Luis García Berlanga

Welcome Mr Marshall!

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Singer Carmen, agent Manolo and deaf mayor Don Pablo

How should the world respond to the fact of America? Welcome Mr Marshall! (aka Bienvenido Mister Marshall!) is often rated as one of the best Spanish films ever made and retains its relevance – even though it was made in 1953 – because the fundamentals remain unaltered. America is still a mighty power, Spain relatively subordinate. So how should one small village respond when it hears that a delegation is arriving from the USA, to distribute money from the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuild Europe after the destruction of the Second World War? Open arms or more guardedly? Treating them as liberators or invaders? A good thing or a bad thing? Stir into the … Read more

The Executioner

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The executioner (left) with the undertakers

It’s only towards the end of The Executioner (El Verdugo) that it becomes really obvious what writer/director Luis García Berlanga is up to. Released in 1963 during the Franco era in Spain, when to criticise the regime was to court disaster, it looks to all intents and purposes like a light comedy, maybe like Italian ones starring Marcello Mastroianni, or British ones featuring Leslie Phillips, or the ones Billy Wilder was still reliably turning out in the USA. It focuses on José Luis (Nino Manfredi) a young undertaker in Spain who’d rather be an engineer in Germany, who we meet at a prison where he’s about to take delivery of a body recently … Read more