Red Fish (Los Peces Rojos) - 1955 - José Antonio Nieves Conde
This is a Spanish film noir, classified as a crime movie.
Its synopsis is brief, and I am copying it verbatim from the FilmAffinity webpage:
On a stormy night, Hugo and Ivón arrive at a hotel in Gijón accompanied by Hugo's son. They go out to see the rough sea, and shortly after, Ivón returns begging for help because the boy has been swept away by the sea. As the body does not turn up, a police inspector takes charge of the case. (FilmAffinity)
It is a 1955 film directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde and starring Emma Penella and Arturo de Córdova.
It is shot in black and white, and it is very good and intriguing.
It begins when the main characters arrive at the Hotel Savoy in the city of Gijón. This is a port city in northern Spain.
The hotel setting—filled with numerous paintings, artwork, and prints featuring marine motifs and ships, far too many ships—combined with the frequently filmed sea, sets the stage to immerse us in the film. It has a surprising beginning that I will avoid spoiling. But from the water, the storm, the wind, the rain, the people and their windbreakers, coats, and cloaks, to the city and the waterfront: everything is very good.
At the same time, it transports us to a bygone era and its daily life characteristics, ranging from automobiles to minor yet common items of that time, such as elevators or light switches.
Ivón's (Emma Penella) life is that of a poor actress. Hugo Pascal (Arturo de Córdova) says of her: "Ivón worked in that theater; she had a silly little role in that stupid revue." On the corner, right next to the theater door, a sign reading Pavón Cinema or Theater can be seen (one of the posters indicates "Theater"), and the play is called Las Pájaras ("The Birds"). We can view this as a play on words or not.
Emma Penella's acting performance is fabulous and well-executed. She clearly delineates two distinct phases: the moments when she acts and the moments when she overacts.
Hugo Pascal (Arturo de Córdova), the protagonist, is a frustrated writer with poor sales whose fiction works are rejected for publication. At one point (0:26), the writer enters the Publishing Bookstore "Afrodisio Aguado S.A." to speak with the manager about publishing a book. The editor rejects him after giving him a lecture on realism (minutes 0:26 and 0:27). Apparently, the publisher actually existed, and books published by them could still be found in second-hand bookshops at that time. Realism appears on several occasions—in everything I mentioned earlier regarding locations—and continues throughout the movie, reaching the midpoint with the Cimadevilla cliff (42:55), and so on until the end.
A somewhat strange confusion begins to emerge in the plot. A back-and-forth dynamic mixes comedic and dramatic moments, acting and overacting, alongside brief musical snippets.
One snippet, referencing bullfighting (0:14:43), goes something like:
The bugles sound...
(...)
And stepping onto the ring,
The silence is scratched
By the clamor of applause,
Of a 'bravo!'
And from the stands,
A hand throwing...
(...)
I found it difficult to find the complete lyrics to this song and its title, or to know if it was created specifically for the film, which I doubt.
Later on, another one (0:29:03) goes as follows:
Here I am,
I am the whaling ship,
I am going to fish
Because my love is at sea.
At sea,
Which I will finally sail,
My heart...
At a certain point (0:39:48), officers of the Spanish Civil Guard (Guardia Civil) are seen wearing their characteristic tricornio. The tricornio is a hat with a wide brim folded upwards, making the force distinctive.
The hotel receptionist is quite a character—a smooth talker in front of the cameras, a blabbermouth who made up stories. This is a real reflection that still happens today: seeing people on television lying or exaggerating events and situations, some even creating fabricated stories without any shame.
When the newspaper publishes the receptionist's statements (42:55), he protects himself with the phrase "confused statements."
Halfway through the movie (43:35), the following dialogue takes place between the receptionist and the police officers:
· Good evening, gentlemen.
· Come on, don't be a joker. Are you still up?
· These people from Madrid go to sleep very late. They are in the first-floor lounge.
· Last night when they arrived, was it around this time, right?
· The very same. I take my shift at a quarter to one.
· Listen, I read in the paper—stated by you—that they asked you to accompany them up there, to the promontory, to show them the way.
· Sir, they told me, "Come on, go up with us."
· Are you sure they told you that?
· Man... well, you see, I wanted to make things much more exciting.
· Did they tell you or not?
· No! But they could have told me. I...
· That was impossible to do; they didn't want witnesses.
· You say in the paper that the boy seemed to foresee his death and that you squeezed his hand with tears in your eyes.
· I said it to make it more exciting, simply to make it more exciting.
· Are you an idiot?
· Nooo, nothing of the sort, Inspector. It's just that I am entertaining.
At one point (1:03:14), Ivón speaks from the theater with Hugo Pascal, and several theatrical promotional posters are visible on the wall in the background. On one of them, "Argentines in Spain" (Argentinos en España) can be clearly read. I do not know if it was a coincidence, if the poster is real (considering that many locations like the hotel, bookstore, and theater were real), or if it was included on purpose in the film. For instance, there might be a connection to the historical moment: here in Argentina, the Peronist government was coming to an end—a government that helped Spain significantly by selling flour and wheat after the war. The names of those featured on the poster cannot be clearly seen.
The story is well told, generating suspense and intrigue that unfolds as time goes on. Apparently, it was subject to Francoist censorship, which forced a modification of the ending. Nevertheless, it is a very good movie to watch, including the ending it has.
A remake of the film was made in 2003, titled Hotel Danubio, which I will talk about in another message.
Links to the movie's entry on IMDB and FilmAffinity:
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