Tito Guízar stars in this signature film of a new and distinctly Mexican genre, the comedia ranchera. This tragicomic form offered an idealized rural life replete with traditional songs and dance. Its brand of folkloric nostalgia struck a chord with the Mexican middle class in the tumultuous second half of the 1930s, and did much to establish mariachis as the national musical form (blurring regional distinctions). The success of Over on the Big Ranch also showed that there was a sizable audience for Mexican "local color" in the U.S. and Latin America. The love-triangle plot has three lifelong friends-a landowner's son and two orphans-overcoming the class barriers that divide them. Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography is always worth the price of admission, and the film makes up in striking visual detail for the 180-degree turn it represents for director Fernando de Fuentes from the rigorous honesty of his Revolution trilogy (see January 8).