Dalagang Ilocana - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia

Ilocana Maiden (Filipino: Dalagang Ilocana), is a 1954 Filipino romantic comedy film produced by Sampaguita Pictures. The film is in black and white and was directed by Olive La Torre. It was also serialized over DZRH Sampaguita Radio Program. The movie also launched the career of Tita de Villa.

Background

Olive La Torre direct a gloriously fresh and funny Gloria Romero as a spirited, cigar-chomping country girl who rolls tobacco leaves into cigars for a living. Romero is a wonderful comedian, combining as she does a stately beauty and aristocratic nose with eyes that slant just (and maddeningly) so, plus a sense of humor game enough to undercut her impeccable poise; Dolphy does well in a supporting role as comic sidekick with an insatiable appetite. The film, set in the tobacco-growing lands of the Ilocos region, is also a lengthy advertisement on the many pleasures of smoking, with seemingly everyone onscreen from the loftiest haciendero to the lowliest tobacco roller casually lighting up fearsome-looking cigars made from uncut tobacco leaf; one character actually suffers asthma attacks if he can't get his regular nicotine fix, from the tightly rolled cigars that only Romero knows how to make.