Juan Emilio Viguié

Juan Emilio Viguié Cajas (July 11, 1891 – September 1966), was a movie and documentary producer. A pioneer in Puerto Rico's film industry, he was the first Puerto Rican to produce commercially successful films in the island. In 1934, he produced and directed Romance Tropical, the first Puerto Rican film with sound.

Viguié produced films for Pathé, Fox Film Corporation, Movietone, and MGM. ) parents were headed to Panama where his father, a French national, was to work on the construction of the Panama Canal. The couple had to make an emergency stop in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where his mother, a native of Ecuador, gave birth to Viguié. His father continued on his journey, leaving his wife behind. His mother died shortly after giving birth to Viguié. Despite being widespread, reports claiming that his father died while working on the Panama Channel are erroneous, since he was born after a 15-year hiatus (1889 to 1904) of the construction began. Viguié was adopted by a Ponce municipal judge surnamed Caballer. Caballer raised Viguié and sent him to the Miguel Pou Academy in Ponce where he studied visual arts and painting under the guidance of Puerto Rican artist Miguel Pou.

Viguié's first silent film

Viguié's interest in the motion picture industry came about in 1901, after viewing the first silent film, an Eduardo Hervet presentation, exhibited in Teatro La Perla in Ponce. During a trip to Paris, France, he witnessed Auguste and Louis Lumière's first public motion picture exhibition at the Caf-Les Capucinos. Upon his return to Puerto Rico he found a job as a movie projectionist at the Teatro Habana in his hometown. Viguié was inspired by what he saw and decided that he would like to make movies himself. In 1911, he sent one of his friends to France to purchase a Pathe camera with the money that he had earned. Upon his return, Viguié joined Porto Rico Photoplays.

Pioneer in the film industry of Puerto Rico In 1919, Viguié returned to Puerto Rico, and in his native Ponce began work on a film based on the life of Puerto Rican pirate Roberto Cofresi. The film was to be titled El Tesoro de Roberto Cofresi (Roberto Cofresi's Treasure), however the project did not proceed because of the lack of funds.

Viguié's international fame continued to grow, with his documentaries about Charles Lindbergh's 1928 visit to Puerto Rico, and the devastation caused that year by "Hurricane San Felipe Segundo" (known in the U.S. as "Okeechobee Hurricane") for Fox. Fox News paid him well for the use of both documentaries, Viguié signed contracts with both MGM and Fox News, and both networks served as international outlets for his work. Disillusioned, Viguié discontinued making commercial films. Instead he directed all his energies to "Viguié News" and continued to make news documentaries.

The restored copy of the film had its big screen premiere for the first time in more than 80 years on November 4, 2017 at the Billy Wilder Theater in Los Angeles as part of UCLA Film and Television Archive’s ongoing exhibition Recuerdos de un cine en español: Latin American Cinema in Los Angeles, 1930-1960.

In its home Puerto Rico, the film's big screen premiere was organized and presented on September 24, 2020 by Viguié's own descendants who have carried on in his filmmaking footsteps - his grandson John E. Viguié III and great-grandchildren Stephanie, Michelle, and Jon-Emile Viguié (collectively known as TheRaccoonteurs.com). The screening took place in private event at CinemaBar 1950s movie theater in Old San Juan.

Legacy Viguié's film legacy has been carried forward through the generations. By 1951, Viguié Film Productions, presided by his son, Juan Emilio Viguié, Jr. had become the largest film producing company in Puerto Rico. Like his father, upon his retirement Viguié Jr. also left an indelible mark in history as being an instrumental element in the development of the film industry in the island. In turn Viguié Jr.'s son, John E. Viguié III, took charge of Viguié Film Productions after his father retired, redirecting the company more towards film production and changing the name back to Viguié Films. In 2018, along with two of his daughters Michelle Viguié and Stephanie Viguié, and his son Jon-Emile Viguié (Viguié Sr.'s great-grandchildren), together co-founded the entertainment company TheRaccoonteurs.com. The latter make up the third and fourth generations (respectively) of the Viguié lineage in the film industry.

Viguié was also a pioneer in the transmission of news via television. In 1954, television arrived in Puerto Rico. WAPA-TV, together with Telemundo and "WKBM" (Channel 11), was one of the first television stations in Puerto Rico. That same year WAPA-TV began to transmit the news via the airwaves in a Viguié News production called "El Observador" (The Observer) which lasted only 15 minutes. Today, Viguié's historical news documentaries are conserved in the Puerto Rico Archives and in the Carnegie Library.

For his pioneering work in the theatrical arts, he is recognized at Ponce's Parque del Tricentenario. His son donated part of his films to the Archivo Histórico de Puerto Rico, where it is preserved.