El ojo de vidrio (film)

El ojo de vidrio (The Glass Eye) is a 1969 Mexican revolution-epic film directed by René Cardona Jr., starring Antonio Aguilar, Flor Silvestre, Manuel Capetillo, Eleazar García, Alejandro Reyna and Guillermo Rivas. With a backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, the film recounts the story of former horse wrangler and bandit Porfirio Alcalá y Buenavista, who becomes the subject of a popularly known corrido along with his four cousins, after being notoriously heroic for raiding rich landlords and helping the poor. Being each notable for having one eye as the result of an injustice, the five heroes meet two townswomen and a theater actor who helps them disguise for their various raids. As their last raid attack, they take vengeance to the man who caused their tragedy, and evade revolutionary troops who call for peace after Porfirio Díaz resigns and is exiled.

El ojo de vidrio, shot on location in Tayahua, Zacatecas, was a box-office hit in Mexican theaters and particularly distinctive for its imaginative use of mixing drama with comic relief within the main characters. The film's story and screenplay were written by Antonio Aguilar and Alfredo Varela, who also portrays the theater actor. The film is also notable for being 117 minutes long, which is not the average runtime for normal low-budget Mexican films. It spawned the sequel Vuelve el ojo de vidrio, released the next year.