Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!

Please, Don't Bury Me Alive! is a 1976 independent film directed by and starring Efraín Gutiérrez and written by Sabino Garza. It is considered to be the first Chicano feature film.[1]

Please, Don't Bury Me Alive!
Film poster by Jesús María "Chista" Cantú
Directed byEfraín Gutiérrez
Written bySabino Garza
StarringEfraín Gutiérrez
Release date
1976
Running time
81 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish, Spanish
Budget$60,000

Please, Don't Bury Me Alive! was considered lost until it was "re-discovered" by University of California, Los Angeles professor Chon Noriega in 1996. Noriega, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center then restored and re-released the film.[2]

In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[3]

Plot

The events take place in San Antonio, Texas in the spring of 1972, where the young protagonist Alejandro Hernandez (played by director Efrain Gutierrez), buries an elder brother killed in the Vietnam War. The young unemployed Chicano, a petty criminal, is entrapped in a heroin deal by law enforcement officials, receiving a 10-year sentence. An Anglo youth, convicted of a similar sentence, is given probation. The judge who sentences Alejandro is revealed as the same person who presided over the funeral of the young man’s brother. Chronologically, the film links the release date of the protagonist with the release of the film in 1976.[4]

Budget

Filmed over a four-year period, the production cost $60,000, and grossed $300,000 in Spanish language theaters in the Southwestern United States.[5]

Preservation

Preserved from a 16mm print as part of the Chicano Cinema Recovery Project. [6]

Footnotes
  1. "2014 additions to National Film Registry". CBS News. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  2. Hueso, Noela. "Film rescued by UCLA prof makes the National Film Registry". UCLA Newsroom. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  3. "Cinematic Treasures Named to National Film Registry". Library of Congress. Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  4. Noriega, 2004: A brief paraphrase of summary provided by Noriega.
  5. Noriega, 2004
  6. Noriega, 2004

References
  • Noreiga, Chon A. 2004. Please Don’t Bury Me Alive, 1977. UCLA Film and Television Archive: 12th Festival of Preservation, July 22-August 21, 2004. Festival guest publication.


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