RetroClips

El Automóvil Gris dramatizes a real 1915 Mexico City crime spree, in which a gang dressed as officials or soldiers used fake credentials to rob the homes of the city's wealthiest residents during the Revolution; several of the actual detectives who caught them played themselves in the film. Director Enrique Rosas died in 1920, shortly after its original release as a 12-episode serial; the surviving version streaming today is a 1933 sound-era re-edit of the same footage. It's one of the earliest Mexican narrative features to survive at all.