Jenaro, el de los 14 (1974)

 A simpleton from a small town wins the sports lottery,  and travels to Madrid to collect his prize, getting into all kinds of trouble. He becomes famous and is besieged by everyone with money requests, business propositions, marriage impositions, erotic entrapments, etc. A woman from his home town gives him the Madrid address of her daughter who is supposed to be working as a typist and living in a boarding house; the reality is different.

Vulgar comedy which has many dumb moments (e.g. when people's rhetorical images materialize before the protagonist's eyes), but which achieves, through brute force so to speak, some genuine comicity in its latter section. As is common in many films, including Hollywood ones, the plot resolves into a highly implausible romantic ending, but on second thought who am I to judge?

Rating: 36

Alerta en el cielo (1961)

A boy lives with his family near an American air base in Spain. He is seriously ill and wants to become a pilot. The folks at the air base do their utmost to please the boy and help him.

Tearjerker which seems to have propagandistic purposes concerning Spanish-American relations. It's of little cinematic value, but has some nice sequences of aerial acrobatics.

Rating: 22

El maestro (1957)

 Title of the Italian version: Il maestro...

 U.S. title: The Teacher and the Miracle

A small town middle-aged teacher moves to a big city with his only son, whom he has been raising alone since his wife died. An accident throws him into a depression bout and then a strange kid enters his life.

Arguably, this is a reasonable movie up until its central dramatic event. After that, it moves into the territory of simple-minded religious-ploitation. I guess one could pin the blame on the kind of mentality which thrived in Spain during the 1950s (and for that matter much of the 20th century). What carries the film and somehow raises it above the level of a mere ideological prop for the backward political Spanish regime of that era is the solid performance by its leading actor, who by the way was Italian. Being a Spanish-Italian co-production, this film has two versions which differ somewhat, though I'm not sure either one I watched was in its integral form (the two versions have missing bits in different points, and thus allow one who watches both to have a sense of what the complete movie may have been).

Rating: 37

Les dents longues (1953)

 English title: The Long Teeth

The film narrates the trajectory of an ambitious jounalist from a small town, from his professional beginnings until he becomes editor-in-chief. The conflict between his professional life and his marriage is expounded.

This is a very honest and realistic drama, though not an extremely engaging one. Perhaps the political intrigues which are an important part of the plot will be better understood by reading the novel (which I haven't). But it's an interesting movie all the same, with fine actors and an interesting subject matter.

Rating: 51

O Barão Otelo no Barato dos Bilhões (1971)

 A man from a lower social class but endowed with extraordinary savvy is approached by a crooked businessman with a work proposition: the businessman wants the poor man to help him win the sports lottery.

This film starts out watchable and after about 15 minutes becomes a mess which barely makes sense. They really did not put much effort into conceiving it, though the cast is stellar (within the Brazilian universe, that is) and the musical score is enjoyable.

Rating: 4

Madrugada (1957)

 A man dies in the presence of his mistress, who then concocts a plan to find out who was responsible for his having distanced himself from her in his final days. She summons the deceased man's two brothers and his father to his house on the pretense that he is gravely ill. Once they are all together (plus one of the brothers' wife and daughter and a later uninvited arrival), she puts her plan into action.

Stuffy and slightly absurd drama which is a variation on The Cat and the Canary (of which I know only the premise); it does a fine job of showing why Spanish cinema was then held in such low esteem by critics everywhere.

Rating: 18