MADALING ARAW (1958)

Click on images to enlarge

 

(Movie ad courtesy of Simon Santos, Video 48)

"MADALING ARAW"

     Prewar box-office hit "Madaling Araw" (Dawn) -- which starred popular song stylist Elsa Oria and handsome Ely Ramos -- has been given a modern look, with Asia's best actor Romeo Vsquez (see FP, May 24) in the title role.  It is in Eastman color.  Besides Vasquez, the film boasts of such names, as Amalia Fuentes, Juancho Gutierrez, Susan Roces, Carlos Salazar, Tito Galla and Meldy Corrales.

     The movie is about three brothers -- Miguel (Romeo), Arturo (Juancho) and Fermin (Carlos) -- sons of a wealthy hacendero who has enrolled them all at the Philippine Military Academy.  In Baguio, Arturo falls in love with a local girl named Luisa (Susan), while Miguel and Fermin become rivals for the love of Maring (Amalia).  Expelled from the academy for going AWOL, Fermin joins the dissidents.  After his graduation, Arturo is sent to Laguna with a battalion combat team to fight the dissidents there, whom he finds to be headed by his own brother Fermin.  Arturo is wounded during the encounter and Miguel decides to have a showdown with his outlaw brother.  In a man-to-man duel, Miguel vanquishes Fermin, who returns to the fold of the law when a mythical war breaks out in the Philippines.

     Directed and scripted by Armando Garces, the movie is based on a story by Luis F. Nolasco and Carlos Vander Tolosa and was entirely shot in the City of Pines.

- Philippines Free Press, 1958

* * * * *