Nobleza Gaucha (aka Cowboy Nobility, Gaucho Nobility) is the very first of the Argentinean gaucho films.   It is a collaboration between Eduardo Martinez de la Pera and Ernesto Gunche, two award-winning still photographers who teamed up with Humberto Cairo, program executive at Julian Ajurias’ distribution  company Sociedad General Cinematografica. 

 The film’s initial release was apparently something of a disaster, due reportedly to some terrible intertitles.   In an attempt to salvage the film, the producers sought the aid of Jose Gonzales Castillo, a well-known poet and playwright who had shocked Buenos Aires in 1914 with Los Invertidos, his play about homosexuality.   Castillo replaced the original intertitles with excerpts from two epic poems – Jose Hernandez’s Martin Fierro and Rafael Obligado’s Santos Vega – a move that revived the film’s fortunes considerably.

The timing of the film’s release was particularly fortuitous; because of the war in Europe, new films from there were increasingly scarce and North American filmmakers had not yet stepped in to fill the void.   With new intertitles, the film became a huge box-office success, simultaneously playing at up to 25 cinemas in Buenos Aires, while also being shown in Brazil, Spain and other Latin American companies.  Made for 20,000 pesos, the film earned more than 600,000 and earned praise from La Prensa, which described it as the most important film yet produced in Argentina.   Humberto Cairo even sold the rights to the title to a merchandise distributor for use with its Maté tea, and the brand of Nobleza Gaucho tea is still on the market today.

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Sources:

The Oxford History of World Cinema. Contributors: Geoffrey Nowell-Smith - editor. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: Oxford. Publication Year: 1997. Page Number: 429

The Film Industry in Argentina: an Illustrated Cultural History by Jorge Finkielman. Publisher MacFarland, 2004, ISBN 0786416289, 9780786416288 pp15-17.

South American cinema: a Critical Filmography, 1915-1994, by Tim Barnard, Peter Rist.  Taylor & Francis, 1996.  ISBN 0824045742, 9780824045746, p4. .