb
