In 1769, a Spanish expedition to California seeks to conquer the land and discover its famed gold treasures while missionaries aim to gain new converts and establish a network of Catholic missions.
Thieves break into a scientist's laboratory to steal a secret formula, and in the process they kill his daughter. Enraged, he develops a formula that will turn an extremely ugly woman into a spectacular beauty, and then uses the woman to take his revenge on those responsible for his daughter's murder.
Cantinflas, a traveling photographer, is captured by some gangsters while trying to get some flowers for his girlfriend. The gangsters have confused him with the assistant of Dr. Penongo, a scientist who has discovered the formula of a new atomic bomb. Meanwhile, Penongo has suffered a car accident and has lost his memory ...
An American insurance adjuster, stranded in Havana, becomes involved with an archaeologist and a collector of antiquities in a hunt for treasure in the Mexican ruins of Zapoteca.
After indulging in an affair with a man (a friend of the family) she truly loves, a woman returns to her young son and husband for good, and loses contact with the man. Her husband is unaware of the affair. Twenty years later, there is news that the friend has died and left all of his money to the younger son in the family, which leads us to question this younger son's biological origin.
Liberal farmer Pepe has arrived in Santa Fe to visit his aunt, Dona Perfecta. While he's there, Pepe is eager to teach the traditional-minded townspeople a new way of living. Unfortunately for Pepe the people of Santa Fe aren't eager to embrace change, and when the citizens begin to voice resentment Pepe is forced to seek refuge with his sympathetic aunt. Dona Perfecta is just as traditional as any of the other townspeople though, and only suffers Pepe due to the fact that he is family. When Pepe and his cousin Rosario fall deeply in love, the situation quickly comes to a head.
Emilio Fernandez directs Dolores Del Rio and Pedro Armendariz in a classic tale of family and obsession. Raimunda's daughter Acacia hates her stepfather Esteban, and in order to escape her suffocating home life she's accepted a marriage proposal from a man she doesn't even love. But Esteban has become obsessed with Acacia, and in order to ensure that she doesn't leave he's plotting to murder the girl's unsuspecting fiancée. As Esteban's true nature emerges, mother and daughter must band together to support one another and make sure that their family bond remains strong even in the darkest of times.
Cantinflas is a private in the military, who doesn't know anything about discipline or following rules. He only wants to think about his girlfriend, the maid in an opulent hacienda. The owner of the hacienda has an ugly and shy daughter, who is in love with Cantinflas. The problems arrive when the family arranges a wedding between the ugly girl and Cantinflas, who in order to avoid the commitment gets himself arrested. During his punishment, Cantinflas learns to fly with a silly and poorly trained flight instructor.
After the mysterious disappearance of an oil well owner, one of his workers, Gerardo assumes the business management. Soon, the owner's sister arrives from Argentina, and, believing that Gerardo killed her brother to keep the wells for himself, she starts working as a singer under a false name in the same casino her brother disappeared, in order to find out what exactly happened.
After her lover commits suicide, Diana involves her fiancé and his nephew in a scheme to help her disappear with the corpse.
On March 22, four days after returning to his home in Andalusia, Luis de Vargas writes the first of his letters to his uncle and favorite professor at the seminary. He reports that his father intends to fatten him up during his vacation, to have him ready to return in the fall to finish his training for the priesthood. He mentions in passing that his father is courting a twenty-year-old, attractive widow, Pepita Jiménez; his father is fifty-five years old. Pepita had been married for only a short time to an eighty-year-old moneylender named Gumersindo. Luis is not eager to see his father marry again, but he promises his uncle not to judge Pepita before he knows her.
In mid-nineteenth century Guanajuato, the beauty and charm of the young heiress Amalia conquers the lowly foreman Ricardo with fatal results. Prevented from consummating their love, Ricardo is going to Guanajuato where again later become the rich owner of a mine. On his return, fate has prepared a tragic encounter with Amalia.
Doctor Alejandro Mangino falls in love with Lucía just before he goes on a round-the-world trip. Pining for her all the while, he returns to find that she’s married his best friend.
Cantinflas and three friends return a stolen necklace to an actress who invites them to be extras at Clasa studios. While on the set, he falls asleep and dreams that he is d'Artagnan, fighting on behalf of Queen Anne.
A gang of thieves has jeopardized the city and even the police, whose chief urges their forces to captured the band within 48 hours. Meanwhile, band members meet in a cafe run by a widow and her daughter and her suitor, Cantinflas, who maintains a scuffle with the robbers running all at the station. Since then, Cantinflas become a member of the police force for special missions.