La quiniela (1960) Poster

(1960)

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6/10
An evocative and traditional sixties film about the Spanish hobby of filling out football pools
ma-cortes27 October 2023
Don Cándido Palomo (Joaquín Roa) owner of a modest guest house who, is also a state official in an office where he fills out pools looking at the people who appear in the application line. Without having any idea of football , he fills his first pool at the request of a coworker named Olmedilla (Erasmo Pascual) . The problem will come when, infected by the hobby of constantly checking the results of the matches, don Cándido drags his entire family (Rafaela Aparicio, Isana Medel) along in his obsession with becoming a millionaire.

Chronicle of the gambling addiction of the time in the form of a satirical farce, stars an usual secondary, Joaquín Roa as an old office worker giving a nice acting, along with the always great Rafaela Aparicio as his wife and the beautiful young Isana Medel as his daughter Elisita. It tells of the problems of a married couple who, by chance, are awarded a few million for having guessed correctly in a pool. There's a faithful portrayal of the Spanish environment in Franco era during the Seventies and with the two main actors giving terrific performance, balancing tenderness and cynicism, making the film a pleasant surprise. This is a run-of-the-mill in the sixties and seventies style with the usual modest means and dealing with ordinary peole with their unfortunes, wishes , customs and distresses. The main interest in the film is to guess which supporting actor will appear in the next frame, these include the following: Ángel Ter as cabman, Rafaela Aparicio, Manuel Monroy, Erasmo Pascual, Félix Fernández, José Calvo, Raúl Cancio, Félix Dafauce, Ángel Álvarez, Aníbal Vela, Francisco Bernal, presenter Matías Prats, Rafael Durán, Luis Ciges, Tito García

The picture was well directed by Ana Mariscal who also has a secondary role. Was a classic Spanish film actress, director, screenwriter and film producer. She also acted in Argentinean films. Ana was involved in well over 50 films between 1940 and 1968, frequently starring in films she also wrote and directed. She is iconic to 1940s and 50s Spanish cinema. Ana Mariscal began her career after accompanying her actor brother Luis Arroyo to an audition for El Ultimo Husar. Almost by chance, she was noticed by the director Luis Marquina and cast in the film. This would start a prolific career in acting and directing. A few notable films from this time include The Queen's Flower Girl, Raza, A Shadow at the Window, and The Princess of the Ursines. After a decade of typecast roles, Mariscal started her own production company called BOSCO and begin writing and directing her own works. She made her directorial debut with Segundo Lopez, a film she also wrote and starred in. It was a critically well-received comedy with Italian Neo-realist influences. She later directed her esteemed work They fired with their lives that deals with the Spanish Civil War; an event Mariscal herself lived through during her childhood. In her later career, she shifted among film, television, and theater pursuits, still using her production company to fund her projects. El ultimo Husar, La Florista de la Reina, Raza , Dulcinea , Princesa de Ursinos, La vida encadenada , Pacto de Silencio, El Gran Galeoto, Jeromin, Morena Clara, La Violetera , La Reina del Chantecler , and several others . Her first film as a director was Segundo Lopez 1952 , following Con la Vida hicieron Fuego 1957, a melodrama about Spanish Civil War . Their boxoffice flops led her to make commercial films with no much interest , such as a popular comedy : La Quiniela 1959, the Folkloric: Feria de Sevilla 1960 , the dramatic yarn : Hola Muchacho 1962 , the political : Occidente y Sabotaje 1962 , the traditional : Los Duendes de Andalucía 1964 , a bullfighting drama: El Paseillo 1968 and a Musical : Vestida de Novia 1967 . She eventually receded from the world of film making and dedicate her time entirely to the study of literature. Just a few months before her death, she received the gold medal for Merit in the Fine Arts in 1995.
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