The best Rafael Alcayde’s war movies

An American gets caught up in wartime action in Turkey.

Judging by the number of times it has shown up on Spanish-language cable TV, La escondida is one of the most popular and best beloved of the Maria Felix vehicles. The star runs the emotional gamut as Gabriela, who rises from the depths of poverty to the heights of Mexican society as a much-sought-after courtesan. Eventually, however, Gabriela proves that she is still true to her peasant heritage by casting her lot with the rebels in the 1916 Mexican civil war. Pedro Armendariz co-stars as Felipe, the charismatic rebel leader who wins Gabriela's heart - and inadvertently causes her downfall. La escondida is stunningly photographed by the late, great Gabriel Figueroa.

Ship engineer Jim Taggert is rescued from a torpedoed tramp steamer by Joe Morgan, an American gangster that found New York too hot for him, and has become a fisherman operating from an out-of-the-way island off of the coast of South America. Morgan makes his headquarters at the Halfway House run by the parents of Maria Styx as a bar and dance resort catering to the planters and traders of the island. Taggert finds himself practically a prisoner along with a group of American girls acting as entertainers at the resort. Taggert shadows Morgan in his activities in a remote cove and finds that Morgan is supplying German U-boat commanders with torpedoes, but does not know that Morgan has rigged the torpedoes with clock devices that explode when at sea and sinks the U-boats.

Beautiful young Virginian Jane steps down from her proper aristocratic upbringing when she marries down-to-earth surveyor Matt Howard. Matt joins the Colonial forces in their fight for freedom against England. Matt will meet Jane's father in the battlefield.