Elvira Fernández, vendedora de tiendas

Elvira Fernández, vendedora de tiendas is a 1942 Argentine comedy film directed by Manuel Romero during the Golden Age of Argentine cinema.^[1] It stars Paulina Singerman, Juan Carlos Thorry, Tito Lusiardo and Sofía Bozán. The film is about the daughter of a millionaire store owner, who organizes a worker strike.^[2]

Elvira Fernández, vendedora de tiendas
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Manuel Romero
Written by	Manuel Romero
Cinematography	Alberto Etchebehere
Edited by	Jorge Gárate
Music by	Rodolfo Sciammarella, Alberto Soifer
Production company	Artistas Directores y Productores Argentinos Asociado
Release date	1 July 1942 (1942-07-01)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	Argentina
Language	Spanish

Plot

Paulina, the daughter of the millionaire owner of a store, becomes employed at the store under an assumed name. She investigates the injustices of the workers and leads a strike, forcing her father and the store operators to bring about improvements in working conditions.

Cast

• Paulina Singerman
• Juan Carlos Thorry
• Tito Lusiardo
• Sofía Bozán
• Enrique Roldán
• Carmen del Moral
• Elena Lucena
• Alberto Terrones
• Juan Mangiante
• Julio Renato
• Salvador Sinaí
• Miguel Di Carlo
• Oscar Savino
• Juan Gamboa
• Fernando Campos

Themes

The film has been compared to other film of the period including Mujeres que trabajan (1938), La rubia del camino (1938), Isabelita (1940), sharing the common theme of "a spoiled young woman [who] learns both the value of hard work and the capacity to care for others under the tutelage of working class characters".^[3] Central to the film is the union protest, which has been described as being "quite complex", "summarized in a sequence quite clearly through a series of images [with] passionate speakers".^[4] The speech where Elvira Fernandez anticipates selling her store involuntarily was later used in propaganda films of Peron.^[5]

Reception

The El Heraldo del Cinematografista wrote that it "excellently managed the strike movement ... There are effective comic passages throughout the film", while La Nación praised the cinematography. Raúl Manrupe and María Alejandra Portela in their book Un diccionario de films argentinos (1930-1995) wrote: "...a social issue in the service of comedy. Another one of Romero's vehicles for Singerman, it would be interesting to rediscover how he crosses fun with reality."^[6]