Juan and Carmen are a humble couple living in Madrid. She does the housework and he works as an electrician in a film studio. Their dreams of wellness come true when they win a contest sponsored by a soap brand.

Esa pareja feliz AKA That Happy Couple (1953, Juan Antonio Bardem & Luis García Berlanga).mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 21 min
Size: 	1.68 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1280x720 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	2 699 kb/s
BPP: 	0.122
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch AAC LC @ 253 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/A166A4713EC2309/Esa_pareja_feliz_AKA_That_Happy_Couple_(1953,_Juan_Antonio_Bardem_&_Luis_Garcaa_Berlanga).mkv

Language(s):Spanish
Subtitles:English, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Greek, Bulgarian

The post Juan Antonio Bardem & Luis García Berlanga – Esa pareja feliz (1953) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Spain 1930s. A troupe of performers travel from city to city entertaining audiences and earning a living. The cast includes a magician, a ventriloquist, muscle men, dancers, singers and a full orchestra. The star of the show is Carmen Soler (Trini Alonso) a celebrated singer, now way past her prime, who refuses to retire gracefully and defends her stardom ruthlessly. On her shadow lives and works Ana Marques (Sara Montiel) a younger singer who dreams of the big time and patiently waits for her break.

Varietes.[1971].Juan.Antonio.Bardem.720p.WEBRip.AAC.x264.RIYE.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 33 min
Size: 	7.05 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1280x696 
Aspect ratio:  	1.85:1
Frame rate: 	57.971 fps
Bit rate: 	10.6 Mb/s
BPP: 	0.205
Audio
#1:  	2.0ch AAC LC @ 246 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/54F768A35827102/Varietes._1971_.Juan.Antonio.Bardem.720p.WEBRip.AAC.x264.RIYE.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/F8D6C6D6173A4F4/Varietes.1971.Juan.Antonio.Bardem.720p.WEBRip.AAC.x264.RIYE.en.srt
https://nitro.download/view/CE2EC46A348E9D8/Varietes.1971.Juan.Antonio.Bardem.720p.WEBRip.AAC.x264.RIYE.srt

Language(s):Spanish
Subtitles:English, Spanish

The post Juan Antonio Bardem – Varietés (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
The title refers to the common time for bullfights, and the story involves an ambitious young torero on his way up the ladder of success, and an older one on his way down, a bitter view of the popular Spanish spectacle.
(imdb)

A critical vision of the bullfighting world that starts from the antagonism between two bullfighters who take part in a crucial bullfight for both their careers. One, already in decline and fearful; the other at the height of his career.
(translated from FILMAFFINITY)

920MB | 1h 42m | 512×384 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/5ABAB84B61DD598/A_las_cinco_de_la_tarde.avi
https://nitro.download/view/24769050AB97057/A_las_cinco_de_la_tarde.srt

Language(s):Spanish
Subtitles:English

The post Juan Antonio Bardem – A las cinco de la tarde (1960) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:

In a mansion out in the middle of the country, Ruth lives with her strange stepdaughter Chris. They have a somewhat unusual, codependent relationship, and are waiting for the return of Chris’s father, who abruptly abandoned them some time ago. Chris has additional problems – she was raped while in the shower at school and has violent flashbacks whenever it rains, during which she blacks out and stabs anything in front of her. A handsome drifter comes to stay with them and at first seduces Ruth, but then begins to fall for Chris. Meanwhile, a killer is roaming the countryside and slaughters a retired dancer and an entire family. Could the drifter be responsible?

In some ways similar to Paul Naschy film Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, this is essentially a story about the dysfunctional family relationship between two women and how it is interrupted by the arrival of a sexually charismatic drifter. In both films, a killer just happens to be loose in the background. Ruth’s relationship with Chris is particularly disturbing – there are suggestions that they have a sexual relationship or that Ruth is sexually abusing Chris. She makes it clear about halfway through the film that Chris is the ultimate object of her revenge against Chris’s father. She is doing something to Chris to make sure that she will be a very different person if her father should ever return.

This little seen, underrated film is one of the finest Spanish attempts at a giallo film and deserves a bigger audience. Director Juan Antonio Bardem (father of actor Javier Bardem) also directed Death of a Cyclist and did some uncredited work on A Bell from Hell after its original director, Claudio Guerin, died on set. Screenwriter Santiago Moncada (A Bell from Hell, Cut-Throats Nine) also worked on Mario Bava’s Hatchet for the Honeymoon, another film about an abusive family situation set in a dark, foreboding house with murder in the foreground. Though not stylistically on par with Hatchet, Chris Miller benefits from some lovely cinematography, particularly of the death scenes, shots around the countryside, and inside Ruth and Chris’s foreboding house.

The abrupt murder scenes are eerie and effective, including the first, where a woman is stabbed to death with scissors by someone in a Charlie Chaplin mask, and the second, where an entire family is slaughtered by a raincoat-clad figure with a scythe. The violence is not overly gory or explicit and much of it is implied rather than directly shown. Where Chris Miller really excels is in atmosphere. Liberal use is made of the thunderstorms that drive Chris into fits of violence and the dark corners of the Miller family manse.

The lovely Jean Seberg (Breathless, Saint Joan) is excellent as the beautiful, but conniving Ruth. Seberg allegedly was embarrassed about the role and only agreed to appear in the film for financial reasons. One-time child actress Marisol (Carmen, Blood Wedding, The Last Circus) is able to hold her own against Seberg and possesses a very different kind of beauty – wild, untamed, and dark – compared to Seberg’s reserved, coiffed, and cool blonde looks.

Barry Stokes (Prey) is quite likable as Barney, which puts an effective wrench into automatically believing he is the killer. His character is surprisingly well written, if a bit predictable, though Moncado’s script surprises on occasion. The addition of a drifter feels predictable at first, but Moncado at least attempts to move in a fresh direction, though a direction surprisingly close to Paul Naschy’s character in Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll.

The film’s biggest fault is that the plot does leave some threads unresolved. Who is Barny really? The women eventually discover that he has a connection to Chris’s father, but this detail isn’t further addressed. And the killer’s motivations seem so ridiculous that I was waiting for the whole thing to be a red herring and for the real solution to reveal itself, but alas. We also don’t know why Chris’s father left Ruth (though we can guess) or specifically what Ruth is doing to corrupt Chris. The rape is also another complicated element that is never fully explained or addressed.

Though Chris Miller has a few plot blunders or predictable elements, this can be said of nearly every giallo film. It is sadly not available on region 1 DVD, though there is a decent, if somewhat fuzzy print floating around online. The Corruption of Chris Miller comes highly recommend, particularly for fans of Spanish horror and giallo films.

2.70GB | 1 h 53 min | 1024×432 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/4437E31CB044336/Juan_Antonio_Bardem_-_(1973)_The_Corruption_of_Chris_Miller.mkv

Language(s):English, Spanish
Subtitles:English

The post Juan Antonio Bardem – La corrupción de Chris Miller AKA The Corruption of Chris Miller (1973) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis:
A couple traveling through the countryside strike a man on a bicycle. When they get out of their car to examine him, they find that he is injured but not dead. But instead of helping the man, Juan (Alberto Closas) and Maria Jose (Lucia Bosé) do the unthinkable. They flee – rather than reveal that they have been carrying on a long-term affair.

When they return to Madrid, the couple pay a terrible price for their deception. Guilt begins to gnaw away at them, especially at Juan, who is also experiencing conflict with his young students over an ethical issue at the university where he teaches…

1.73GB | 1h 24mn | 784×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/FD890CFD106F836/Muerte.de.un.ciclista.AKA.Death.of.a.Cyclist.1955.576p.BluRay.x264.AC3.2.0.mkv

Language:Spanish
Subtitles:English (muxed)

The post Juan Antonio Bardem – Muerte de un ciclista AKA Death of a Cyclist (1955) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The Spanish Civil War has been considered one of the most horrendous events in the recent European history and has been depicted by a plethora of writers, philosophers and artists – Hemingway, Picasso and even Guillermo del Toro. But how much do we know about the thirty-five years General Franco ruled in Spain for? Under what conditions did Spaniards live in the 1940s and 50s, for example? This is a much obscure period, due mainly to Franco’s protectionist attitude towards international politics.

If we have a look at the films which were being produced in Spain at the time, we might be at first deceived by a few examples of what has been called (Franco’s) ‘Regime Cinema’ – el cine del Régimen – a series of purely entertaining works that not only avoided tackling the country’s sociopolitical situation but also encouraged escapism (El último cuplé, Tómbola, El pequeño ruiseñor…). If we have a deeper look though, we can see how other not so widely known films dared to challenge the Spanish Establishment of the time. Calle Mayor, written and directed by openly communist director Juan Antonio Bardem is a clear example of this more subversive cinema.

The film starts with an overview of a town. An anonymous narrator tells us this is just a normal town, like there are many others. We follow the camera’s movement until it reaches the ‘calle Mayor’ – the town’s main street. We are introduced to Juan and his friends, who belong to the local middle class. In order to mitigate the boredom produced by the lack of amenities they drink, sing and plot distasteful pranks against other fellow citizens. The group targets sanctimonious spinster Isabel (Betsy Blair) as their next victim. Juan is then challenged to seduce naïve Isabel whose only hope in life is to get married. Isabel falls in love with Juan with a melodramatic passion which seems more appropriate for a teenage girl than a thirty-five year old woman. Realising at one point that the joke has gone too far, Juan turns to his friend Federico (Yves Massard) who wisely advises him to confess the truth to Isabel. Juan is then morally forced to make a decision whose consequences will turn everyone’s lives upside down.

Calle Mayor is a highly influential film still today. Based on the play La señorita de Trévelez by Carlos Arniches, it offers a very bleak vision of provincial society in Spain during Franco’s rule. We helplessly witness Juan and Isabel’s inevitable downfall and eventual social alienation. Meanwhile, the cruel and cunning pranksters never receive any punishment nor are even pointed at as guilty once in the film. They succeed somehow, and get away with it.

Juan Antonio Bardem’s vision of the society of his time was grim, especially when focusing on the – back then new-born – middle classes. This vision was also shared by other Spanish film directors such as Luis García Berlanga (Plácido, 1961) and Luis Buñuel (Le Charme Discret de la bourgeoisie, 1972) who also criticised the privileged classes in their works. — R. MARTÍNEZ (Spanish Film Review Club)

https://nitro.download/view/FAB251436F2052D/Juan_Antonio_Bardem_-_(1956)_Main_Street.mkv

Language(s):Spanish
Subtitles:English

The post Juan Antonio Bardem – Calle Mayor AKA Main Street (1956) first appeared on Cinema of the World.