BAD BLACK MEN AND COMICAL CHINESE 105

at the expense of British and domestic capital which was brought to ruin
(1961: 74). The revolution of 1933 and the rise to power of Fulgencio Batista
as head of the army, heralded an unprecedented era of U.S. domination of
political life exerted via his influence. Ironically, it also provided a stability
which had been lacking hitherto and which gave rise to the possibility at
least of a some kind of cultural establishment to be nurtured.
 Caignet's series, in as much as it imitated foreign forms and served as a
promotional vehicle for products in Cuba's highly developed commercial
radio media, can be seen as a product of its day: undeniably escapist, crassly
popular, appealing to a humorous racist stereotype, and especially
sensationalist:

 "La serpiente roja", mas que una pelicula policiaca, es una "pelicula de
 miedo." Se ha apurado lo truculento hasta las heces. Asi como hay casos de
 "aparecidos", 6sta donde desarrolla la acci6n de "La serpiente roja" es una
 especie de demonio domestico que goza en escamotear a muertos y vivos,
 en darles porrazos a la gente y mantener una terrible amenaza de estrago y
 de muerte sobre la protagonista, una dulce muchacha que no sabe que
 pecados ha cometido para que la persiga de tal modo el trasgo familiar.
 (Peri6dico de la Marina July 20, 1937: 2)

 Such plots are typical. The radio series, No lo mate (1937), which was
recreated and broadcast in Cuba by the Havana radio station, Radio Arte, in
1987 as a commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the show, involves
the elaborate framing of a young man for the murder of his sister by a 'mad
scientist' who carried out the murder as part of an experiment aimed at
obtaining the secret of everlasting life. Sadly, the hopes of the film critics
that La serpiente roja would lead to a renaissance of a Cuban cinema were
not fulfilled. Caignet left Cuba to take up a highly lucrative contract in Mexico
in 1941 and never returned. He died in Mexico in 1976.