Film

Movies

Daily Voice «

Runnin' Scared

The Protest Before the Protest

by Maria Luisa Tucker (8:05PM 08/29)

4 More and Out the Door

by Roy Edroso (7:21PM 08/29)

Dumbo Window Smasher Caught; Blogger Tip Borne Out

by Roy Edroso (7:10PM 08/29)
La Daily Musto

Is Michael Phelps a Hottie?

by Michael Musto (11:00AM 08/27)

Limelight Club To Re-Enter the Limelight

by Michael Musto (2:22PM 08/26)

A Message From Your Webmaster

by Michael Musto (10:00AM 08/25)
Fork in the Road

Recipe Improv with Alexandra Guarnaschelli

by Sarah DiGregorio (1:30PM 08/29)

The Great Sirloin Taste-Off

by Sarah DiGregorio (9:25AM 08/29)
Sound of the City

Live: Nap-Pop Songstress Lykke Li at Le Poisson Rouge

(11:54AM 08/29)

Interview: Shannon McArdle, Formerly of the Mendoza Line

(4:00PM 08/28)
All City

Cluckatron Has a Prediction

by Camille Dodero (4:41PM 02/01)
Press Clips

Jumping Through Hoops

by Harkavy (2:57PM 08/29)

» more blogs

Film

write to the editor | email a friend | print article | comment

Film

J. Hoberman

Tuesday, November 28th 2006

Details:

Spanish Cinema Now
December 8–26, Walter Reade Theater
The Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks
December 10 and 13

Most Popular

Scientology's Crushing Defeat
A previously unpublished saga of an $8 million check
Heath Ledger Peers Into The Abyss in The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan's Batman returns, delivers the kick-ass goods
The Harrowing Adventures of President Obama
Looking back on his first term
Andrew Cuomo and Fannie and Freddie
How the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history gave birth to the mortgage crisis
A Teen Private-In-Training Is Crushed to Death
. . . and his father fights for answers

Most Popular sponsored by

Explore the labyrinthian depths and secret alleys of the Walter Reade's annual survey "Spanish Cinema Now" (December 8 through 26), and you'll find a mini retrospective devoted to Edgar Neville (1899–1967). The aristocratic Neville was a friend of Luis Buñuel and Charlie Chaplin (whom he met while in Hollywood directing Spanish-language talkies for MGM), with a reputation as a raconteur that's fully justified by the playful narratives of his best-known movies. Those showing include Life Hanging by a Thread (1945), a whimsical comedy of alternate destiny; two murder mysteries: the farcical Carnival Sunday (1945) and philosophical The Crime on Bordadores Street (1946); as well as a neorealist account of a demobilized cavalryman, The Last Horse (1950), and a color musical, Flamenco (1952).

The most fabulous of Neville's fantasies is The Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks (1944), a supernatural shaggy-dog story in which, egged on by a dignified one-eyed ghost, a handsome if clueless Madrid bon vivant stumbles into a lost subterranean world. This secret city, built by Jews escaping the Inquisition, is populated by a cabal of sinister, coin-counterfeiting kyphotics, as well as a number of cobwebbed mummies and a mad archaeologist. The movie was evidently based on a horror novel but Neville's attitude toward this fantastic material is beyond bemused.