Personal Info
Birth date
1921-07-12 (104 Years)
Day of death
2010-11-13
Gender
Male
Known for
Directing
Place of birth
Valencia, España
Also known as
Luis G. Berlanga
Luis Gª Berlanga
Luis García-Berlanga Martí
Berlanga
Луис Гарсия Берланга
Luis García Berlanga
Biography
One of the best known filmmakers in the world and director of some of the most famous films of Spanish cinema, tender in his vision of the characters, but satirical to the point of biting in his social analysis, clearly critical despite the censorship of the Franco regime. He was born in 1921 into a wealthy Valencian family. After the Second World War, he studied at the Escuela Oficial de Cine (IIEC/EOC), where he would later become a professor. There he met Juan Antonio Bardem, and together they made their first film. His narrative ability, together with the sharpness of his satire, bordering on nonsense, made him a popular filmmaker, but also valued by critics. Nevertheless, within his comic line he oscillates between tenderness and the grotesqueness of his choral comedies. Between both extremes are his first films, written in collaboration with Rafael Azcona, in which he develops a black humor, characteristic of both, corrosive denunciations of social hypocrisy and the death penalty. In recent years he was president of the Filmoteca Nacional de España and director of a collection of erotic novels and short stories.
Filmography
Everyone Off to Jail
6.155
Overview:
A prison in Valencia hosts an event recognizing political prisoners jailed during Franco’s reign. The reunion proves more raucous than the organizers intended.Las pirañas
6.25
Overview:
Ricardo is an executive who has great success with women and behaves almost like a play-boy. His wife Carmen, an attractive housewife without children, feels ignored by him and seeks solace from her mother, who proposes Carmen a change in the way she acts in order to not permanently lose her husband or fall into madness.París-Tombuctú
5.7
Overview:
The frustration and vital weariness of Michel des Assantes, a prestigious plastic surgeon in Paris, is unbearable: he has a wife whom he does not love, a son who is foreign to him and friends whom he despises but, at the same time, he is incapable of taking his own life. One day, he buys a bike from a bizarre cyclist who was to make the Paris-Timbuktu route and sets out to make the journey: then, Timbuktu becomes for him the Promised Land.Streetcar for Sale
7
Overview:
This excellent short film written by the magnificent filmmaker duo of Luis García Berlanga and screenwriter Rafael Azcona was to be part of a series entitled Los Pícaros (The Rogues) which was never continued. These two artists were responsible for such masterpieces of Spanish cinema as Plácido and El verdugo (The Executioner). Here, Berlanga and Azcona collaborated for the first time, setting the stage for the post-war "Berlanguiana" vision that would develop. José Luis López Vázquez plays Julián, a seedy swindler, who with his cronies tries to sell a streetcar to a rich but naive farmer, a newcomer to the city. High jinx ensue. With this film begins the great stage of Berlanga's filmmaking in which he mixes a little social criticism and notes of anti-clericalism with a great deal of farce.We Are 18 Years Old
5.4
Overview:
Comedy about the surreal holiday of two teenage Spanish girls, where they meet a bizarre assortment of villains and new friends.Enrique Herreros
6.5
Overview:
The story of Enrique Herreros (1903-1977), cartoonist, advertiser, poster designer, talent manager, actor, producer and filmmaker, and the most daring of mountaineers; the man who, along with his companions from the so-called “other Generation of '27,” brought Hollywood to Madrid's Gran Vía, turning a grey and sinister post-war city into the capital of an incipient and ambitious cultural industry.Strange Voyage
7.302
Overview:
In a small town near Madrid, Paquita and her brother Venancio, both single and with a childish personality, live under the shadow of their bossy older sister, Ignacia, a grumpy old maid.The Executioner
7.569
Overview:
An undertaker gets married to an old executioner's daughter and, although he doesn't like it, must continue the profession of his father-in-law after his retirement.National III
6
Overview:
In order to solve economic problems, "Leguineche" family decide to move to France with their limited belongings.Boyfriend in Sight
5.5
Overview:
In 1914, a young woman is taken to a coastal resort by her parents to find her a suitable husband.Erotic Stories
3.714
Overview:
A set of nine stories whose central theme is eroticism. The different directors of the film deal from philosophical aspects to others that are almost pornographic, but always with a common denominator: sensuality.Placido
7.646
Overview:
In a small Spanish town, during the Christmas holidays, a group of rich old ladies organize a peculiar event that consists of inviting a homeless person to sit down to dinner at their wealthy table. Plácido, a humble worker, is hired by the organizers to participate in a parade with his three-wheeled vehicle, a seemingly simple mission that will not be easy for him to accomplish.National Heritage
7
Overview:
After the death of General Franco, the Leguineche family leaves their estate of Los Tejadillos, where they have remained for decades in voluntary exile, with the purpose of returning to Madrid to actively participate in the social events of the aristocracy and to get closer to the closest circle of the Spanish monarch. The obsession of the old marquis is centered on getting in touch with the most illustrious surnames, to ascend socially and to resume the pomp and courtly life that his family lost a long time ago. To this end, he decides to move into an old palace he owns, located in the center of the capital, but not before overcoming the difficulties posed by his wife, who deeply hates both her husband and her son. To regain control of the palace, the Marquis of Leguineche tries to handicap his wife, arguing an incurable mental illness, and then undertake a reform of the place in order to adapt it to aristocratic life.Moors and Christians
5.7
Overview:
A peculiar family, which owns a nougat factory, decides to set out on a trip to Madrid in order to advertise its products in a Food Fair. Besides the disapproval from the family head and company founder, events are not as expected.Long Live the Bride and Groom
5.7
Overview:
Leo Pozas, native from Burgos and high bank clerk, arrives to a town on the Costa Brava, with his mother to marry Loli. Unexpectedly, Leo's mother died. This may mean the suspension of the wedding, a year of mourning and, perhaps, another relief, so that Leo and Loli hide the corpse of the old betrothal until after the wedding...No somos de piedra
7
Overview:
Lucas, shy and repressed, and sanctimonious Enriqueta are parents of nine children, so he decide to convince her to take the contraceptive pill.Filmmakers vs. Tycoons
6.2
Overview:
How the cinema industry does not respect the author's work as it was conceived, how manipulates the motion pictures in order to make them easier to watch by an undemanding audience or even how mutilates them to adapt the original formats and runtimes to the restrictive frame of the television screen and the abusive requirements of advertising. (Followed by “Filmmakers in Action.”)The Rocket from Calabuch
7.5
Overview:
Professor Hamilton, a naive Nuclear scientist who once thought bombs were good for humanity, realizes his mistake and runs away from his inventions. He hides in Calabuch, a beautiful seaside town where people still believe in humor and friendship.Life Size
5.6
Overview:
When Michel gets the life-sized sex doll he ordered, shipped directly from Japan, he is only intrigued by it at first. Then the silent unresponsiveness of the thing begins to haunt him, and he finds himself reacting to it as if it were an equally unresponsive living woman. As time passes, more and more of his life is spent trying to satisfy or placate its relentless silence, and he goes somewhat mad. He dresses the doll and takes it with him wherever he goes. When his usually very tolerant wife discovers what is going on, her jealousy knows no bounds and she attempts to imitate this threatening love-object. The light-hearted quality of this addle-pated fantasy darkens quickly when various neighborhood men attempt to put the doll to its originally intended use.The Heifer
6.734
Overview:
During the Spanish Civil War a platoon of mismatched Republican soldiers cross the front-line to steal the bull that the enemy is going to fight on the local holiday of the nearby village. In addition to ruining the Nationalist faction's celebration they want the animal in order to butcher it and feed their famished troops. They get caught in the process and have to go through a series of funny and pathetic incidents before they can get back to their side.Por la gracia de Luis
5
Overview:
A walk through the work of Luis García Berlanga (1921-2010) that is neither a documentary nor a narrative movie, but a tribute to one of the greatest directors of Spanish cinema. Anything can happen: the performers are not themselves, but their characters; there are no interviews, but greetings; a series of entrances and exits. A joyful reunion, a celebration of life.Welcome Mr. Marshall!
7.4
Overview:
A small Spanish town, Villar del Río, is alerted to the upcoming visit of American diplomats and its ruling townsmen begin preparations to impress the American visitors, in the hopes of benefiting under the Marshall Plan. Hoping to demonstrate the side of Spanish culture with which the visiting foreign officials would be more familiarized, the Castilian citizens don unfamiliar Andalusian costumes, hire a renowned flamenco performer, and re-decorate their town in Andalusian style, meantime waiting for their uncertain arrival.Blasco Ibáñez
6
Overview:
A biography of a visceral republican, from his literary and political beginnings in Valencia until fame led him to travel the world and enjoy life's pleasures.The Invisible Half: Luis García Berlanga's The Executioner
NYR
Overview:
Documentary about Spanish director Luis García Berlanga's "The Executioner" (1963)Paseo por una guerra antigua
4
Overview:
Madrid, Spain. A mutilated man, a war veteran, walks, leaning on a crutch, through the stadium of the Ciudad Universitaria, a place that still preserves in walls and buildings the terrifying traces of one of the bloodiest battles of the Spanish Civil War.Acting
2025Berlanga, fanáticamente contradictorio as Self (Archive footage)
2022El joven Berlanga as Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
2012The Invisible Half: Luis García Berlanga's The Executioner as Interviewee
2011Enrique Herreros as Self - Filmmaker (archive footage)
2009Por la gracia de Luis as Himself
2005Calle Bardem as Interviewee
2005Filmmakers vs. Tycoons as Self
2004From Kuleshov to Berlanga as Himself
2000La ley del cholo II as Unknown
1998Cuando el mundo se acabe te seguiré amando as Luis Berlanga
1985A la pálida luz de la luna as Himself
1984De mica en mica s’omple la pica as Peris
1981A Tied Blasé as Unknown
1980Erotic Stories as Hombre del metro
1969Sharon vestida de rojo as Víctor
1968Tuset Street as Aparicio
1968Días de viejo color as Mr. Marshall
1968No somos de piedra as Unknown
1967Las pirañas as Film Buff
1965October in Madrid as Unknown
1959Streetcar for Sale as Comprador de la baliza aerostática (uncredited)
Directing
2002El sueño de la maestra ... Director
1999París-Tombuctú ... Director
1997Blasco Ibáñez (2 Episodes) ... Director
1994Villarriba y Villabajo (25 Episodes) ... Director
1993Everyone Off to Jail ... Director
1987Moors and Christians ... Director
1985The Heifer ... Director
1982National III ... Director
1981National Heritage ... Director
1978The National Shotgun ... Director
1974Life Size ... Director
1970Long Live the Bride and Groom ... Director
1967Las pirañas ... Director
1963The Executioner ... Director
1963Death and the Lumberjack ... Director
1962The Four Truths ... Director
1962Placido ... Director
1957Miracles of Thursday ... Director
1956The Rocket from Calabuch ... Director
1954Boyfriend in Sight ... Director
1953That Happy Couple ... Director
1953Welcome Mr. Marshall! ... Director
1950El circo ... Director
1949Paseo por una guerra antigua ... Director
Writing
2002El sueño de la maestra ... Writer
1999París-Tombuctú ... Writer
1997Blasco Ibáñez (2 Episodes) ... Writer
1993Everyone Off to Jail ... Writer, Story
1987Moors and Christians ... Screenplay
1985The Heifer ... Screenplay, Story
1982National III ... Writer
1981National Heritage ... Writer
1978The National Shotgun ... Screenplay
1977Una noche embarazosa ... Writer
1974To My Dear Mother on Her Birthday ... Novel
1974Life Size ... Writer
1970Long Live the Bride and Groom ... Writer
1967Las pirañas ... Screenplay
1964Strange Voyage ... Idea
1963The Executioner ... Screenplay
1962Placido ... Screenstory, Screenplay
1959Streetcar for Sale ... Writer
1958Familia provisional ... Writer
1957Miracles of Thursday ... Screenplay, Screenstory
1956The Rocket from Calabuch ... Screenplay
1954Boyfriend in Sight ... Screenplay
1953That Happy Couple ... Screenplay
1953Welcome Mr. Marshall! ... Screenplay
1949Paseo por una guerra antigua ... Screenplay
Creator
1994Villarriba y Villabajo ... Creator
Production
1959We Are 18 Years Old ... Associate Producer