I discovered this documentary as one of the extras on the Blu-ray of "Pieces" (1982), and the truth is that it seemed to look very good. Above all because of its cast of interviewees and its long running time (which for me that could mean, a lot of information, anecdotes and curiosities). But the truth was that when I got into one hour of the film, I couldn't stop looking at how much time was left with the help of the player control...
At first it is a very poorly structured documentary, instead of stopping and going through the movie film in the filmography of Juan Piquer Simón, they are constantly jumping from one to another. For example, they stop talking about "Supersonic Man", to talk about "The Rift", to continue with "Cthulhu Mansion", to return to "The Rift", to go on to "Pieces", to go back to "The Rift" and so with all the movies...
The documentary is poorly finished, it seems more like a quick "rough-cut" that has not been fully reviewed. Sometimes an interviewee appears with one letter less in his first name, to later appear corrected. Some interviewees also have their name appear on a caption that appears and disappears in less than a second, in addition that these captions appear constantly under the interviewees, as if their creator was afraid that the viewer would forget the names after changing from one to another... Many silences and pauses have been left, which could have been cut with image transitions (although that didn't matter because you also found pauses and silences when an interviewee was in voice over). There even a moment in the last third of the documentary when an excerpt from an interview with Juan Piquer Simón appears that leaves it uncut for almost 4 minutes, making it boring and tedious, something that should not be the case since the documentary is dedicated to his work and his person (in addition to the fact that no other interviewee is left so much time on screen). And finally, the occasional sound cuts or abrupt cuts on the image, which, as I already said, could have been eliminated with a simple final revision.
Of all the people that appear, the only two persons that I have left over are Lone Fleming and Sandra Alberti, who contribute ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the documentary, Sandra appears at the beginning walking through some corridors acting as a ghost, to reappear only at the end, and Lone appears assembling a puzzle that is shown at the beginning of each "chapter" of the documentary. They are totally wasted. Also, I think it would have been more worthwhile having them interviewed, giving them a role that could have been played by other actresses or a models unrelated to the director. Colin Arthur, although he provides a lot of information, I would have allowed him to conduct his interview in English, since unlike Jack Taylor, he's not so fluent in Spanish. In addition that his interventions have not been subtitled, something that he would have helped since there are moments where, I'm sorry, but what he says is not understood...
Lastly, although this is not the documentary's fault, probably due to rights issues or huge amounts of money that they should have asked the director for, NOT A SINGLE SCENE FROM ANY OF THE DIRECTOR'S FILMS IT'S SHOWN. Only posters, photos, newspaper cuts and the occasional behind-the-scenes footage are shown. It's something very surprising since in this kind of documentaries, some footage is always shown, but in this case surely nothing could be done since I doubt that they were given facilities when they were making it. Although it is always a rights issue, such as "The Eastwood Factor", a documentary about Clint Eastwood talking about his career, but since "Warner" was behind it, in that documentary ONLY the movie clips that Clint made for "Warner" appeared, the rest... photos or as if I had never done them.
In conclusion, it's a documentary that has completely missed its potential and has been ruined by bad editing. I doubt that if it had been given one last review it would have kept its final running time (101 minutes), surely it would have been shorter and above all more enjoyable and entertaining. A pity, since many of those interviewees will never be able to get together in another project like this again.
At first it is a very poorly structured documentary, instead of stopping and going through the movie film in the filmography of Juan Piquer Simón, they are constantly jumping from one to another. For example, they stop talking about "Supersonic Man", to talk about "The Rift", to continue with "Cthulhu Mansion", to return to "The Rift", to go on to "Pieces", to go back to "The Rift" and so with all the movies...
The documentary is poorly finished, it seems more like a quick "rough-cut" that has not been fully reviewed. Sometimes an interviewee appears with one letter less in his first name, to later appear corrected. Some interviewees also have their name appear on a caption that appears and disappears in less than a second, in addition that these captions appear constantly under the interviewees, as if their creator was afraid that the viewer would forget the names after changing from one to another... Many silences and pauses have been left, which could have been cut with image transitions (although that didn't matter because you also found pauses and silences when an interviewee was in voice over). There even a moment in the last third of the documentary when an excerpt from an interview with Juan Piquer Simón appears that leaves it uncut for almost 4 minutes, making it boring and tedious, something that should not be the case since the documentary is dedicated to his work and his person (in addition to the fact that no other interviewee is left so much time on screen). And finally, the occasional sound cuts or abrupt cuts on the image, which, as I already said, could have been eliminated with a simple final revision.
Of all the people that appear, the only two persons that I have left over are Lone Fleming and Sandra Alberti, who contribute ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to the documentary, Sandra appears at the beginning walking through some corridors acting as a ghost, to reappear only at the end, and Lone appears assembling a puzzle that is shown at the beginning of each "chapter" of the documentary. They are totally wasted. Also, I think it would have been more worthwhile having them interviewed, giving them a role that could have been played by other actresses or a models unrelated to the director. Colin Arthur, although he provides a lot of information, I would have allowed him to conduct his interview in English, since unlike Jack Taylor, he's not so fluent in Spanish. In addition that his interventions have not been subtitled, something that he would have helped since there are moments where, I'm sorry, but what he says is not understood...
Lastly, although this is not the documentary's fault, probably due to rights issues or huge amounts of money that they should have asked the director for, NOT A SINGLE SCENE FROM ANY OF THE DIRECTOR'S FILMS IT'S SHOWN. Only posters, photos, newspaper cuts and the occasional behind-the-scenes footage are shown. It's something very surprising since in this kind of documentaries, some footage is always shown, but in this case surely nothing could be done since I doubt that they were given facilities when they were making it. Although it is always a rights issue, such as "The Eastwood Factor", a documentary about Clint Eastwood talking about his career, but since "Warner" was behind it, in that documentary ONLY the movie clips that Clint made for "Warner" appeared, the rest... photos or as if I had never done them.
In conclusion, it's a documentary that has completely missed its potential and has been ruined by bad editing. I doubt that if it had been given one last review it would have kept its final running time (101 minutes), surely it would have been shorter and above all more enjoyable and entertaining. A pity, since many of those interviewees will never be able to get together in another project like this again.