No desearás al vecino del quinto (1970) Poster

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4/10
Below average Spanish comedy with the great Alfredo Landa that had much success at the box office
ma-cortes6 July 2016
The film deals with a young gynecologist , Pedro Andreu (Jean Sorel) , living in Toledo , he has his consulting room partially empty , while his neighbour Antón Gutiérrez (Alfredo Landa) , a gay fashion designer has his full business for his homosexuality . When Pedro is in Madrid participating at a gynecology conference , he sees Antonio at a Discoteque , as he is amusing himself along with some gorgeous girls . Antonio tells him he occasionally goes to Madrid to enjoy and in Toledo he poses as a gay to take clients . Then , Pedro's girlfriend Jacinta (Ira De Furstemberg) goes to Madrid and finds an extraordinary surprise , she meets his sweetheart Pedro living at an apartment with the gay Antón . As Jacinta thinks Pedro become a homosexual and problems ensue . Then , the gossips run throughout Toledo and that's why the consulting room is plenty of patients .

Embarrassing comedy that contains crazy events , laughs , amusement and absurd situations . It takes a simple concept , a duo of shameless friends execute petty tricks to disguise as gays so that they carry out their main purports : to make love beautiful young women , particularly foreign girls . "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Fifth Floor Neighbour" is an essential and fundamental representation on the Spanish comedy . It benefits from the efficient acting by Alfredo Landa who steals the show as a false gay . In addition , the support cast is frankly excellent , filled with familiar faces and prestigious Spanish secondaries , such as : Isabel Garcés , Margot Cottens , Maria Isbert , Mara Laso , Angel Menendez , Emilio Rodríguez Guadalupe Muñoz Sampedro , Adrián Ortega , Licia Calderon , Sergio Mendizábal , and Alvaro De Luna , among others . And being a Spain/Italy co-production here appear some Italian secondaries , such as : Annabella Incontrera , Franco Balducci and Malisa Longo . Humor is sometimes cheesy and gross-out with numerous naughty and picaresque situations such as sex jokes , adulteries , jealousy , and erotic scenes . The film attempts to give laughs and it works here and there , resulting in an amusing though failed film . My feelings are extremely mixed but I must admit there are some brief and no very enjoyable laughters ; however , it also packs uneven comedy , piggy humor , and farcical happenings . There are some diverting jokes in the film and the cast , playing eccentric characters . Disconcerting screenplay by the prolific Juan José Alonso Millán , a writer and playwright who wrote lots of Spanish comedies .

The film was badly directed by Ramon Fernández , including great number of zooms , lousy pacing and ridiculous situations . Ramon was a decent craftsman , expert on Spanish comedy . His film debut was ¨Aquí Están Las Vicetiples¨ thanks to producer Vicente Escrivá , being followed by ¨Ahí Va Otro Recluta¨ , ¨Simón Contamos Contigo¨, ¨Matrimonio Al Desnudo¨, ¨Doctor Me Gustan Las Mujeres¨ and the successful sentimental comedy ¨Margarita Se LLama Mi Amor (1961) ¨ . He also made other genres as kiddies films , such as : ¨El Cristo Del Océano¨, ¨Aventuras De Enrique Y Ana¨ and a police story , at his best , : ¨Rueda De Sospechosos¨. And a nice adaptation of the classic written by Luis Vélez Guevara : ¨El Diablo Cojuelo¨. This "Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Fifth Floor Neighbour" resulted to be the most box office film of the Spanish cinema until ¨The Others¨, or ¨Los Otros¨ by Alejandro Amenábar .
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5/10
Well, I have seen worse
zufre3 September 2009
This movie is not that bad.

Of course, due to the time when it was made it was subject to a lot of constraints. For example, sex scenes are quite light, even a priest would approve of them and probably did. At that time, all movies were censored in Spain.

Of course, homosexuals are considered as sick people by every character in the movie but that was the official feeling about it at the time. That is history to you. Generally, I don't really agree when someone put down a movie just because they don't like the ideas of the characters though I guess I would do the same sometimes.

Women will also probably feel outraged about the opinions and permissiveness to men of the ladies at the time.

This is just a movie to pass a while, some gags might be fun for you, some will fall flat.

A few of the actors did valuable jobs in other movies but this is just a comedy of the time, and there were many churned out quite similar.

If you can get it for free or cheap (I only paid a couple of euros) it might show you a part of the past of Spain you never thought existed, when foreign girls, specially Swedish ones, I don't really know why Swedish, were in Spanish men's humid dreams. Obviously foreign girls were more openly sexual.
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