La joven (The Young One). 1960. Mexico/France. Directed by Luis Buñuel. Screenplay by Buñuel, Hugo Butler.With Zachary Scott, Bernie Hamilton, Key Meersman, Crahan Denton. In English. 35mm print courtesy of Harvard Film Archive. 95 min.
In 1960 Buñuel reteamed with Hugo Butler, the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter with whom he had produced Robinson Crusoe, to create another English-language film to be shot in Mexico. Set on a small island off the Carolina coast (but filmed near Acapulco), Butler’s screenplay gathers four main characters – a seedy game warden (Zachary Scott), a black jazz musician running from a lynch mob (Bernie Hamilton), a twitchy Protestant preacher (Claudio Brook), and the object of their desire, solicitude and shame, a newly orphaned teenage girl (Key Meersman).