Teresa Gimpera Movies
Vittorio De Sica's A Brief Vacation (Una Breva Vacanza) stars Florinda Bolkan as a downtrodden working woman. Forced to support herself, her children, her physically incapacitated husband and her obtrusive brother and mother, Bolkan contracts tuberculosis. She is granted a brief vacation at a health spa, where a whole new world--and potential new life--is opened up to her. A Brief Vacation was scripted by the prolific Cesar Zavattini, who like De Sica had once been a guiding force in the Italian neorealist movement. Though not De Sica's final film, A Brief Vacation was the last of the director's work to be released in America. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The third installment of director Jose Luis Garcia Sanchez's state-of-Spain trilogy, which began in 1995 with Whispers of Spain (and Portugal). Roguish Juan (Juan Luis Galiardo) lives by himself, eking out a dubious living from gambling money and blackmailing various women who were once his lovers, one of whom is Alicia (Teresa Gimpera). When Caty (Laura Ramos), a would-be athlete, materializes on Juan's doorstep one day claiming to be his daughter by a tryst in Havana 20 years earlier, Juan finds the order of his daily existence thrown into peril. Caty is in search of Spanish residence, and is helped in her quest by Pepe (Juan Echanove), a cop who has recently been left by Juan's other daughter Carmela (Neus Asensi) -- for Tony (Pedro Miguel Martinez), a bisexual hairdresser. The plot twists again when Juan is contacted by Alicia's husband, a sleazy crook by the name of Pozueta (Jesus Bonilla), who wants Juan to go to jail in his place. Pozueta is smitten with Caty and offers to marry her but must get a divorce in order to do so, thus arranges a deal with Juan to record Alicia in bed with her new lover. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
- Starring:
- Juan Luis Galiardo, Laura Ramos, (more)
- 1975
An Italian-French-Spanish version of the much-filmed Agatha Christie story, this film is strangely set in Iran, not Great Britain. Ten guests are invited to a remote desert inn and informed that the mysterious host has described in a nursery rhyme how they will all die during the gathering. One by one, the characters, played by such Continental stars such as Elke Sommer and singer Charles Aznavour as well as Britons Oliver Reed and Richard Attenborough, dwindle in number, each in accordance with a verse of the nursery rhyme, until only a few remain. The final characters then plot to ensnare the criminal mastermind behind the weekend of mayhem. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- Oliver Reed, Elke Sommer, (more)
- 1970
This uneven story finds Ristel (Lex Barker) as an actor bored with life who breathes his soul into a doll. The doll is taken by a dim-witted servant, and Ristel's lover Ana (Teresa Gimpera) hires a detective to investigate his death and find the missing doll. When the doll begins to talk, the frightened servant smashes it on a beach, and Ristel's soul enters the body of a strangled woman. She comes to life and confronts Ana, but the woman is strangled again by her original killer. Ristel's restless soul tries to take refuge in a stone. Color process is not credited. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lex Barker, Teresa Gimpera, (more)
- 1987
A 50-year-old playwright (Jesus Puente) bemoans his fate from his secluded home in Northern Spain in this depressing drama. Side plots include an actress and former acquaintance who comes to visit and his amorous diversions with a 20-year-old local woman. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Jesus Puente, Victoria Vera, (more)
- 1973
- PG
Stephen Boyd spent the latter stages of his career in foreign actioners, of which Those Dirty Dogs is a prime example. Boyd plays a soldier of fortune, hired to stem the activities of Mexican revolutionaries. He is aided and abetted by bounty hunter Gianni Garko, who like Boyd is no more trustworthy than he has to be. A blood-splattered gunfight climaxes this outing. Those Dirty Dogs wasn't exactly art, but it paid its way. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
This meandering, low-budget horror tale explores the vampiric origins of Hannah (Teresa Gimpera), once the wife of Louis VII, who rises from her crypt in the 20th century thanks to the meddling of an archaeologist (Andrew Prine) and his weird son (Mark Damon). Actually, it takes more than an hour for the filmmakers to get around to Hannah's awakening and remarkably brief reign of terror; the interim is wasted with a silly subplot involving a "Wild Man" who dispatches several superstitious villagers to ensure the vampire queen's safety. The film's atmosphere benefits from exotic locations (the film was originally produced in Turkey, then augmented with new footage by U.S. distributors), but the threadbare production values make for tedious viewing. Also known as Hannah, Queen of the Vampires and Vampire Woman. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi
This doggedly faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel about a vampiric nobleman was helmed by cult director Jesus Franco. Despite its textual loyalty and atmospheric photography by Manuel Merino, the film -- a co-production from Spain, Italy, Germany, and Liechtenstein -- is plodding and dull. Even Christopher Lee (in an uncharacteristically weak performance as Dracula), Klaus Kinski (as the mad Renfield), and seven credited screenwriters cannot make this confused, distant film worthwhile. Cult filmmaker Bruno Mattei edited the Italian version, and scenes were later used in Calvin Floyd's In Search of Dracula. Among several different versions are prints running 100, 98, and 86 minutes. Franco appears as a servant to Professor Van Helsing (Herbert Lom), and though certainly literate, the film nevertheless fails as both horror and drama. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
- Starring:
- Christopher Lee, Klaus Kinski, (more)
- 1992
In 1939, Ramon (Jacques Penot) was a young man, caught up in his Barcelona family's involvement on the Republic side in the brutal Spanish Civil War. He and his family fled into exile ahead of Franco's troops. Now it is many years later, and he has come back to see how his old homestead fared in the intervening years. The only person he can find who is able to remember those years clearly is his family's old butler Claudio (Vittorio Gassman). This film is a sequel to the 1975 film by director Jaime Camino, Largas Vacaciones del 36. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Vittorio Gassman, Jacques Penot, (more)
- 1965
A model becomes the target of a kidnapping attempt masterminded by a mad professor in this avant garde film from Spain. Young thugs steal a giant picture of the popular model. The model confides in a wealthy patron who is killed by his jealous girlfriend, and the girlfriend goes on a murder spree in this offbeat entry that appeared at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Teresa Gimpera
- 1968
Ana (Serena Vergano) imagines killing her lover when she is dumped by the married man. Her macabre fantasies continue to the point where she can no longer tell them apart from reality. Ana seeks to act out her dreams in real life in this disturbing story of vengeance and unrequited love. When she runs into the arms of another man, it is merely a dream, as she opens her eyes to the man who ruined her life. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi
- Starring:
- Serena Vergano, Michael Craig, (more)
Based on actual World War II events, La Battaglia d'Inghilterra chronicles the success of a German intelligence group's efforts to infiltrate the British army on the eve of the historic Battle of Britain. Directed by Enzo G. Castellari, the film features Ida Galli, Christian Hay, Van Johnson, Renzo Palmer, and Luigi Pistilli. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- 1976
Political circumstances draw the people in this film into the ill-fated Spanish rebellion of 1909, which sought the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII. Set mainly in Cataluña and its capital Barcelona, the story begins in 1899 with soldiers returning from the Cuban front of the disastrous Spanish-American War, and it revolves around the romantic aspirations of two sisters who are swept up into the dangerous intrigues of the time. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Xavier Elorriaga, Francisco Casares, (more)
- 1977
Told from a four-year-old's perspective, this film explores one day in the life of Quico (Lolo Garcia), the child of a middle-class Madrid family. His adored father (Hector Alterio) fought with Franco's troops against the Republicans, and never tires of telling the boy stories of his exploits. Among the toddler's many endearing pranks on that day alone, he pretends to have swallowed a needle, floods the bathroom by stopping up the toilet, and generally misinterprets everything he hears to fit what he is able to understand. Meanwhile, the boy also sees and understands a great deal more than the grown-ups around him would be happy knowing about: such as that his parents aren't getting along and that the maid has a lover. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Teresa Gimpera, Héctor Alterio, (more)
- 1976
La Querida tells the story of a woman (Rocio Jurado), gifted as a singer, who wants to rise from her lowly status as a barroom prostitute to become the mistress of a rich man. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Fernando Fernán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera, (more)
- 1971
The story of this Spanish film revolves around the corpse of a woman, Esther (Judy Matheson), whose body parts are sent in numerous packages to a horrified and puzzled print editor (Carlos Estrada). He is also sent a dead turtle, which must mean something. The packages are sent as a form of psychological torture, part of an elaborate revenge scheme by the dead woman's lesbian lover (Capucine). The editor, at one time, had a relationship with Esther which he ended rather harshly. Given that she was suicidal, the break-up apparently sent her over the edge. Though this film has some of the gruesome and bizarre imagery appropriate to a horror-fest, it is a thriller/melodrama. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
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