"Nag-iisang Sangla," which opens today at the Grand Theatre, has been styled the dramatic triumph of the LVN Pictures, Inc. It is in fact, more than that. It is a crowning triumph of the local movie industry. "Nag-iisang Sangla" is as distinctive, different a picture as only the use of the top-notch talents in the local movie industry and the vast resources of the LVN Pictures, Inc. could make it. When the production plans for the movie were yet under the measuring rods of the LVN executives, just one paramount concern burned: It must surpass whatever achievement had been attained. The results, it is the one picture that rises clear through the stereotype, the mawkish, the ordinary.
A celebrated Tagalog literary masterpiece, Nag-iisang Sangla," as a story, is as fresh and alive as the next living person. It is a story which might have been yours, mine, or anybody's. It is about a man who demanded more than love and two women who gave more than life. It is the story of every man; of every woman.
Into this one picture is poured the talents of several of the biggest names in the local show business, which fact fastens its nomination to distinctiveness. Among these are: Tor Villano, the veteran of many a film success who directed it, and Cecilio Joaquin, no mean director and actor himself, who heads an imposing cast that includes Fred Cortes the screen find of the year, Victor (Banahaw) Sevilla, and the highly popular radio personalities, Dely Atayatayan and her friend or stooge, the full-throated Andoy Balunbalunan, cowboy-fiscal-professor (plenipotentiary).
And clinching that distinctiveness is the love-team of Mila del Sol and Leopoldo Salcedo. It is not simply in the team, to be sure, although it accounts more than just partly for the worth of
the whole. It is in the rendition by the two of one of the finest
piece of acting across any screen. As the disillusioned man who forgets
himself, everyone and everything else, Lecpoldo Salcedo has gained a height of
acting excellence which he may, or may not again catch up to. Great is just the
word that can describe him in "Nag-iisang Sangla."
Mila del Sol, for her part, has set a new peak in the upward trend of her versatility as an actress. In her dual role as the faithful country woman and as the night club singer, is a great performance which most probably can't be equaled in local filmdom for a long, long time. In this dual role, Mila del Sol's personality is quite easy to discern on purpose, thanks to her radiating youthful fullness and the inadequacy of local character make-up, but in her interchanging from one person to another throughout the picture is an entrancing subtlety that draws you to the characters portrayed and makes you forget it is Mila del Sol. A great actress, this young woman, in the great picture, "Nag-iisang Sangla."
(The Tribune, November 12, 1940)
"Movie flyers have been used by theater owners as promotional ads to drum up business for movies. They would print them up from materials provided by the studio, adding information on local screening times and locations. Although they were cheaply produced, many of the flyers were quite nicely designed and are now considered highly collectibles. In many cases the original films have been lost, making the surviving flyers the only visual record of numerous movies."
