"Alembong" (1958)
LVN Pictures
Release Date March 15-24, 1958
Story Luis Nolasco
Music Juan Silos, Jr.
Direction Fred Daluz
Cast Leroy Salvador, Lita Gutierrez (in the title role), Linda Roxas, Rey Ruiz, Oscar Obligacion, Ben Cosca, Nieves Manuel, Mario Roldan, Menggay/ Featuring The Reycards Duet
For Maria Dolores Gutierrez of Laoag, Ilocos Norte, stardom came by way of a visit to the LVN publicity office in 1955. She was sixteen, just out of high school. She had come to Manila to find a job and had been hired as a receptionist in the office of a movie magazine. She and another girl from the magazine went to LVN one day to get publicity stills for the latest film of Nida Blanca.
Doña Sisang was puttering in the garden when she saw them and expressed interest in the Ilocana mestiza. “I had kinky hair then and was very chubby,” Ms. Gutierrez remembers. Language proved to be her undoing, however, for when the Old Lady asked her how good her Tagalog was, she couldn’t tell a lie. She was told to brush up on her Tagalog, and come back when she felt she knew enough.
“I was afraid, I had no confidence,” says Ms Gutierrez of that first meeting with Doña Sisang. Meanwhile, she quit her magazine job and went to work at the Bureau of Public Libraries for a year, all the while dreaming of a movie career. Sometime then she went to the Tropicana Studios in Malabon, which the stars patronized, and had her best angles taken. She sent a copy to Doña Sisang.
In a few days a talent scout was at her doorstep with the message that the LVN boss wanted to see her. She was given a three-year contract which promised her more than she could ever hope to earn from an office job. Two and half years after she signed the contract, Lita Gutierrez became a full-fledged star. The movie--- “Alembong.”
Source: Doña Sisang Filipino Movies/ 1977
Alembong/ 1958- Lita Gutierrez in a sexy and tempting pose that gave her the nickname "Alembong" (meaning flirt). Also in photo were Leroy Salvador, Lucita Soriano and comedian Bentot.
Synopsis: Helen (Lita Gutierrez), a wealthy and aristocratic girl, is afflicted by a strange malady that comes to her only when there is a full moon. During nights of the full moon, she undergoes a complete change of character and becomes amorous. One night, while the moon is at its fullest and Helen's affliction again hits her, she meets and falls in love with David (Leroy Salvador), an itinerant soft drink peddler, who also falls in love with her.
David's life becomes a series of puzzlement when he experiences the results of Helen's changes of character. When the moon is full, she is also full of love and affection for him. But when there is no full moon, she avoids and hates him like a plague. The mystery is cleared up by Linda, Helen's cousin, who is the sweetheart of David’s friend, Lito.
So what David does is to see Helen only during the nights of the full moon. He cannot help thinking, however, that he is just deceiving himself inasmuch as Helen’s affection for him could only come from her malady. Through the help of the Reycard Duet, David becomes a successful radio singer. He and Helen elope and get married. lnspite of their marriage, David still hesitates to approach Helen except on nights when the moon is full.
How Helen is cured of her lunar sickness and how she finally convinces David of her love made for a riotously funny motion picture.
(Source: Literary Song-Movie Magazine/ 1958)
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