Francisco Elías Riquelme

Who was Francisco Elías Riquelme?

Francisco Elías Riquelme was a Spanish film producer. He released the first sound film of Spanish cinema, El misterio de la Puerta del Sol, or The Mystery of Puerta del Sol, which cost 18,000 pesetas at the time.

His earliest position was in Paris as an editor and printer of silent film title cards. He later relocated to Barcelona and shot his first film in 1914, Los Oficios de Rafael Arcos, or, The Jobs of Rafael Arcos. During World War I he traveled to the United States, where he created Elijah Press Inc., a producer of multilingual title cards. With the decline of silent films, he decided to return to Spain, where he made his debut as director with the silent film, El fabricante de suicidos, or The Suicide Fabricator and the sound film The Mystery of Puerta del Sol.

The failure of his films forced him to return to Paris, where he made three French films for French production companies. When he once again returned to Spain, he joined the studio Orphea Barcelona, the first to shoot sound films made in Spain. There he created films like films like Pax, Rataplán, and Maria de la O.