Movies made in Spain

IMÁGENES

INTRODUCTION

Orson Welles used to say that Spain isn’t so much a country as a continent, due to its wide variety of unspoilt scenery, which is why he made so many films in Spain.

Cinema tourism (set-jetting) is a booming industry, as the hotels and restaurants of New Zealand will happily tell you after the deluge of visitors wanting to see where ‘Lord of the Rings’ was made.

This book contains articles in chronological order about the locations used in more than 700 English language films made wholly or partly in Spain, and it has been published to promote the Spanish tourism and cinema industries.

I have lived in Spain since 1981, and this book is my thank you to my host country. It would not have been possible without the unselfish help of many people who have taken the time to provide information when they probably had far more important things to do. Their contributions have been recognised throughout the book.

There are few important directors or stars that have not filmed in Spain, creating a cinematic heritage here which may explain why Spanish actors and directors are so successful today.

The book attempts to show you where different scenes were shot, which famous monuments were used, where the stars stayed and what amusing anecdotes are still told by thousands of Spanish extras.

Hopefully the book will help attract a more culturally demanding visitor to Spain, reducing the excessive dependence on sun, sand and sangria; although everyone has the right to a little relaxation.

The book is a neverending story; as we publish, new films are being made all the time and new information comes to light. However, at some point all this needs to be made available.

There will be mistakes, but then this project has received no financial backing of any kind and is the result of many years work, with a little help from my friends, and not much from the official agencies that should have contributed.

Technical details about the films are easily available on www.imdb.com and are therefore not repeated here.

Note: The year given with each film corresponds to the release date.

Dedicated to my wife Mage, and my sons James, Dani and Mark

1920-1949

Rogues and Romance (1920)

In the days long before Franco would happily loan his period piece army to American producers, the Kingdom of Spain would not allow fight scenes to be filmed on its soil, and consequently a Spanish village was built for this film in Larchmont, New York State.

Some non-violent scenes were however permitted in Algeciras, Cadiz, Granada, Sevilla and Malaga, where the mountains of Ronda were a popular place to film films about banditry. And for banditry!

On the other hand, perhaps it was the subject matter, about a Spanish revolutionary abducting a rich, American girl that triggered the refusal.

This silent movie was directed by George B Seitz, who also played the part of the rich father.

Blood and Sand (1922)

This silent movie (although they would have been speaking English if we could have heard them) starring Rudolph Valentino, was set in Sevilla, although largely shot in Hollywood studios by Fred Niblo, who made the first version of ‘Ben Hur’ among other things.

According to Francisco Perales, Sevilla University teacher and author of books about Hollywood in Spain, a second film unit was sent to Sevilla for background shots, and so we can see the famous Giralda tower and Calle Mateos Gago, with its typical orange trees (not so orange in black and white of course, nor rustling pleasantly in the whispering breeze, come to think of it).

The film is one of several based on the book by the Valencian writer Vicente Blasco Ibañez.

The film contains all the kitsch of films of that epoch, with exaggerated gestures and intense, moody staring at the camera. In an early scene we see one of Juan Gallardo’s (Valentino’s) friends mortally wounded by a bull, and Juan, instead of helping him, rushes off, kills the bull and only then rushes back for his friend’s final seconds. Priorities are priorities after all!

The film is all about rags to riches, with our hero living in a hovel with strategically placed brickwork protruding from the broken plaster just to prove the point, and an array of colourful characters dressed in carefully-crafted rags.

The soundtrack couldn’t have cost much, consisting of droning organ music, as if somebody were working up the energy to compose a dirge.

Our hero is too weak to wholly love the woman he loves, falling inevitably into the wicked clutches of the nefarious Doña Sol. Doña Sol’s servant is perhaps the most intriguing character, dressed like something out of Arabian Nights, or possibly Arabian Mornings After, and of uncertain gender, it prances around casting meaningful looks that turn out to have nothing to do with anything; meaning nothing as Shakespeare pointed out.

The various bullfights, although made in a studio, are interspersed with real bullfight footage, presumably shot by director Fred Niblo’s second crew. A large advertisement for El Aguila beer, whose first brewery was opened in Madrid in 1900, is clearly visible in one scene.

The original brewery in Calle Ramírez de Prado, nº 3 was closed in 1985 and is now a regional library.

After making enquiries at the Library, bullfighting enthusiasts working there told me that the bullring images could have been filmed at Pamplona (Navarra), Alicante or Zamora bullrings, although it might also have been the now demolished Fuente del Berro bullring in Madrid.

The Spanish Jade (1922)

It is amazing to think that when Alfred Hitchcock was just starting out in the film business, that he came to Spain, to Sevilla in fact, as a location scout, when working as title designer on this silent movie, which is officially classified as ‘lost’.

Among the ‘Spanish’ cast of this American film were British actor David Powell and Australian Marc McDermott.

Canadian John S Robertson directed. He was the inspiration for the song ‘Old John Robertson’ on the legendary ‘Notorious Byrd Brothers’ album by The Byrds.

The Bandolero (1924)

Although a silent movie, this was one of the first American productions made in Spain (and Cuba), and was shot entirely in English, but with subtitles obviously.

Pedro de Cordoba, Gustav von Seyffertitz, and Renée Adorée starred in a film about ravishing bandits (bandits who ravish I mean to say), directed by Tom Terriss.

Manuel Granado, a young Argentine actor was actually gored by a bull in the bullring at Cordoba during shooting; footage which found its way opportunistically into the final cut. Ouch!

Duck Soup (1933)

One town where Hollywood has left a lasting impression is the village of Loja, situated in the mountains of Granada province.

Although the Marx Brothers were never there, for some reason lost in the mists of time, an image of the village appears at the beginning of the film, supposedly portraying the kingdom of Sylvania.

The place from where the photo was taken has since been renamed ‘Mirador (viewpoint) de Sylvania’, and silhouettes of three of the Brothers have been erected there to commemorate its brief moment of glory.

Mussolini banned this film about political misdeeds, which is always a good reason for revisiting it.

Grand Canary (1934)

Despite the name, the film was mostly shot on the southern, sunnier shores of Tenerife Island rather than Gran Canaria, from which it takes its name.

In the film the island is suffering from an epidemic of Yellow Fever, with just a dash of cholera to add variety, which isn’t the best kind of tourist promotion, but then no news is bad news.

Maybe the producers confused ‘yellow’ with ‘tanned’, which is not surprising on an island that averages 255 sunny days per year.

Based on the novel of the same name by A.J. Cronin and directed by Irving Cummings, the film tells the story of a doctor in disgrace who heads for a new life in tropical climes, only to find sweaty love, jealousy and sickness.

The Spanish authorities were not amused by the film, and diplomatic protests were registered about the poor image of the Canaries and, perhaps worst of all, the positioning of Spain’s highest mountain in Gran Canaria island instead of Tenerife, where it can usually be found.

The doctor was played by Warner Baxter, who was not only the first American to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also lived through the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

Desire (1936)

Gary Cooper is on his way from Paris to San Sebastian in Guipúzcoa for a holiday, when he runs across jewel thief Marlene Dietrich, who uses him to smuggle some jewels into Spain (Cooper is only smuggling cigarettes, although his greatest crime here is his singing).

Once there, after an eventful trip in which donkeys play a prominent part, they meet up in the Hotel Continental Palace, (opened in 1884 and closed in 1972).

Unfortunately the stars never made it to Spain in the year for whom the bells tolled, although a film crew was despatched to film the images that formed a backdrop.

As a portal for Spanish tourism, Cooper’s phrase what a country! What eggs! must be one of the most original tourist slogans ever invented, and one that surprisingly hasn’t been borrowed by the Spanish authorities. Yet.

About half an hour into the film we see brief scenes of San Sebastian’s famous curving Concha beach, its promenade ‘Paseo Nuevo’ with its tamarind trees and the Alderdi Eder square, where the Town Hall stands.

San Sebastian must have been extraordinarily international in the 30s; according to the film, the local newspaper, ‘Diario de San Sebastian’, was published entirely in English (which is even more amazing when considering that it had ceased publishing back in 1887), and the customs officers who discover Cooper’s cigarettes speak impeccable Oxford English.

The looming Urgull Mountain can also briefly be seen in the film, with its castle and English cemetery, a reminder of the siege of the city in 1813, when the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon’s troops (and then rather churlishly burnt the town).

When Cooper and Dietrich leave the hotel they drive through some ‘typical’ Spanish scenery, replete with rocky crags and rushing rivers.

They also drive out of Toledo, across the San Martín bridge with the castle of San Servando (now a Youth Hostel) behind them. Their journey ends at the Villa Rubio in non-existent Guadarale.

The Bullfighters (1945)

‘The Bullfighters,’ directed by Mal St. Clair, stars none other than Laurel and Hardy in their penultimate film together, and in which Stan has to face up to the bulls down Mexico way.

The famous duo never actually made it to Spain, but according to Ramon Herrera, author of ‘La Cineclopedia Navarra’, the film contains some documentary inserts from the early 40s of bulls being released in the bullring of Pamplona, Navarra, following the famous bull run of the festival of San Fermin, made internationally famous by the writings of Ernest Hemingway.

1950s

Black Jack (1950)

George Sanders, who would later make several films in Spain and finally commit suicide here, (although that kind of tourism is not encouraged), is the star, playing a drug smuggler in a film that suffered all sorts of setbacks during seven months of filming in Mallorca.

Among the turquoise waters of Mallorca’s glorious coves is Cala Barques, situated seven kilometres from Pollença, separated from Cala Clara by Punta dels Ferrers and belonging to the four beaches called Cala Sant Vicenç, the setting for this film.

The spectacular ravine and river at Torrent de Pareis was also used, and would become a popular set for many films to come, including ‘Cloud Atlas’.

Many Spanish performers, including the legendary flamenco singer Lola Flores, participated in the film’s making.

One popular cabaret, later dance hall and discothèque, installed in an old windmill at Es Jonquet, even took its name from the film: ‘Jack el Negro’ in 1952.

‘Black Jack’ was directed by Frenchman Julien Duvivier, with Patricia Roc taking the female lead.

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)

Just as in Barcelona’s port a statue of Christopher Columbus looks out to sea, so from the heights of the Vila Vella castle on the Costa Brava’s Tossa de Mar, Girona, a statue of a scantily clad Ava Gardner has stared moodily out to sea since 2000.

In April 1950 that most beautiful of all animals was in Spain working on this film with James Mason.

Gardner may have been the best sexual beast for the job, or the studios may have wanted to put a few pants between her and her married lover Frank Sinatra.

Whatever the reason, Gardner spent most of her time filming the beach scenes at El Castell between Tossa de Mar and Palamós, while the interior scenes looked down upon the beach behind the emblematic towers of the castle; although this is in fact impossible, as there is nowhere in Tossa from where you could look down at that angle. It was in fact a studio fabrication.

The surrealist painter Man Ray contributed a painting, designed a chess set and did some of the still photography, which was after all shot in the town where Chagall had lived in the thirties; information not unknown to the art loving American director Albert Lewin.

Lewin chose Tossa over his original choices of Greece or Italy after a meeting with the Catalan businessman Albert Puig Palau in London in 1949. Palau, a film buff himself, convinced Lewin to visit the Costa Brava, and the die was cast.

The story does in fact take place in Spain, in the mythical seaport of Esperanza, which means ‘Hope,’ where the ghost of the Flying Dutchman, who has given up all hope (clever?), played spectrally by James Mason, becomes the object of Ava’s lust, when she’s not seducing her daily brace of bullfighters.

Mason plays the ghost with the passion of an old English butler, bringing a new dimension to the concept of stiffness, seemingly standing at eternal attention.

When Mason says I love you Pandora, he speaks like a true Englishman, making his declaration of love sound like a curt refusal to pay a library fine.

The love story contains a ‘ménage a cinq,’ with smouldering looks all around in what passes for passion among Anglo-Saxons. The five include a Spanish bullfighter, Mario Cabré, who, even if he plays it as rigidly as all the rest, does at least have the good taste and criteria to stab Mason in the back, only to be gored himself by a bull, which does not appear in the credits despite a welcome performance.

The bullfight took place in the ‘Plaza de Toros’ in Girona, now demolished, and the locals, unlike the citizens of Tossa, who were paid the princely sum of 25 pesetas a day to participate in the film, actually paid for the privilege of watching the ‘Corrida’.

It is never quite explained what a large group of obviously well-off, tuxedoed ex-pats are doing in Esperanza, a Catalan village (the fishermen are actually speaking the banned at the time Catalan language when they find the bodies at the beginning) or how their luxurious surroundings are integrated with an otherwise fairly poor fishing village, whose only bar looks and sounds suspiciously Andalusian, complete with gypsies dancing flamenco, one of which was a famous dancer of the time, La Pillina.

In real life the stars occupied suites at the Hotel Peninsular in Girona, an advertisement for which can be seen in the scenes shot in the town bullring. Ava Gardner had suite 103, although the press insinuated that she spent her nights in room 53 with the film’s bullfighter Mario Cabré, one of many Iberian machos who succumbed to her charms and liberal favours over the years. News of their passion reached Frank Sinatra in Hollywood, causing him to grab a plane to Spain, and arrive with a large emerald necklace (the colour of envy) and a vile temper.

Photos of Sinatra, accompanied by musician James Van Heusen, visiting the Villa Vella castle abound in Tossa, as do rumours and misinformation.

He finally caught up with Ava at Las Gavinas Hotel in S’Agora, and whether this reunion resolved the problem caused by Ava’s ability to turn brave bullfighters into clinging children, is not known.

Gardner would later write in her auto-biography that she found Cabré presumptuous, proud and noisy, although she added that after a night full of stars, drinking and flamenco, she woke up the next morning in bed with him.

Tossa came off better in her book; she remembered it as having shady squares and bubbling fountains, with market stalls everywhere full of fish.

The Peninsular Hotel in Calle Sant Francesc, is run by Asunció Niccolazzi, whose grand-father had the dubious pleasure of serving Ava breakfast in her room. Her great grandfather had founded the hotel in 1853.

Surprisingly it was the presence of so many Americans that saw orange juice introduced onto the hotel breakfast menu, and Ava apparently ate nothing but strawberries, only using her room to change.

Asunció told me that she was present when Ava and Mario first met, in her hotel, and how he blushed when she kissed him on the cheek, maintaining that their romance was in reality an exercise in marketing.

Asunció, who spent two and a half years interned in an air force base during the civil war, is full of anecdotes about the event that introduced Girona and Tossa to the world at large, and about the uproar that the making of the film caused in a city where nothing ever happened.

Girona now has a Cinema Museum, which is probably not unconnected with the events that took place there during the spring of 1950.

Finding out where the stars stayed in Tossa isn’t easy, and many locals have their own version, but a chat with the town archivist David Morè clarified that James Mason stayed at a little town house called Casa Draper at number 3 Calle San Josep, whereas Ava was higher up the hill in a villa called Can Batista.

The technical staff stayed at the Hotel Ancora, now demolished and replaced by apartments and a car park, and at Hotel Rovira, which still stands along the seafront in Passeig de Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer, although much expanded. The original building is the part to the left of the main door as you enter.

It was in the Rovira that the team would have their lunches, and would be taught by the landlady, Antonieta how to eat a crab without losing dignity or clean trousers.

The datedness of the film gives us some thrilling moments, like when Stephen (Nigel Patrick) leans over his car in the garage smoking a cigarette as flammable liquids pour out of the damaged engine. No doubt contractual obligations to the tobacco industry had to be fulfilled.

Stephen too is in love with Pandora, and she persuades him to push his favourite sports car off a cliff to prove his love to her after a whirlwind drive along the coast road just north of Tossa. Later she allows him to recover and repair the car, proving (to her) that he doesn’t really love her after all, and that women are really not so complicated.

Pandora was, in Greek myth, the first mortal woman, bestowed by Zeus upon humanity, whose curiosity in opening her box brought evil into the world, although at least she never asked anyone to give up their favourite car.

One place where Ava is remembered is the Hotel Tonet in the Plaça Església, where photos of her stay in Tossa are exhibited.

Penny Princess (1952)

Described by newcomer Dirk Bogarde as being as funny as a baby’s coffin, Penny Princess was filmed in Catalonia in the Natural Park of Montseny on the border between Barcelona and Girona provinces, and in Mallorca, both of which represented a Kingdom called Lompidorra, located fortunately for us very precisely in the film at the second turn to the right after you pass Mont Blanc.

New York shop-girl, Yolande Donlan, inherits this small European principality in true Grace Kelly style but without the marriage, and meets a London department store cheese salesman, Dirk Bogarde. Between them they design a mixture of cheese and Schnapps, which they call Schneeze, designed to boost the local economy.

The plot doesn’t get much better, and the outcome is inevitable, but at least the scenery is nice.

Val Guest directed, and later married Yolande.

Babes in Bagdad (1952)

The star of this Arabian fantasy was Charlie Chaplin’s very own Paulette Godard, who unfortunately didn’t bring silence to a movie with appalling acting and degrading dialogue.

There is an early suggestion of feminism in a film that includes among its actors both Lees: Gypsy Rose and Christopher, who plays a slave dealer in a black silk dress, as he remembered it.

While in Spain, Gypsy Rose Lee lost a husband called Julio but gained a cat called Gaudí, named after the famous Catalan architect. Gaudí’s city, Barcelona, was one of the locations, where shooting took place for seven months at studios in Montjuic.

Director Edgar Ulmer was forced to ‘adopt’ a Spanish co-director in order to gain a state subsidy for a film he didn’t even want to make.

Decameron Nights (1953)

The film is an adaptation of Bocaccio’s ‘Decameron’ starring Joan Fontaine with studio work in England and locations for authentic Italian scenery filmed in the Moorish Alhambra palace of Granada, with the actors staying at the Hotel Alhambra Palace.

The walls of Ávila open the film as the inhabitants of Florence flee from a mercenary army and Boccaccio arrives to teach us about love.

When he rides from Ávila/Florence in search of Fiametta (Fontaine), the aqueduct of Segovia can be seen in the background as he approaches her house.

Later, when Fontaine plays a female doctor who saves the king’s life, the locals celebrate his salvation dancing beneath the Alcázar castle of Segovia.

There were also some scenes in Sitges, just south of Barcelona. Local cinema expert Francesc Borderia, who used to run a cinema in the town and has presented a weekly radio programme about the cinema, told us that filming took place in the square in front of the emblematic church of Sant Bartomeu i Santa Tecla (where you can today see a cannon and a plaque claiming that it was used to see off a British fleet, damn them!) and on the steps leading up to it known as the Escalinata; both symbols of Sitges, as well as on the nearby Ribera Beach, where actress Joan Fontaine disembarks during the section of the film dedicated to the tale of Paganino the Pirate, who kidnaps Fontaine, and inevitably falls in love with her.

A beach scene was also used featuring the Sant Francesc beach at Blanes, Girona, just below the town’s Botanic Gardens. The beach portrays part of an island infested by pirates who make off with young girls that take their fancy.

Hugo Fregonese was the director, and collaborator John Cabrera, who sadly passed away in Denia in 2014, told us about how an electrician was stopped just in time as he was about to hammer a six inch nail into the priceless mosaic walls of the Alhambra Palace.

Our Girl Friday (1953)

Rich girl Sadie Patch played by Joan Collins is shipwrecked in the Pacific and ends up along with three companions on a desert island, which is in reality pacific, stressless Mallorca.

One companion is a drunken Kenneth More playing a ‘legless’ Irish sailor.

The comedy revolves around who will get the girl after all the men commit themselves to not try; as men do.

The main site for filming was Peguera, 20 kilometres west of the capital Palma.

‘Our Girl Friday’ was the first of many films that Dennis O’Dell worked on in Spain. His daughter Denise O’Dell would later follow in his footsteps and set up her own Spanish production company, collaborating in the making of many famous films made in Spain.

That Man from Tangiers (1953)

The man in question is an imposter, who persuades a young, bored American girl to marry him.

The girl originally planned to go to Sevilla, and she does indeed yo-yo between that city and Tangiers in her attempts to extricate herself from her plight.

The third angle of this love triangle is Spanish actress Sara Montiel, who would later charm the pants off many a Gary Cooper and marry Anthony Mann, director of Made in Spain classics such as ‘El Cid’ and ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’.

Very little filming was actually done in Tangier; in fact the Casbah in the film was built on land adjacent to the Chamartin studio in Madrid.

Malaga (Fire Over Africa) (1954)

Maureen O’Hara stars as Joanna Dane, a former O.S.S. operator sent to Tangier by the American authorities to investigate a powerful ring of smugglers.

Most of the action is set in Tangier, with a brief spell in Gibraltar, and the climax is a gun battle between the Tangier police and the smugglers on the North African shore of the Mediterranean; all of which was filmed in and around Malaga, the first Spanish city to have a British Cemetery, by Royal Decree in 1831, and where the grave of writer Gerald Brenan can be found.

During one chase scene there is a moment when we can observe at the entrance to the port, a cart, shaped like a boat, from which sweets are sold. This was not a prop, but a familiar sight to all the people of Malaga at the time.

As in ‘Casablanca’, a bar features considerably in the story. The bar is called ‘Frisco’ in the film, but in reality was El Refugio, in Calle Alcazabilla.

One location was the Paseo Reding, named after the local Napoleonic War hero General Reding, victor of the Battle of Bailén. The Hotel Miramar, where the main members of the crew stayed, was situated in this street.

The Black Knight (1954)

England’s gonna be invaded! exclaims Alan Ladd without a hither, thither,sire or sooth, and we know we’re in trouble.

Fortunately, most of England’s key castles appear to be a mere five minutes gallop away from each other, and so the whole thing is sorted out and Alan gets the girl.

Ladd stars as a medieval blacksmith at the time of King Arthur, fulfilling the American dream by working his way from rags to riches by killing people (nobly of course). Many have linked the film’s ideology to the prevailing McCarthyism of the epoch, especially the treachery from within, which works in favour of foreign powers. The historic authenticity is challenging even to the average schoolboy as Saracens, Cornishmen and Vikings all compete to invade Arthurian England and impale themselves on Ladd’s sword.

The locations include Ávila, in which the medieval streets and the town gate (Puerta de Alcázar) feature, and the final battle also takes place beneath its walls.

Part of his duelling takes place in the castle of Manzanares el Real near Madrid, where Ladd in his gothic helmet cuts them down like so many daffodils on and off the battlements of this well conserved castle.

Speaking of helmets, Arthur’s Knights, who don’t exactly come across as fast thinkers, wear an array of helmetry that would put Darth Vader to shame.

The castle of Guadamur, built in the province of Toledo in 1468, was also used, and appears at the very beginning, representing the home of the Earl of Yeovil before it is burnt down by Saracens dressed as Vikings.

In 1502 this castle was home to two of Spain’s most colourful royals, Felipe el Hermoso and Juana la Loca (Beautiful Phil and Crazy Jane-although it loses something in translation).

Pedro A Alonso, who runs the information office in Guadamur, informed me that local girls, including his own mother-in-law to be, were not allowed to participate in the film due to their excessive cleavage, considered outrageous at the time in puritan Spain.

Not content with showing some of Spain’s finest castles, the producers did what Hollywood would do forever more, fusioning the walls of Ávila with the frequently used Alcázar castle of Segovia to make one mega-castle, which is Camelot.

Mister Arkadin (1954)

Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles) has a castle in Spain, and it turns out to be the famous Alcázar Castle of Segovia, under whose turrets the Catholic Monarchs Isabel and Fernando married before setting out on the reconquest of Spain.

Segovia’s other emblematic monument, the impressive Roman Aqueduct, also features prominently in the film, which is all about a whirlwind race around the world to obtain information about Arkadin’s past; a plot not too dissimilar from ‘Citizen Kane.’

Spain’s famous Easter penitent processions with Ku Klux Klan garbed sinners in bare-footed, torch-light columns and Flamenco music passing as religious dirges portray a period perspective of Spain, as do the herds of goats huddling along the main street.

When Van Stratten and Raina first arrive at the castle, with an airplane flying overhead, Welles mixes exteriors of the Alcázar with shots of the much filmed nearby medieval village of Pedraza, especially its main square.

Once inside the castle, where Arkadin holds a masked ball, we are in fact inside the Colegio de San Gregorio in Valladolid, witnessing a Goyaesque performance, mostly by university students, among the spiralling columns of the cloister and the ornate staircase and first floor gallery.

Curiously, while the Alcázar is usually a background feature in most of the films where it appears, in Mister Arkadin we are allowed onto the terraces to see the expansive views of Castilla all around as Arkadin reveals his plan to Van Statten.

Mister Arkadin was also filmed in Madrid, including the façade of the famous El Prado Museum, and the port of Barcelona at the beginning.

Among the hotels where Welles did his planning, sleeping and generally bad behaving were The Palace, the Castellana Hilton and the Carlton.

Among the extras used in this scene was the later to be famous Spanish writer Miguel Delibes, a job for which he was happy to be paid 10 pesetas and a ham roll.

Filming began on the 25th of January 1954. The Hotel Gavina on Girona’s Costa Brava at S’Agora pretended to be a hotel in Mexico.

The story has many elements of Harry Lime, although fewer sewers, and was in fact part of a broader project around that character.

King’s Rhapsody (1955)

A massive flop for a fading Errol Fynn, who does an ‘Edward VIII’; abdicating for love, although he later marries lovelessly out of a sense of duty.

‘Murania’ is the kingdom and the songs of Ivor Novello add a touch of class to some dull royals.

Errol Flynn’s presence caused a sensation during the week spent in Sitges, Barcelona, where many local people earned as much as 15 pesetas and a ham roll as extras, including a local man playing the Bishop who presided over Flynn’s wedding.

The red carpeted staircase known locally as ‘La Escalinata de la Punta’ plays a prominent part in the film’s opening wedding scene, although when we move inside the church we are in fact transferred to a completely different site, the interior of mountaintop Montserrat Monastery, and the weirdly shaped mountains over which the credits roll are also Montserrat, a sacred place for the Catalan people.

Another location, very near the church is ‘el Racó de la Calma’ (literally ‘peaceful corner’) a delightful little square among the little white houses of the old town.

Also used was the seaside promenade el Passeig de la Ribera, where one of Flynn’s passionate love scenes was filmed under a full moon with swaying palms and breaking waves in evidence.

The fascination of Americans for Sitges also affected Douglas Fairbanks; both Senior and Junior were in the town in the early 30s, staying at the Terramar Hotel at the southern end of the beach, where they were planning a project using exteriors in the area, a plan brought to an end by the advent of the Spanish Civil War.

It was in fact during the 1950s that Flynn chose Illetes, in Mallorca, as a good place to raise a family. He had a mansion in Cala Marina which was known by the locals as ‘Es Molí de’n Errol Flynn’ and a yacht named Zaca, which he moored in the Palma Royal Sailing Club. In his final days he established his permanent residence there with Patricia Wymore, his last wife.

In 1985 Calvià town council paid him homage by inviting his widow, Patrice Wymore to visit the area and also unveiled a plaque to him beside the Hotel Albatros, where she lodged.

All that remains now of Flynn’s old home is a mythological animal protruding from the wall of the windmill tower in a square in front of where the house used to be.

Flynn had first arrived in Mallorca in 1950 with Patrice Wymore, who he had just married in Montecarlo, and was on his way to Gibraltar when a storm forced them to take shelter on the northern shore of Mallorca. They then followed the coast to Palma and liked it so much that they promised to return.

Richard III (1955)

The film began shooting with the final battle scene, on the sun-baked fields at Torrelodones, Madrid; scenes that involved two and a half months of shooting.

Laurence Olivier proved his mettle by carrying on during one scene, despite having been authentically pierced by an arrow in the leg.

John Cabrera, who worked in the photography department during shooting in Spain, told us that the archer brought over from the UK to make the shot, was being wound up by the crew so much before firing, that the shot went wrong, right into Laurence’s leg.

John also mentioned that ‘Bosworth’ was in fact pasture land for bulls, and that they were chased off the battlefield on more than one occasion.

In her book about Olivier’s visits to Spain, Margarida Araya publishes a photo showing that Franco’s cross on top of the ‘Valley of the Fallen’ (Valle de los Caidos) actually appears in the distance in the film.

Central Spain with its olives and carobs doesn’t exactly capture the essence of the green fields of the merry English Midlands at Bosworth, but as this was no war of roses, it suffices.

That Lady (1955)

Filming took place at the royal palace built by King Felipe II, El Escorial Monastery, north west of Madrid and at the Roman Aqueduct and Alcázar castle of Segovia.

The Alcázar purports to be the Palace of the Duke of Pastrana in Guadalajara, which, although still standing, was not used; probably the real thing was considered too unrealistic. The Escorial on the other hand was used for the scenes depicting King Felipe II.

When the Princess of Éboli is to be put into the Torre de Pinto, the tower seen from the distance is in fact that of the Torre de los Dones, a castle now perched over a motorway at Torrelodones, near Madrid.

Paul Scofield made his film debut as Felipe II of Spain and won a BAFTA award as most promising young actor in this film. Olivia de Havilland stars in the title role as Ana de Mendoza, Princess of Éboli, and Christopher Lee appears in one of his earliest roles.

Contraband Spain (1955)

A robbery in a watch factory takes place on the Pyrenees border, and then we move to downtown Barcelona, where we see La Rambla in an introductory flurry of images, and later Richard Greene, who took time off from playing Robin Hood on TV to make this film, follows the baddies, like him travelling in a taxi, until they get out in Plaza Real with its arcaded pavements.

In the valleys of Barcelona province, filming also took place in Sant Celoni and in Caldes de Monbui.

The seaside resort of Blanes also got a look in, and there is a lot of driving to and from the French town of Urdos across the border from Girona province. The iron bridge that appears when the police find the robbers’ car is in fact the Urdos Viaduct.

Thunderstorm (1955)

Although shot in English, the film was a Spanish production, directed by John Guillermin and Alfonso Acebal. The latter would later work on the David Niven version of ‘Around the World in 80 Days.’

‘Thunderstorm’ was shot around the village of Mundaka (Vizcaya), famous now as a surfing centre, and tells the story of a blonde woman washed up on its beach, who turns a few heads in the village.

The Spanish Gardener (1956)

Based on A.J. Cronin’s 1950 novel of the same name, The Spanish Gardener is a film about the up and down sides of relationships. Michael Hordern plays Harrington Brande, a diplomat who moves to Spain with his young son Nicholas (Jon Whiteley) following the break up of his marriage. When Brande hires local gardener José (Dirk Bogarde), Nicholas finds a sympathetic friend, unlike his rigid father, who then becomes jealous.

The Spanish Gardener was filmed in Girona on the Spanish Costa Brava at S’Agaro in spring 1956.

The scenes showing a game of fronton, a Spanish version of squash, were filmed at the Planassa (explanade) of Palamós, by the port. Here we see Bogarde winning the match for his team, much to the chagrin of Hordern, miffed by his son’s enthusiasm for José.

The Consul’s mansion is Mas Juny at the Platja del Castell, Palamós, owned at the time by industrialist Puig Palau, the same man who convinced Albert Lewin to film ‘Pandora and the Flying Dutchman’ on the Costa Brava.

The version of fronton played is in fact the Basque version, with curled wicker racquets, which questions the abilities of the researchers. The athletic Bogarde is seen jumping and falling in style, although always with his back to the camera when full strokes are observed, suggesting that a double may have been used.

Also featured in the film are the 18th century Arc de Sant Benet at Sant Feliu and the stone bridge of Girona, dating from 1311. The bridge crosses the river that divides the town, where its painted houses are a well known landmark lining the river. After the new Consul arrives in Girona by train, we see him being driven across the bridge on his way to his residence at ‘San Jorge’.

Why such an isolated place should need a British Consul is never explained, but at least it allows us to enjoy the beautiful clifftop Costa Brava scenery.

Around the world in 80 Days (1956)

The Spanish bullfight scene was filmed in Chinchón, where Ava Gardner, who had a house near Madrid, made a cameo appearance. So, in other parts of the film, do Noel Coward, Marlene Dietrich, and Buster Keaton. In fact the film is believed to have originated the expression ‘cameo.’

10,000 extras were used in August 1955 to shoot the bullfight scene in the town’s emblematic oval ‘square’, with Mexican comedian Cantinflas (an acquired taste) as the bullfighter. 6,500 residents of Chinchón were employed as crowd extras, but producer Michael Todd decided that he wanted more, and so boosted the regional economy by contracting another 3,500 from nearby towns.

The town square would be used for many more films over the years, and bullfights continue to be held there every summer between July 15th and September 15th, and can be watched nowadays from the restaurants that surround the (round) square.

Zarak (1956)

Although filmed largely in Morocco, it is the Spanish Sierra Nevada near Almuñuécar, Granada that makes the most believable mountains of Afghanistan, give or take a few thousand metres.

Victor Mature took both of his whippings like a man (in fact he seems to have got a taste for it after the first one and volunteers for the second) and showed his personality by offering to pay for the funeral of stuntman Jack Keely, who was killed in a horse riding accident during shooting.

Zarak’s problems begin with the seduction of his father’s wife and continue through the ferocious attacks on his enemies and the betrayal of his allies and brothers.

The film raises questions; how many columns can be massacred before the British run out