Cuna de lobos

''Cuna de lobos'' (English: ''Cradle of wolves'') is a Mexican telenovela produced by Carlos Téllez for Televisa, broadcast by El Canal de las Estrellas (now known simply as Las Estrellas). The series, about the struggle for power within a wealthy Mexican dynasty, was enormously popular in its native Mexico. It was also a hit in several foreign countries, including Brazil, the United States, Germany and Australia.

Diana Bracho and Gonzalo Vega are the main characters, while María Rubio is the main antagonist. Alejandro Camacho and Rebecca Jones are also antagonists.

Plot

The married couple Catalina Creel ( María Rubio) and Carlos Larios (Raúl Meraz) own the gigantic pharmaceutical consortium called Lar-Creel. Catalina made everyone believe that José Carlos ( Gonzalo Vega), her eldest son, who is her stepson, had gouged out her right eye with a spinning top while playing as a child. This was a lie, and Catalina never lost her eye. She lied so that Carlos would take preference for Alejandro (Alejandro Camacho), the only son of his marriage to Catalina Creel; they also managed to destroy José Carlos' self-esteem.

To protect her secret, Catalina always wears a patch covering her right eye, making everyone believe that they put an immobile glass eye covered with gauze and on top of it the patch, which matches her clothing color. But one day, Carlos discovered Catalina without the patch and decides to change his will and divorce her, but he dies poisoned by his wife. Reynaldo Gutiérrez ( Carlos Cámara), an important Lar-Creel official, discovers that Catalina murdered her boss, but she threatens to blame him for the crime and he is forced to remain silent and is therefore promoted to vice president of Lar-Creel . The will specifies that the family businesses would only pass to their children, Alejandro and José Carlos, if they in turn beget children. In this way, the perpetuity of the caste was sought.

José Carlos is still single, since he is an inveterate gambler and Catalina has been in charge of destroying his love relationships, especially one already formalized between him and Paulina (Edna Bolkan), despite the fact that she had relationships with other men. And Alejandro is married to Vilma ( Rebecca Jones), who cannot have children. Therefore, Alejandro decides to maliciously seduce a working woman, Leonora Navarro (Diana Bracho), who had witnessed the death of Carlos Larios and notified Alejandro; His goal is to get her pregnant and take the child from her, to present him as his and his wife's and thus be able to access the inheritance. In this way, Alejandro convinces Vilma to fake a pregnancy, making her believe that they are going to secretly adopt a child. Shortly after, Vilma discovers that Alejandro has already got Leonora pregnant, but he makes her believe that Leonora is willing to sell her son.

Alejandro installs Leonora and her godmother, Doña Esperanza ( Carmen Montejo), in a penthouse owned by the Larios family, where he even stages a false marriage. In addition, he hires a doctor for Leonora's care, Dr. Frank Syndel (Ramón Menéndez) (a disreputable gynecologist who previously tried to do business with Lar-Creel), and a nurse named Rosalía ( Lilia Aragón); They are both unscrupulous people whose job it is to take care of Leonora during her pregnancy.

Catalina, who was initially unaware of this plan, believes that her son Alejandro has a lover. However, he soon discovers Vilma's sterility when visiting one of the many doctors consulted before by Vilma and Alejandro, for which Alejandro is forced to reveal his entire plan to her. Because this plan is on more than one occasion about to be discovered by involving many people, Catalina decides to take charge of the matter, with a much greater coldness and calculation than Alejandro has. Doña Esperanza, Leonora's godmother, soon finds out the truth about Alejandro, but suffers a stroke that leaves her prostrate in a vegetative state.

As her due date approaches, Leonora is transferred to a fake maternity clinic owned by Dr. Syndel and Rosalía in San Miguel de Allende. Doña Esperanza, for her part, is abandoned in a nursing home, unable to tell the truth due to her condition. Vilma, who continues to fake her pregnancy, is also admitted to the same clinic as Leonora, in order to fake her delivery. Against everything planned, both women meet and Vilma realizes that Leonora is a woman in love who lives deceived.

When the child is born, he is immediately handed over to Vilma, who was already on the verge of giving up and now being at all times against Alejandro's plan. What she ignores is that Catalina has ordered Syndel to assassinate Leonora. However, Leonora sees Rosalía approaching through the window with a revolver and manages to remove it by hitting her on the head before escaping. Leonora manages to arrive in Mexico helped by the married couple Julio (Roberto Vander) and Elena Cifuentes ( Margarita Isabel), and with her last strength she arrived at the house of her friend, Dr. Terán (Miguel Gómez Checa), where everyone celebrated Christmas Eve.

Around the same time, Mario Escudero (Jorge Fegan), the family jeweler, discovers Catalina in New York without her typical patch and with a completely healthy eye. Previously Escudero had commissioned the late Carlos Larios a jewel in the form of a brooch with a cheap glass eye in the center for Catalina, as a hint for her deception. The man tries to reveal the truth to José Carlos and Alejandro being blackmailed by Catalina who vows to retaliate. Escudero calls José Carlos in a parking lot to reveal the whole truth to him, so that he can shed his guilt. But this call is intercepted by Catalina, who goes before José Carlos to the appointment, killing Escudero in cold blood. José Carlos is accused of said crime and arrested, taking him almost a year to solve his problems with the law.

Catalina offers Dr. Terán money for his silence, and reveals to him the place where he can find Doña Esperanza. Thus, Dr. Terán can ensure that the elderly woman receives adequate treatment. He is also forced to commit Leonora to a psychiatric clinic, since for all that happened he suffers a nervous breakdown.

A year later, Leonora, now restored, decides to take revenge on Catalina and Alejandro, and recover her son, whom they have named Edgar. Leonora tries to sabotage a party in Lar-Creel by being bribed by Alejandro and Vilma in exchange for her silence. Doña Esperanza's health has also improved remarkably and she soon leaves the wheelchair when confronting Vilma, who is stunned by the achievements that Alejandro and Catalina have been capable of. Leonora begins to study all the steps of the Larios-Creel family. In this way, he manages to seduce José Carlos, who has already been released from prison, still believing him a murderer. Shortly after meeting, Leonora and José Carlos get married. The young woman reappears surprisingly before "the wolves", as she calls them now, as the wife of José Carlos, who still does not know anything about what happened.

At the same time, Reynaldo Gutiérrez, who knows that Catalina murdered Escudero and also poisoned her husband, is willing to reveal the whole truth to the police after being accused by Catalina of her husband's death -after Alejandro inquired about the subject- and the alliance between Escudero and Gutiérrez. But Catalina manages to get there before the police and assassinates Gutiérrez by injecting him with poison to make the crime look like suicide, something that although the police doubt. While fleeing the crime scene, Catalina meets Alejandro, who discovers her disguised in the raincoat and blonde wig.

On the other hand, Bertha (Rosa María Bianchi), Catalina's personal secretary, who knows that her boss is the murderer of Escudero and Gutiérrez (whom she tries to vainly warn of Catalina's intentions), discovers in the Larios mansion Catalina in the disguise in which she has committed the murders. As a result, Catalina reveals the whole truth to Bertha, including the secret of her eye. Bertha, who since then has received various favors from Catalina, vows to remain silent, mainly out of fear of the woman whom she now identifies as a psychopath.

Little by little, Leonora discovers that she loves José Carlos and that he is a noble person, totally oblivious to the evils that occur around him. Leonora, once installed in the Larios house, convinces José Carlos to take an active part in the family's business, and begins to investigate Catalina and Alejandro as much as possible. Vilma dislikes Leonora, because she takes advantage of every possible moment to be in the company of who her son really is.

Having found out where her grandmother is, Bertha decides to travel to Dr. Syndel's clinic and take her to safety. But Syndel is attracted to Bertha, to the jealousy of Rosalía. On Catalina's orders, Rosalía starts a fire in the clinic in order to kill Bertha, even more so after observing that her husband had abused her. An unknown number of people die in the fire, including Bertha's grandmother and Dr. Syndel himself. It is not long before Leonora begins to track down the deaths of Escudero and Gutiérrez. The young woman finds Bertha, who managed to escape the fire badly injured, and she reveals everything she knows about Catalina, to the horror of Leonora and Doña Esperanza. For her part, Catalina begins to manipulate her children so that Leonora is left in uncomfortable situations and show her that the war continues.

Leonora, now aware of Catalina's secret, convinces Elvia (Josefina Echánove) (the housekeeper of the Larios mansion) to allow her to enter Catalina's room to find the pin with the glass eye. The young woman is attacked by Catalina, who tries to assassinate her, so Leonora warns her that if something happens to her, Bertha will appear. Rosalía is taken to live by Catalina at the Larios mansion, but the police soon discover that it was the nurse who set the clinic on fire, so Catalina plans Rosalía's escape by dressing her in the costume of a murderer and handing her a weapon. Rosalía ends up being killed in Buenavista Station by the police when she resists being captured. Catalina, when questioned by Commander Luna (Wally Barrón), assures that it was Rosalía who murdered Escudero and Gutiérrez.

Given this, the police officers begin to suspect Catalina Creel as responsible for the murders, but they lack hard evidence to bring her to justice. As the agents get closer to the truth, Catalina has to resort to numerous tricks to hide clues that could prove her guilt. To have accomplices, although she justifies it as "having allies", Catalina tells the truth to Alejandro and Vilma, who are horrified by the truth behind the patch. On one occasion, Catalina celebrates her birthday and decides to have a costume party, to which Leonora arrives disguised with the clothes Catalina used for her murders. This unleashes the anger of Catalina, who orders Alejandro to take her to her room. Leonora confesses to Alejandro, at that moment, that Catalina also murdered Carlos Larios. When Alejandro questions this with Catalina, she confirms it, so Alejandro begins to move away from his mother and even sends little Edgar to his in-laws.

Soon after, Catalina discovers Bertha's whereabouts, so she decides to assassinate her. However Bertha is taken by the panic of her memories and the fear of "the wolves", and decides to escape. Leonora is forced to tell José Carlos the truth, because the wolves have taken little Edgar to the United States. Their love reaches a peak of tension when the truth is discovered, and José Carlos ends up beating Alejandro. José Carlos's thirst for truth, to whom everyone always sends hints, is quenched with the false testimonies of Vilma, Alejandro and Catalina who claim that Leonora had sold the baby to them. However, José Carlos consults Leonora by not believing those lies of his wife. Leonora, offended by José Carlos for doubting her, decides to leave the Larios house with a vengeance that she was willing to end. Shortly after, Leonora discovers that she is expecting a child from José Carlos. Vilma, who has also had some illnesses, also discovers that she is pregnant. Leonora informs Vilma's parents of what Alejandro did to her and they, after confirming the truth, demand that their daughter return the child.

Bertha reappears surprisingly, disguised as a French woman in charge of a travel agency serving Lar-Creel under the name "Michelle Albán". Now she has an ally named Lucero ( Magda Karina), who pitied Bertha for the constant tears she shed for her grandmother. Bertha called herself another woman and says she learned about the "queen of the pack" when she dressed up as Michelle. Mauricio (Luis Rivera), a loyal assistant to Alejandro Larios and an accomplice in many crimes of that family, arrives at the agency asking for a trip (financed by Catalina in exchange for her silence) and feels attracted to Lucero. Then Bertha's mind devises a trap, which consists of Lucero making him fall in love and getting useful information out of him. Mauricio and Lucero start a relationship in which both discover several compromising affairs of Catalina, previously Mauricio had been imprisoned for sending (under Alejandro's orders and paying favors) medicines to Syndel's clinic, and upon returning to freedom he is threatened by both Catalina as for Alejandro since he knows the deal between the late Dr. Syndel and Alejandro.

Catalina, informed by Mauricio who comments on the resemblance between Bertha and the French woman, suspects that Michelle Albán and Bertha are the same person and decides to meet them to eliminate her, Mauricio is rewarded with a vacation trip in exchange for his silence before the police, who also investigates it. Catalina discovers Lucero in that place and decides to assassinate her by strangling her. Bertha discovers the crime and is chased by Catalina, who suffers a spectacular crash. Catalina is taken to a clinic and the doctor reveals to José Carlos that Catalina has both eyes in perfect condition. José Carlos decides to confront Catalina by confronting her with each of her crimes during a dinner at the Larios mansion, where only the two of them meet; Furthermore, he gives him a sample of the same poison that he used to murder his father and confesses that he already knows the truth that he never lost his eye.

With all these sudden changes, the tension grows in the environment of the Larios more and more to the point that Catalina loses control of everything and her bloody plans end up turning against herself. Vilma, who accidentally discovers that she actually has cancer in the womb, returns the baby to Leonora, regretting her actions and the cancer she has and even more for fear that Catalina would take it away, and asks her husband let them run away. Faced with this adverse scenario, Catalina decides to assassinate José Carlos, who had planned a trip in the family plane with Leonora and little Edgar, altering the fuel tank of the device. However, Vilma urgently needs to travel to the United States to treat her cancer, which prompts Alejandro to ask José Carlos for the plane at the last minute.

Inspector Suárez (Humberto Elizondo) goes after Catalina to arrest her after obtaining the testimonies of Mauricio and Bertha. However, Catalina murders the inspector while walking near the pool: she fakes a sprained ankle to first distract him and then throw him into the water next to a running lawnmower, dying of electrocution. The police surround the Larios mansion, while Comandante Luna and Licenciado Curiel (the Larios' lawyer) observe the inspector's corpse, while Catalina receives a call from Captain Gudini from the airport, and reports that the plane exploded in the air shortly after takeoff and your son has died. Happy, the woman believes she has completed her plan and eliminated her stepson. But upon learning that it was her own son and wife who she murdered, she puts the same poison with which she killed her husband in an orange juice, dresses in her killer outfit, takes off her eyepatch, drinks the juice, and go dead.

Five years later, Braulio, Leonora's first-born, is playing together with his brother José Carlos Jr., in the room in which Catalina committed suicide and which her parents forbid them to enter. The child puts on his eye the one that was his patch and says the memorable words: "I am not Braulio, I am little Edgar" which meant the possibility of a sequel that did not happen.

Cast

Awards and nominations

, -

Legacy

The central character in ''Cuna de lobos'' is matriarch ''Catalina Creel'', played by actress María Rubio, a villain in the grand dramatic tradition of Dynasty's Alexis Carrington, Dallas' J. R. Ewing, or Knots Landing's Abby Cunningham.

The main character is Leonora, played by Diana Bracho, who portrays the victim of the "wolves", only to "become" a "wolf" herself to seek revenge.

Catalina's unnatural devotion to her only son caused her to conceal a healthy eye behind the lie of blindness, commit a series of murders beginning with her own husband, Carlos (his crime was realizing how truly evil she was), and to participate in the abduction of a child to ensure her son's inheritance was confirmed.

Such is the impact of her performance, that soap opera's villain take her as a role model, and when a program parodies a soap opera, the main villain is usually based on her.

''Cuna de lobos'' was so popular in its native country that on the night of the final broadcast, the streets of Mexico City - infamously choked with traffic - were deserted as the locals were in their homes glued to their TV screens. It has been re-screened several times in the United States and Australia in recent years. A remake has been in talks for several years, with one finally surfacing in 2019.

DVD

The first DVD of ''Cuna de lobos'' came out in 2002. It was a single-disc DVD that contained the entire novela edited down to a little over 230 minutes. A second DVD release came on March 8, 2006. While it expanded the novela to over 11 hours played on three DVDs, the original instrumental music and soundtrack had been erased and substituted by new music. According to Televisa, this was due to a disagreement with Mexican actress and producer Carmen Salinas, who now owns the music rights after her deceased son Pedro Plascencia Salinas, producer of the music of the novela.

References

External links

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''Cuna de Lobos''
at The Guardian ''contains a significant mention of Cuna de Lobos''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cuna de Lobos
1986 telenovelas
Mexican telenovelas
1986 Mexican television series debuts
1987 Mexican television series endings
Spanish-language telenovelas
Television shows set in Mexico
Televisa telenovelas