La ciudad no es para mí (1966) Poster

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7/10
Paco Martinez Soria's sympathetic vehicle with great entertainment and amusement .
ma-cortes4 September 2017
Amusing Spanish comedy but extremely moralizing with the great Paco Martínez Soria who became himself a big star during his last years ; he steals the show with his Aragonese accent , and playing splendidly his usual role as a fast-talking , grumpy as well as intimate old man . Here is often used the ordinary formula about ¨Fish out water¨ regarding an ingenuous villager goes to the noisy Big City . This diverting movie deals with a retired widower , the simple-minded Agustin (Paco Martínez Soria) , who lives in an Aragonese village , Calcierra , near Zaragoza , as he wants himself to stay with his family for some time at son's home , but things are far from ideal . His offspring the hard-working Agustin (Eduardo Fajardo) emigrated from the village to Madrid to encounter new opportunities and a better life ; nowadays , he has become a renowned doctor . A bit later on , grandfather Agustin carrying two chickens goes Madrid , but things go awry . When he arrives in the capital he is caught in the vortex of the Gran Vía's traffic jam and being attended by a grumpy traffic officer (Manolo Gomez Bur) . At last , he arranges to reach the luxury apartment of Agustín Jr. As his forty-year-old son lives a luxurious life there in the company of Luciana , his spouse (Coll) and his rebel daughter Sara (Cristina Galbó ; but the threesome are annoyed by his uninvited presence , that's why the family has forgot their grandfather who long time ago they left him alone .

It is an agreeable picture concerning the silly adventures of an unfortunate as well as botcher villager who goes to visit his son but things get worse . Funny and fun acting by the old widower peasant magnificently played by Paco Martínez who has always lived in his village and decides on a whim to go and settle down in Madrid . Being well written by Fernando Lázaro Carreter , member of Spanish Royal Academy , under pseudonym : Fernando Lózano . The film develops the classical formula : ¨Fish out water¨ , as a redneck grandfather arrives in the big city and once there , he only encounters a bustling town and he has a lot of problems that attempts to resolve , as well as a troublesome family ; as the likable grandfather is upsetting by the loss of moral values that governs his relatives : frivolity , egoism , duplicity and deceits . This film is made to entertain , and this movie , especially for a good time and a pleasant entertainment and is also pretty darn funny . Sitting in a strange middle ground between the completely absurd and the stylishly enjoyable . It takes a simple concept a naive redneck goes to the busy big city , the capital of Spain : Madrid , to meet his unknown son ; he , then , encounters a frenetic and hostile world , and also his three unhappy relatives in real problems . There are some nice jokes in the film and the cast , playing eccentric characters , make a cosy fit . The flick interweaves fun comedy along with a social criticism about the peculiar Spain of the 60s . This film packs customary images of the social life from the sixties , nutty situations , but it especially contains catching touches of humor , tongue-in-cheek and irony ; adding the typical Spanish idiosyncrasy . The film is full of familiar faces and cameos , such as Gracita Morales as the lively maid , Alfredo Landa as an egg seller , Manuel Tejada as priest , Margot Cottens , María Luisa Ponte , Jos Sacristán , José Saza , Manuel Arbo , Sancho Gracia , and many others . And an evocative and catching musical score by Antón García Abril , adding some pop songs by a Pop band with soundtrack typical of the sixties and early seventies .

"City Life Is Not for Me" was professionally directed by Pedro Lazaga and it was a big success at box office . Lazaga directed various film with the popular comic player Paco Martinez Soria . Lazaga was born in Valls , Tarragona , Catalonia , and died on November 30, 1979 in Madrid . He was a prolific director and writer , specially known for Los Chicos del Preu (1967), María Morena (1951), Cuerda De Presos (1956) and Posición Avanzada (1966). Pedro was a craftsman , a notorious director and writer who directed all kind of genres such as Peplum : Siete Espartanos , Wartime : Cuerda De Presos , Posicion Avanzada , Torrepartida , La Patrulla ; Drama : Rostro De Asesino , Otro Arbol De Guernica , but especially known for comedies in low budget . Director Pedro Lazaga made , during the fifties and early sixties , eight films , mostly comedies : ¨Muchachas De Azul¨, Ana Dice Si¨. ¨Luna De Verano¨, ¨Económicamente Debiles¨ , ¨Trio Damas¨ for screenwriter and producer Jose Luis Dibildos and his ¨Agata Films Productions¨. The best of all them resulted to be ¨Los Tramposos¨. He continued making comedies such as Patrulla De Los Once , Los Tramposos , Sabian Demasiado , El Vikingo , ¡No Firmes Más Letras, Cielo! , Vente a Ligar Al Oeste , Hasta El Matrimonio Nos Separe , La Amante Perfecta , Fulanita y Sus Menganos , Vota a Gundisalvo , Terapia Al Desnudo , Tres Suecas Para Tres Rodríguez , Yo soy Fulana de Tal , 5 Almohadas Para Una Noche , En La Cresta De la Ola and several others . His most known films were with the popular comic player Paco Martinez Soria , such as : Abuelo Made in Spain or Old made in Spain, , Padre De La Criatura , Alegre Divorciado , Estoy Hecho Un Chaval , Vaya Par Gemelos , among others
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A great film with a great actor
albertomallofres-pantoja21 October 2002
If Paco Martínez Soria had been born in the United States, the United Kingdom, France or Italy he would be now adored and revered by public and critics alike. Unluckily for him, he had the misfortune of being born in Spain, where anybody else´s merits and success are never recognized or "forgiven" and comedy is still considered a second-rate genre. This film, adaptation of one of his biggest theatrical smashes (written by Fernando Ángel Lozano, which I believe it´s a pseudonymous for Spanish Academy member Fernando Lázaro Carreter), was also one of his greatest box-office hits and rightly so. Until then - and with few exceptions - Martínez Soria´s roles in films had been character parts (albeit both the films and the parts were good) and always portraying bespectacled and moustachioed or bearded men older than himself. "La Ciudad No Es Para Mí" turned him into a star, something that he already was in the theatre. He plays an old widower peasant farmer from Aragón who goes to Madrid to visit his only child, a fortysomething doctor (Eduardo Fajardo) who is married and has his own family and receives his father somewhat reluctantly. Soon the countryman will find out that his family are disintegrating because of the lack of moral values they have fallen down in by living in the big city and does everything he can to put things straight, which he finally gets. Shot in a beautiful black and white (it was the penultimate film in black and white that Martínez Soria did) by the wonderful and much underrated director Pedro Lazaga (with whom the actor made eight more films after this one), nicely performed by this great artist and the rest of the first-rate cast and with a complete independence in relation to the original play, this movie is an absolute delight from the beginning to the end, although probably it will look "politically incorrect" to the "in" crowd of nowadays. Definitely things like marriage, family, morals or religion are not fashionable in this throwaway society. Oh, dear!

The worst film ever made, this one? When you´ve seen some blatant rubbish made by the likes of Almodóvar, Antonioni, Aranda, Bardem, Berlanga, Buñuel, Godard, Loach, Mercero, Pasolini, Regueiro or Trueba - to name just a few - you don´t come to that conclusion at all.
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1/10
One of worst Spanish movies
diazcdm30 October 2000
"Plan Nine from Outer Space" the worst movie of all? Don't! It's this! A classic representative movie of Paco Martínez Soria's movies, about an old man from a little town who proclaims his conservative morality and his pedestrian ideas. Primitive in all his means.
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