albertomallofres-pantoja Reviews

Raza (1942)

Hate is not a good advisor

[10/10 · 20 February 2004]

First of all, I want to clear up something: I love Britain. I love the British people. In many aspects, I feel British. (You could put the music from "West Side Story" to this affirmation: "I feel British, oh so British..."). I´m a citizen of the world. But I cannot help feeling indignant when someone tries to pull my leg, as some British character like pseudo-historian Paul Preston or so is attempting to do.

I don´t want to be boring, but I must insist about my age. I was born in 1919, so I DO know the era that "Raza" deals with. Everything that the film says is true, although it is presented in a very mild and benevolent way. The pursuit against the Catholic church is true. The hate of militiamen towards priests, monks, nuns and Catholic people in general is true. The shootings in the red zone (and the word "red" is not offensive - the left-wingers called themselves that way) are true. (For a better information, I recommend the books written about the subject by the former member of the GRAPO Pío Moa.) Believe me, I DO KNOW SOMETHING.

I want to set the record straight: I don´t like to speak badly about ANYONE, but the Truth is my best friend and I must be faithful to it. The thing is that we are talking about a film. I´m completely against Communism and that doesn´t prevent me from liking "Potemkin". I´m not a Nazi, but I like "Triumph Of The Will". And "Potemkin", judging by what I have read about the subject, is very inaccurate from a historical point of view; "Raza" isn´t. It is a no-nonsense picture. But most of all it´s a very good movie: the actors are wonderful (particularly Ana Mariscal - what a woman!), the direction is impeccable and the semi-documentary tone of the whole work is successful. I´ll say it again: the assassination of the monks on the beach is among the best cinematic scenes I have ever seen, and I cry every time I watch it. Because, unfortunately, that was only (sorry to say) too true. The fact that I´m a certain age doesn´t make me dodder or drivel, thank God.

Other films, like "La Caza", "Furtivos" or "El Espíritu De La Colmena", have tried to tell a different story, but the degree of success is uneasy: "La Caza" (one of whose leading actors, by the way, is the great Alfredo Mayo, the protagonist of "Raza") is a good film (maybe the best film of Carlos Saura, which is not saying much), but it´s not a film about the war, but rather about the aftermath of the war, and it doesn´t reflect at all a reality; those facts didn´t exist in the 60s (or, at least, they were not a general attitude). And as for "Furtivos" or "El Espíritu De La Colmena", they also depict a society later than the war (not the war itself, and still less the pre-war) and, for all their fame and prizes, they are (from a strictly cinematographic and non-political point of view) small pieces of blatant rubbish.

Before I say goodbye, I must stress something: hate is not a good advisor. And profanities and obscene language are no good, especially when headed for someone who is dead and therefore cannot defend himself. Please, let´s calm down a little bit. May people read good books and learn the truth. I hope that, as in Charles Laughton´s great film "Night Of The Hunter", love ends up defeating hate. God bless you.

Franco: ese hombre (1964)

But seriously...

[10/10 · 14 May 2003]

OK, I must be something like Grandpa Cebolleta, that nice comic book character who was always telling stories about battles he could never have been involved in. But I´m not that old (or as young as some other commentators). I was born in 1919 (and I´m sorry for being so insisting about my age). I WAS in those battles to which "Franco, Ese Hombre" makes very little reference because during the nearly forty years of Franco´s regime the film directors had the good sense of not touching that subject (The Civil War) more than half-dozen times and never to mortify or vent any kind of anger on the defeated. In exchange, in these nearly three decades of the post-Franco era there must be surely some one hundred films that have used scurrility and mortification as a support for their making. "Sex" (with the most dislocated derivations of Freud and the Marquis of Sade) and a grotesque "triumphalism" (?) have been the basic support of this post-Franco cinema or, to be precise, this "anti-Franco" cinema, because this was and is its nourishing thesis.

Is it not possible to talk about films without ever wallowing in the mire of politics (almost always of the same side, by the way)? Is it not possible to appreciate films for what they are and not for what they "should" be (or, at least, someone thinks they should be)? I see that some "ghosts" that we believed they had disappeared completely in the 60s have come out of their closets again. The Civil War is back with a vengeance (pun intended). We should call Tim Burton - what a delightful film he could make with this amazing ghostly army!

I might add that "Franco, Ese Hombre" is a masterpiece (by your leave, of course).

Raza (1942)

An excellent, brave and patriotic film

[10/10 · 12 February 2003]

To my way of thinking, nothing seems more inappropriate and inconsistent than labelling "Raza" as laughable or as a simple political pamphlet. OK, Sáenz De Heredia was no Leni Riefenstahl - and, in my humble opinion, and with all due respects to Riefenstahl and her work, he didn´t need to. Some people try to scrutinize each and every corner of both Generalissimo Franco´s book and Sáenz De Heredia´s film in a frantic search for data which can be degrading and negative to Franco without ever noticing a little bit of light, a little bit of ideals or at least something that is not mean or ridiculous. For most of these people, the great concepts that provide the backbone of the life of a military man - country, honour, sacrifice, ideals, etc. - are hollow and old-fashioned words without any value in these so-called modern times. That´s the characteristic point of view of the "progressive" who don´t know what to do or say when they get to the power or expose their alternative.

Those who think that this is a pro-Nazi film should notice that there isn´t any allusion to Hitler or the Nazism in the whole context of the movie (apart from the fact that they seem to be completely unaware of: Franco clipped Hitler´s wings when the latter tried to introduce his army in Spain). The Council of Spanishness took charge of the production of the picture and entrusted its direction to one of the best film directors in the history of cinema, José Luis Sáenz De Heredia, who was, effectively, cousin of the Founder of the Falange, José Antonio Primo De Rivera, but I don´t think this is a discrediting to make a movie, is it? Franco chose him from several directors and let him work with absolute freedom. The film was an outstanding success in those years of remarkable patriotism that followed the end of the Spanish Civil War. The greatest actors of the era were in it: Alfredo Mayo and the extraordinary Ana Mariscal were the leading performers alongside José Nieto, Blanca De Silos, Raúl Cancio and a terrific Julio Rey in the brief but pivotal role of the father.

"Raza" (both the novel and the film) must be placed in their time. And for their time they were what they had to be. The cinematic rubbish perpetrated by Ken Loach and Vicente Aranda ("Land And Freedom" and "Libertarias", respectively), about the heroic anarchist conscripts of the other side, seem much more grievous to me, who, as a war veteran born in 1919, lived that era. The purpose of "Raza" was to explain to the whole Spanish people the real history of a third of the century and many people believed in it because they had lived the history that way. So the film, seen with hindsight, is not anachronistic or ridiculous; it reflects perfectly the ideas and the feelings than made millions of Spaniards vibrate at that time. (Is there anything preposterous in the fact that a military man considers that dying for his country is something beautiful? Do the people of these days have the slightest idea of who the Almogavars were?).

The Churrucas, the family depicted in the film, is not Franco´s real family. The leading male character, José (Alfredo Mayo) is a frustrated sailor and an infantry officer with a brilliant career, but his adventures during the Second Republic and the Civil War don´t have anything to do with Franco himself. The antagonist, Pedro (José Nieto) may have some element that reminds us of Ramón Franco, but it is not a portrait of Franco´s younger brother, who was anything but an intellectual. Anyone who knows accurately Franco´s biography is perfectly aware that this is not an autobiographical work, but a labour of love which must not inspire us with despise but be considered a reliable portrait of a forgotten Spain that nevertheless is a part of historical memory and roots. (By the way: do you think it´s laughable to see how a whole group of monks are murdered by the sea? These things really happened, believe it or not.)

The film, as a work, is magnetic; one of my favourite sequences is that of the front near Bilbao, when Capt. Echeverría (Raúl Cancio) is about to desert to see his wife and children but his brother-in-law, José Churruca, arrives in time to avoid it. And I like very much the scene in which José gets to arrive to the National zone after having been shot and presumed dead (there were more than one of those cases in the war), especially the moment in which we see a beautiful woman dressed as a man, who has had to pose as a male to be able to fight for what she believes in. (I think there is a sexy element in that segment.) And I like very much the scene of Pedro´s sacrifice and any scene Ana Mariscal is in.

If this film had been made in the United States and its action took place during the World War II, it would be considered more or less a masterpiece. But as it was made in Spain during Franco´s regime, it has necessarily to be a turkey. That´s the way it goes!

La ciudad no es para mí (1966)

A great film with a great actor

[21 October 2002]

If Paco Martínez Soria had been born in the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Italy he would be now adored and revered by public and critics alike. Unluckily for him, he had the misfortune of being born in Spain, where anybody else´s merits and success are never recognized or "forgiven" and comedy is still considered a second-rate genre. This film, adaptation of one of his biggest theatrical smashes (written by Fernando Ángel Lozano, which I believe it´s a pseudonymous for Spanish Academy member Fernando Lázaro Carreter), was also one of his greatest box-office hits and rightly so. Until then - and with few exceptions - Martínez Soria´s roles in films had been character parts (albeit both the films and the parts were good) and always portraying bespectacled and moustachioed or bearded men older than himself. "La Ciudad No Es Para Mí" turned him into a star, something that he already was in the theatre. He plays an old widower peasant farmer from Aragón who goes to Madrid to visit his only child, a fortysomething doctor (Eduardo Fajardo) who is married and has his own family and receives his father somewhat reluctantly. Soon the countryman will find out that his family are disintegrating because of the lack of moral values they have fallen down in by living in the big city and does everything he can to put things straight, which he finally gets. Shot in a beautiful black and white (it was the penultimate film in black and white that Martínez Soria did) by the wonderful and much underrated director Pedro Lazaga (with whom the actor made eight more films after this one), nicely performed by this great artist and the rest of the first-rate cast and with a complete independence in relation to the original play, this movie is an absolute delight from the beginning to the end, although probably it will look "politically incorrect" to the "in" crowd of nowadays. Definitely things like marriage, family, morals or religion are not fashionable in this throwaway society. Oh, dear!

The worst film ever made, this one? When you´ve seen some blatant rubbish made by the likes of Almodóvar, Antonioni, Aranda, Bardem, Berlanga, Buñuel, Godard, Loach, Mercero, Pasolini, Regueiro or Trueba - to name just a few - you don´t come to that conclusion at all.

Estudio 1: Usted puede ser un asesino II (2000) Season Unknown, Episode Unknown

Disastrous adaptation of a wonderful play

[13 September 2002]

"Usted puede ser un asesino" (translation: "You Might Be A Murderer") is one of the best plays written by that genius called Alfonso Paso. It was turned into a fine film in 1962 by José María Forqué (starring Alberto Closas and José Luis López Vázquez) and there were two good adaptations for TV in the 60s-70s, the first one in black and white and the second one in colour, both starring Jesús Puente and Pablo Sanz. This new version, which made part of a failed attempt of "resurrecting" dramatic programmes in TVE, is simply a disaster. We could compare it to the damage done in the late 80s to another fabulous play of the same author, "Enseñar a un sinvergüenza" (starring José Sancho and Virginia Mataix), which left virtually nothing of the original text. Here it happens the same. The dialogue has been turned upside down, there are many "contemporary" references that are completely out of place, the setting is horrible and the performances are awful (who has told Isabel Ordaz she is an actress, for God´s sake?). Mr. Méndez-Leite, who usually writes about films made by other people and has no pity with them, proves once more that most critics are frustrated directors. There has been certainly a murder here... and the play has been the victim.

Franco: ese hombre (1964)

Just the plain and simple truth

[10/10 · 7 September 2002]

I bet my life many of the commentators who show up in these pages are very young people and therefore haven´t got an accurate knowledge of some historical facts (they´re not to blame - the mass media have made them subject of a nicely crafted manipulation), and another reason to think so is that they can manage a computer (good for them!) and most people who are over 40 or 50 cannot do it. Well, I´m an exception to the rule: I´m a war veteran born in 1919 and I can deal with Internet myself. I hope this makes my word worthy of credit and doesn´t make believe that this comment is only the bull shot by an "ignorant". (Oh, what a delicious and respectful expression!).

I recognize that this film has some mistakes: it does NOT lie, but it doesn´t tell the whole truth either. That is the greatest error of the relatively scarce films made in Spain about the Spanish Civil war in the post-war - they are too kind. The first time I saw this movie in a theatre I remembered many of the facts depicted on it because I lived them personally, but I noticed that the director had passed on the Civil War. Sáenz De Heredia (whom I had the enormous fortune to meet) was not only a first-rate director, but also a nice and deeply Christian human being, and he didn´t want to re-open the wounds that had already healed, in spite of the thousands of people who had died during the war because of the hatred towards their Catholic faith. He only wanted to make a film about someone he knew and admired sincerely. It wasn´t necessary to do this movie, but it was done. Why? Because they who made it wanted the Chief of Spanish State (NOT the dictator, I must insist) to be better-known by the people, including the youngest ones. And, in my humble opinion, they were successful.

As an American would say, this film is "goddamnedly" well done: the photography is excellent, the script is accurate, the documentary style is nicely built and the voice-overs (especially Ángel Picazo´s) ring true, unlike those we hear today in many TV and film documentaries. And that´s because what they say is true. Things were really that way. If the statement which claims that in that era nobody could do, say or think what they wanted, how do you explain the fact that many of us are still here? We should have been killed or have spent several years in jail, as it happened in the USSR. Would it have been possible for some directors who were hyper-critical with the regime - like Bardem or Berlanga, for example - to make their films in the USSR? And how can you explain the queue that was formed to give the last farewell to Franco when he died? Oh, come on!

No lies, no propaganda, no "ignorance", no hate, no manipulation at all. Just the plain and simple truth.

Uninvited (1999)

UNfairly UNderrated

[10/10 · 20 September 2001]

I have seen this film on TV very recently. I haven´t been able to watch it in theatres because it remained unreleased in some countries, which I think it´s a shame. If I´m not wrong, this was the debut of Carlo Nero (son of Franco Nero and Vanessa Redgrave) as a feature film director (he had been the third assistant director of "A Month By The Lake", starring his mother) and I believe he did a fine job. The movie´s plot is a fortunate blend of crime thriller and romantic drama with some touches of humour and it works rather well. Nevertheless, the film had a lukewarm response when exhibited at the San Sebastián Film Festival two years ago (coinciding with the presentation of the Donostia Prize to Redgrave, and with Nero Sr. - who is also the producer - and Nero Jr. in attendance) and some journalists pointed out that the director had "misused" his parents, especially his mum, who had been given "only" an eight-minutes-or-so cameo role, despite the fact that she´d got second-billing in the credits behind Franco Nero. Well, she could have replied that she won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for a film in which her appearance wasn´t much longer ("Julia") and so did Dame Judi Dench for her brief work in "Shakespeare In Love". (On the other hand, nobody has ever remarked on Redgrave´s labour in "Wilde", where she also received second-billing and made an even shorter role.) Going back to "Uninvited", I personally think that the story is interesting and poignant - a young boy is charged with the murder of the stinkingly rich husband of the girl he´s loved since high school - the characters are highly credible (including Redgrave´s amusing bit as a severe schoolteacher) and the subplot of the unhappily married woman who sympathizes with the framed boy and becomes his penfriend is warm and touching. But if I had to show up just one thing in the film, it would be undoubtedly Franco Nero´s wonderful performance as the boy´s defending counsel. This notable actor has been unfairly underrated and overlooked for many years, and I think it´s time to do justice to him. All his scenes, particularly his speech before the court during the trial, are priceless and prove what a good actor he really is. OK, this is family business, but maybe Francis Ford Coppola´s films aren´t? This movie has much more merits to be screened in a theatre than many others that usually get to people those premises. I hope time dots the i´s and crosses the t´s.

Verde doncella (1968)

an indecent proposal that you can´t refuse

[16 March 2001]

More than twenty years before Adrian Lyne directed his famous movie "An Indecent Proposal", Spanish journalist/novelist/playwright Emilio Romero wrote a play named "Verde Doncella" (whose translation would be more or less "Green Maiden"), the title being sort of a playword with a class of apples, in one hand, and a woman who is still a virgin, in the other hand. One of the best directors of the story of cinema, Rafael Gil, turned it into a film shortly afterwards. The plot is about a young couple formally engaged (not a married twosome as in the American picture) that can´t get married because of the lack of money and a mature and unattractive mysterious man who offers them a suitcase filled with 1.000.000 pesetas (of 1968!) in return for having the privilege of spending one night with the bride before the wedding takes place. This constitutes a real dilemma for the lovers, since they must choose between the sacrifice of their honour and a life of poverty and struggle. What will they do...? Surprise, surprise! This film is rather more credible than Lyne´s (otherwise not bad) because the Man With The Suitcase (whose name we never get to know) is a man without any kind of physical appeal (wonderfully played by the late and magnificent rasping-voiced character actor Antonio Garisa) and Robert Redford is an attractive, elegant and well-educated gentleman. (Many people think that it should be HER [Demi Moore] who paid him!) Someone said once (maybe it was Lyne himself) that "Proposal" should have starred Danny DeVito instead. Anyway, the film I´m talking about is a real treat due to the seriocomic strength of its plot and the exceptional performances of the actors: Sonia Bruno, one of my favourite actresses (now long retired) and a very representative type of young woman of the 60s, is superb, and so is Juanjo Menéndez in the role of her fiancé. I have already mentioned Garisa (although anything else that I could say would always be an underestimate) and I don´t want to ignore those two terrific supporting actors who play her parents: Julia Caba Alba, as a middle-aged groovy pop lady that has had a room filled with posters of famous singers of that marvellous era, and Rafael López Somoza as the Socialist Republican fighter who refuses to get up from his bed as long as the political regime doesn´t change. (This role is an amiable caricature of people with left-wing leanings and we could consider it as a cross between the exiled worker played by Somoza himself in "Ninette Y Un Señor De Murcia" three years earlier and the character of Edgardo from Enrique Jardiel Poncela´s play "Eloísa Está Debajo De Un Almendro" [whose film version was also directed by Gil in 1943, with Juan Espantaleón in that part]). One of the most memorable scenes of the movie shows us Garisa attending the marriage of the couple and eating a piece of the wedding cake, thus giving a demonstration of his perverse fetishism. In short, this film is really a must-see and an authentic proof of the power of money. (The movie art has already got plenty of these proofs, but it´s never enough, is it?). Catch this one if you can.

Verde doncella (1968)

an indecent proposal that you can´t refuse

[14 March 2001]

More than twenty years before Adrian Lyne directed his famous movie "An Indecent Proposal", Spanish journalist/novelist/playwright Emilio Romero wrote a play named "Verde Doncella" (whose translation would be more or less "Green Maiden"), the title being sort of a playword with a class of apples, in one hand, and a woman who is still a virgin, in the other hand. One of the best film directors of the story of cinema, Rafael Gil, turned it into a film shortly afterwards. The plot is about a young couple formally engaged that can´t get married because of the lack of money and a mature and unattractive mysterious man who offers them a suitcase filled with 1.000.000 pesetas (of 1968!) in return for having the privilege of spending one night with the bride before the wedding takes place. This constitutes a real dilemma for the lovers, since they must choose between the sacrifice of their honour and a life of poverty and struggle. What will they do...? Surprise, surprise! This film is rather more credible than Lyne´s, because the Man With The Suitcase (whose name we never get to know) is a man without any kind of physical appeal (wonderfully played by the late and magnificent character actor Antonio Garisa) and Robert Redford is an attractive, elegant and well-educated gentleman. (Many people think that it should be HER who paid him!) Someone said once (maybe it was Lyne himself) that "Proposal" should have starred Danny DeVito instead. Anyway, this film is a real treat due to the seriocomic strength of its plot and the exceptional performances of the actors: Sonia Bruno, one of my favourite actresses and a very representative type of young woman of the 60s, is superb, and so is Juanjo Menéndez in the role of her fiancé. I have already mentioned Garisa (although anything else that I could say would always be an underestimate) and I don´t want to ignore those two terrific supporting actors that play her parents: Julia Caba Alba, as a middle-aged groovy pop lady that has had a room filled with posters of famous singers of that marvellous era, and Rafael López Somoza as the Socialist Republican fighter who refuses to get up from his bed as long as the political regime doesn´t change. (This role is an amiable caricature of people with left-wing leanings and we could consider it as a cross between the exiled worker played by Somoza himself in "Ninette Y Un Señor De Murcia" a few years earlier and the character of Edgardo from Enrique Jardiel Poncela´s play "Eloísa Está Debajo De Un Almendro" (whose film version was also directed by Gil in 1943, with Juan Espantaleón in that part). This film is really a must-see and an authentic proof of the power of money. (The movie art has already got plenty of them, but it´s never enough, is it?). Catch this one if you can.

Eight Is Enough (1977–1981)

I´ve never had enough of this

[23 February 2001]

I remember very fondly the Friday evenings of the late 70s and early 80s, when I sat down in front of the TV set and watched "Eight Is Enough". (It was a glorious season: on Saturday evenings they used to broadcast "Charlie´s Angels" and, posteriorly, "The Love Boat"!). The Bradford family won my heart in so little time: they were sympathetic and cheerful and they loved one another -and, of course, they weren´t flawless, which gave them an additional appeal. All five girls in the show had something attractive to me: Mary (Lani O´Grady) was sort of an "ugly duckling" among her sisters and a tempestuous and bespectacled rebel, but pretty soon you could find that she had a tender heart; her temper appeased increasingly after a while and you could discover that she was really a very attractive woman; Joannie (Laurie Walters) was a funny "screwball" lady with a head full of crazy ideas and a special sensitivity; Susan (Susan Richardson) was a chubby red-head (too bad that she dyed her hair later!) whom love turned into a mature person very quickly; Nancy (Dianne Kay) was an ingenue-with-a-doll-face that could sometimes be a little tricky, and Elizabeth (Connie Needham) was a long-haired and petite but very well-built beauty who danced as if she were made of rubber. The boys too were nice: David (Grant Goodeve, who took over from Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamill) was a somewhat insecure and independent character (the male reply to Mary) but he loved his family and was always ready to help; Tommy (Willie Aames) was a typical product of his age: the long-haired curly boy with the ambition of becoming a rock star and a special ability to make money in any kind of "business", but with all the heartaches and doubts that come from the fact of becoming an adult, and Nicholas (Adam Rich) was the kid who said the darndest things (what a source for his father´s articles!) and showed naïvety when he had to be naïve and was smart when he had to be smart. As for the adults, I must begin by saying that Diana Hyland´s death (and subsequently Joan´s) affected me when I learned of it; I have nothing against Abby or Betty Buckley, but I wonder: since only four or five episodes of the series had been made when Hyland died, couldn´t they have replaced her by another actress in the same character (as it has been done in many other TV series) instead of "killing" the mother so mysteriously? (We never get to know when, where or how she died.) Maybe the producers and writers of the show were tempted by the idea of how a young stepmother would fit into this big family and how she was initially rejected by some. Anyway, Hyland was a very attractive woman and she seemed a loving mother. And we get to Abby: she was charming, clever and understanding, and Buckley (don´t you find that she has a certain resemblance to Julie Andrews?) grabbed the character to perfection. (I was only annoyed by the fact that the "first name" she was known as was actually a diminutive of her late first husband´s surname; it´s a habit I loathe.) Dick Van Patten was simply a delight as Tom, the lovable, caring, generous and somewhat old-fashioned father of the brood. He really has the face of a good person and his phrases were usually gems. The recurring characters (Dr. Maxwell and his wife Daisy, Susan´s husband Merle [why did he sometimes call his father-in-law "Mr.B.", for God´s sake?], David´s wife Janet, Tom´s boss Eliot Randolph, Donna the secretary, Tommy´s friend Ernie, aunt Vivian, officer Bernstein, etc.) were also a treat to watch. Fortunately, a different TV channel made once a re-run of many of the episodes of the series (though, alas, not all of them) and I could record them on video. (I´m seeing them again at this time.) One of the few things I regret about the show is that Ralph Macchio didn´t have more time to develop his character of Abby´s orphaned, neglected and tormented nephew, Jeremy, and the family didn´t get to be so understanding to him as they were to one another. (Ironically, Macchio became a star a little bit later and the other boys and girls didn´t!). The series should have been lenghtier. Anyway, it´s a pity that programmes like this are no longer made on TV and are even subjected to quips from some young and not-so-young viewers and some new TV series. This makes me feel terribly nostalgic. Thank God it ever was Friday!

Historias de la radio (1955)

did ever Woody Allen see this film by any chance?

[30 January 2001]

There are many masterpieces in the Spanish movie comedy of the 40s, 50s, 60s and early 70s, but "Historias De La Radio" should undoubtedly have a place in the Top Ten. Director Sáenz De Heredia began to write a former version of the script while having a lunch break from the shooting of Terence Young´s "That Lady", in which he was working as a technical advisor. It almost seems a miracle (in spite of his enormous talent) that he could come up with such a bunch of good ideas for a comedy film in such a short spell of time. In the early 50s, before the arrival of television, the radio was the social communication medium par excellence and its influence in Spanish society was, for better or for worse, enormous. The picture shows how a radio programme could completely change the life of a person. It is divided in three short stories linked by a common bond which is also a sort of fourth story: the broadcasting of radio programmes in front of a live audience (something that seems to have disappeared now). In the first story we see how a poor inventor (the top-notch, rasping-voiced character actor José Isbert) must play the fool disguising himself as an eskimo and getting to the radio station before than anyone else in order to get some money to promote a piston that he and his "business partner" have invented. In the second story, a man who is stealing some money from the house of his landlord receives a random phone call from the studio and is given the possibility of earning a certain amount of money. (Doesn´t it sound familiar to you? Isn´t that a short gag from Woody Allen´s celebrated "Radio Days"?). In the third story, the schoolteacher of a small country village agrees reluctantly to participate in a quiz radio contest to achieve the money that it takes to operate one of his pupils, a loving child who is seriously ill and must be transferred to Sweden to be cured. Will he do it?... Well, I don´t want to spoil the party. The film is full of verbal and visual gags that could serve as a useful lesson to many so-called Spanish movie directors of nowadays and of faces of a big bunch of familiar lead and character actors that the Spanish viewers knew very well even if they couldn´t always put a name on them. And I wonder: WHY ON EARTH CAN´T A FILM LIKE THIS BE KNOWN OUTSIDE SPAIN? WHY CAN´T WE SHOW THIS FILM AND MANY OTHERS FROM THE PERIOD 1940-1975 TO THE REST OF EUROPE AND TO THE UNITED STATES SO THAT THEY CAN SEE THERE WAS A LOT OF GOOD SPANISH CINEMA IN THOSE YEARS? WHY, WHY, WHY...? Calling the film distributors, for God´s sake!

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

real cool

[29 January 2001]

Now that it has become sort of fashionable to speak or write badly about the films of the 60s and 70s, saying that people stopped going to the movie theatres during that fruitful period (which is not true), we must -more than ever-rate a flick as "Cool Hand Luke" as it really deserves. The rebel spirit of the lead character (played to perfection by the excellent Paul Newman) against that brutal and -most of the times- unfair "establishment" represented by the prison guards is a subject that remains as topical as ever. If this picture had been made today, it could also probably be good, but it would undoubtedly be much more unpleasant and filled with four-letter words. Besides, who could match the performances of Newman, George Kennedy (the deservedly Oscar-winner who has kept on making a brilliant career -do you remember him as "The Blue Knight"?), Strother Martin, J.D.Cannon, etc.? Jo Van Fleet´s character as Luke´s mother seems a sort of slightly-aged version of her role as James Dean´s mum in "East Of Eden", and it is really worthwhile. The scene of the hard-boiled eggs is a classic and a gem, but my favourite scene in the movie is that of the car-washing girl so wonderfully played by Joy Harmon (who is really a Joy for any man´s eyes); that character truly says a lot of things without speaking -her gorgeous body speaks for her! I must say that it´s not only one of the sexiest scenes I´ve ever seen in a film but also a very significative one: there is an enormous contrast between the image of the lass moving and shaking in complete and absolute freedom (even in her way of dressing) and the imprisoned men-at-work who watch her as something extremely desirable but, alas, completely out of reach. (The viewer can really feel like a prisoner too!). All in all, this is a fine film of the 60s, but also of the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 21st century and whatever God wants it to come.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)

funny even when you know it by heart

[29 January 2001]

I saw this film for the first time when I was seven or eight -I don´t remember it exactly. What I do remember is that it made me spend one of the funniest whiles in my life. At that time I didn´t know very much about the actors: except for Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney and possibly Peter Falk (who had already come into my heart as Lt. Columbo), I didn´t associate their faces with their names. Now I have a much better information about each and every one of them: Berle, Caesar, Hackett, Merman, Shawn, Thomas, Winters and all the rest. What I´ve always regretted is that I´ve never got to see the unabridged version of the movie: it lasts more than three hours and the prints that I´ve always watched last only two and a half hours. Nevertheless, I think this is one of the most amusing films I´ve ever seen. It seems obvious that the traces left by the greatest comedians of the silent period or the early talkies -Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers or Buster Keaton (who makes a cameo appearance in the film)- are present here in this picture. From the moment you see the amazing credits created by Saul Bass and hear Ernest Gold´s tremendous score, you know there´s something great coming in. Everything is perfection into the genre it belongs to: all that happens with the cars, the destruction of the service station by Winters (who looks like a raging bull in an antique dealer shop), the plight of Caesar and Adams in the basement of the hardware store, the scene of the pilot-less plane, Shawn´s attack against Berle´s and Thomas´s rented car...and oh, yes, the pursuit of Tracy! Well, in short, this film goes to show that in this mad, mad, mad, mad world there are many people who would do ANYTHING for money. I hope that someday I can see the integral version of this movie: I´ve seen it a hundred times in video, I know it by heart and I never get tired. The big W stands for WONDERFUL!

Raza (1942)

a little but great piece of history

[10/10 · 22 January 2001]

This film has been mercilessly and unfairly ignored because of their ideological content and its historical and cinematographic values have been scandalously overlooked or dismissed. I think that its quality is excellent (take, for example, the scene of the murder of the priests on the beach, with that overwhelming view of the corpses softly caressed by the sea waves) and that (like in most of the films about the Civil War shot in Spain during the post-war years) what you see in it is enormously mild in comparison with all that really happened during that nefarious political period we know as the Second Spanish Republic. Sáenz De Heredia (one of the greatest and most shamefully under-under-under-underrated film directors in cinema history) proved once more that he was perfectly capable of telling a story as it must be told, and besides he surrounded himself with some of the best actors of the time, such as the wonderful Alfredo Mayo (the scene of his failed "shooting" is simply memorable), the beautiful and splendid Blanca De Silos, the equally good José Nieto, Raúl Cancio and the rest, but, most of all, I´d like to dedicate a special mention to that fabulous, gorgeous, intelligent, multi-faceted and talented woman that was the late Ana Mariscal (actress, writer, director and probably the sexiest spot-by-the-mouth artiste that there has ever been apart from Anne Francis), whose real-life brother, Luis Arroyo, plays the role of Jaime Churruca, the young murdered priest. Both the original book (written by Generalissimo Franco with the pseudonymous Jaime De Andrade) and the movie are small but truthful and REAL pieces of history and their quality is first-rate. Don´t let yourself influence by political or ideological prejudices: just see it and learn the truth, and keep on learning it afterwards. I beg you!

Franco: ese hombre (1964)

you must see this to know the man

[10/10 · 5 January 2001]

This film, as far as I know, is unique in being the only filmed biography about a Chief of State (not a dictator) who was alive in the moment of its making. It is an extraordinary document of the life of a man who gave away all his life to the service to his country and was capable of lifting Spain up from the ruins of the inevitable Civil War and turning it into one of the ten main world powers. Sáenz De Heredia combines extremely well the ample archive footage (perfectly accompanied by the excellent voice-overs, especially the narrator Ángel Picazo´s) with the present-time conversations with personalities such as Franco himself or journalist/ambassador Manuel Aznar. It is obvious that the movie was made with real loving care by its director and is not only a simple commitment. Those who´ve never got to know the genuine Franco (not the completely false and grotesque figure depicted by many misinformed people) should watch it with true attention.