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Although it has a poor technical production, this TV series is the most faithful and complete adaptation of Les Miserables I have ever seen. I saw it on TV when I was ten years old, and I just loved it; then I asked my parents to buy me the novel and I read it. I became a Les Miserables fan. Every passage of the novel is shown in the 20 hours series. The acting is great, Sergio Bustamante is the best Jean Valjean I ever seen; Blanca Sánchez is beautiful and tragic as Fantine; Carlos Ancira, the best Mexican theater actor, is a wicked Thernardier, and Diana Bracho does a sweet Cosette. It is really a pity that the TV channel that produced it does not longer exist. I doubt that there still exist a copy of this TV-series.

The Robert Hossein's version of Les Miserables is undoubtedly the most faithful adaptation to Victor Hugo's novel. Lino Ventura is great as Jean Valjean as well as Michel Bouquet as Javert and Jean Carmet as Thernardier. All the actors are well characterized and the darkness of the film gives the story the right atmosphere of misery and sadness. The whole story is squeezed into the three hours film, so the events happened quickly, but remaining faithful to the original story. If the film had been two hours longer, it would have been perfect. Other adaptations that I consider good are the 1934 starring Harry Baur, the 1958 starring Jean Gabin and the 2000 version starring Gerard Depardieu.I consider regular the British adaptation starring Richard Jordan and Anthony Perkins. I consider as bad adaptations the 1998 version starring Liam Neeson and the 1935, starring Federich March.

Since many years ago I've been a fan of Victor Hugo's novel, Les Miserables, and I can say this is one of the best and most faithful film adaptations of the story. Harry Baur is great as Jean Valjean, and all the cast in general is excellent. There is only one thing I may object about the film: the omission of the episode of Jean Valjean and Cosette in the Petit-Picpus convent and consequently the omission of the gardener Fauchelevent. This film is far much better than the one which is consider the classic version of Les Miserables, the one directed in 1935 by Richard Boleslawski, starring Frederich March as Valjean and Charles Laughton as Javert. Raymond Bernard's version of Les Miserables is only comparable to other two French film versions of the novel: the 1982 directed by Robert Hossein, starring Lino Ventura and the 2000 TV version, directed by Joseé Dayan, starring Gerard Depardieu.

In my opinion, this version is far from being the best adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic and marvelous novel; these are my reasons: The Thernardiers, indispensable characters in the story, are relegated in the film to mere incidental figures. Their little son Gavroche does not even appear. Their daughter Eponine appears, but she has nothing to do with them, she is only a friend of Marius, in love with him. Fauchelevent also appears as an incidental character, when Jean Valejan saves him from dying; he does not appear when Valjean and Cosette arrive to the Petit-Picpus convent. The film does not end as the original story. Much better versions are the French ones directed in 1934 by Raymond Bernard, starring Harry Baur as Jean Valjean, and the 1982 directed by Robert Hossein, starring Lino Ventura as Jean Valjean.

La Virgen que forjó una patria (The Virgin that forged a country) is a masterpiece of Mexican cinema. Directed by Julio Bracho, one of the greates film makers of Mexican Cinema Golden Age, this movie shows the two main envents in Mexican History, that forged the unity of all Mexicans, two events in which The Virgin of Guadalupe, the symbol of Mexican Catholicism, took part. The first fact is when The Virgin Mary appeared as a Mexican dark skin young lady, to Juan Diego, a young Aztec Indian, in 1531 (it is said that Juan Diego was not so young when he saw the Virgin, but in the film he looks young). The Virgin took the name of Guadalupe and became the "Mother of all Mexicans". The second event is when Miguel Hidalgo, the priest who began the movement for Mexican Independence in 1810, took a flag with image of The Virgin of Guadalupe as a symbol for his troops. The two events, separated in time for almost 300 years, are linked by director Bracho by the narration Priest Hidalgo makes to one of his soldiers, Allende, of the story of the Virgin's aparition to Juan Diego. Hollywood's silent film idol, Mexican Ramon Novarro, makes his only aparition in a Mexican film, as a sweet innocent Juan Diego: a great performance. A film all Mexican film lovers and Ramon Novarro's fans must see.

This is an excellent movie, one of the best filmed in Mexico in recent years. It has caused some controversy among the Catholic population in Mexico because it is said that it is insulting for the Catholic Church. But this is not true; it is only a story of a young priest, who is also a man, so he acts like a man and he falls in love like any other human being. That's all. Another priest receives money from the drug traffickers to build a hospital. Is this so bad? A third priest helps the people in his community to defend theirselves from being exploded and murdered by the drug traffickers. I do not see any harm to the Church in the behavior of this three priests; After all the Church is a human institution. The film is well acted and well directed. Highly recommended for open minds.