Calle Mayor (1956)

Calificación de los usuarios:

8.1/10   

Director:

Juan Antonio Bardem

Escritores:

Carlos Arniches (play)
Juan Antonio Bardem (writer)

Fecha de Lanzamiento:

10 marzo 1958 (USA)

Género:

Drama

Plot:

A couple of friends decide to have a good time and play a trick on an unmarried woman. Therefore one of them has to pretend to fall in love with her.

Plot Keywords:

Based On Play | Actor Shares First Name With Character

Premios:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Exile on main street.

Reparto

Betsy Blair	...	Isabel
José Suárez	...	Juan
Yves Massard	...	Federico Rivas
Luis Peña	...	Luis
Dora Doll	...	Tonia
Alfonso Godá	...	José María, 'Pepe el Calvo'
Manuel Alexandre	...	Amigote 1
José Calvo	...	Amigote 2
Matilde Muñoz Sampedro	...	Chacha
René Blancard	...	Editor
María Gámez
Lila Kedrova
Josefina Serratosa
Julia Delgado Caro
José Prada

También conocida como:

Grand- rue (France)
Main Street (International: English title) (literal title)
The Lovemaker (USA)

Duración:

99 min

País:

Spain | France

Idioma:

Español

Color:

Negro y Blanco

Relación de Aspecto:

1.37 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

West Germany:16 | Sweden:15

Locaciones de Filmación:

Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Compañía:

Suevia Films - Cesáreo González

Trivialidades:

After Bardem's jailing and release, he decided to stop early filming in Palencia, and shot the remaining of the movie in the cities of Logroño (most city scenes, including the main square with the arcades) and Cuenca (most nature shots and the apartment building being constructed). The rest was shot in a Madrid studio.

Conexiones de Película:

Version of La señorita de Trevélez (1936)

Exile on main street.

Prologue:let's put it straight.Betsy Blair is miscast.Is this because she played Borgnine's so called ugly girl in the Oscar-winning "Marty" (1955)?Perhaps so ,but her beaming face ,her luminous smile,her intense longing for happiness are anything but unattractive .She's not Ava Gardner,by a long shot,but she easily outshines her would be handsome lover.

Prologue 2:Is it possible,considering the high rating of "calle mayor",that nobody -Spanish users,get a life!It's your culture!- felt like writing about this unfairly overlooked gem? "Calle Mayor" (Grand Rue,Hauptstrasse,Main Street)is the place where ,in a provincial town,people meet,talk and wait.All a woman has to do , Tonia says ,is wait wait wait ,behind her window,at the ball,or on "calle mayor".Isobel has been waiting for eighteen years for a man,because,in the fifties in Spain (and in Europa as well),the only way a woman had is marriage.Or she would become a wallflower and a spinster.

"Calle mayor" is a trap :the omnipresence of religion can be felt here there and everywhere ,with the church bells marking out the hours in a town that has stood still for years,with the nuns pacing up and down the street ,asking for a few pesetas more for their good works.A group of men ,not so young anymore,is searching for something to do.A good joke would be nice to kill time :so they ask one of them to pretend he's in love with Isobel ,the thirty-five year old woman-at the time,it was much too late !-.Isobel begins to live in a dream,and the buck cannot bring himself to tell her the truth (out of pity?he does not know himself)..I say it again,Betsy Blair,although excellent was not the right choice :first she's not Spanish ,and mainly she 's not ugly .So it does not always work well,because,if we were in the man's shoes,we would fall in love head over heals with her.But this must not prevent you from watching Juan Bardem's sensitive work:his depiction of the provincialism is absorbing , the sad landscapes on the edge of town or this little railway station where the tragedy is resolved are masterfully filmed.

Juan Bardem was a committed artist.He was arrested before he finished "Calle Mayor" and later he produced Bunuel's masterpiece "Viridiana".It's really too bad that ,now that Spanish cinema triumphs again with Amenabar ,Bardem's name should be virtually forgotten.