Femmes à l'essai

Funny and hilarious comedy by Manuel Summers with picaresque situations and naughty events. About to marry a woman who is not very physically attractive, Claudia (Laly Soldevila), the humble, repressed doctor Eduardo (Alfredo Landa) begins to feel doubts about the step he is going to take. And so in the darkness of the ceremony he begins to get busy with some wedding invitations. All of them very pretty girls: Dora (Ingrid Garbo), Veronique (Patty Shepard) and Sebastiana (Esperanza Roy). In his confusion, Eduardo wonders what his existence would be like next to them.

From the beginning we see that this is not the typical ordinary comedy of the sixties, in the same imaginative presentation an altar boy appears introduced to the participating actors and technicians, giving a glimpse of themselves while they are in Church. . In this the wedding between Alfredo Landa and Laly Soldevila is being celebrated, it is now when he has to say 'yes' at the wedding when his imaginative ruminations begin. At first he imagines his life, his marriage to Laly Soldevila, of course this is a complete disaster, then he imagines his relationship with the beautiful Ingrid Garbo, with the hippie Patty Shepard and later his marriage to the jealous Esperanza Roy, until reaching a surprising and unexpected ending. This is a quite imaginative comedy in Summers style with many surreal incidents, imagination and various comic situations. The film has a similar style to ¨No somos de piedra¨ (1968) also directed by Summers with Landa and Soldevila. The hilarious narration is balanced between traditional Spanish society and modernity. It contains a comical portrayal at the time when Spain was developing the economic boom, a consuming society made in the late sixties when openness was in its beginnings but approaching Landismo sub-genre. The film does not follow the classic narrative but throughout its development, brief sudden notes are interspersed, many in drawings that surprise the viewer.

Alfredo Landa gives a nice acting as the ordinary average Spanish, a shy, gray, repressed role coerced by social conventionality. Landa was not the actor to play Shakespeare , but it seems this character was made for him. Alfredo Landa (3 March 1933 - 9 May 2013) was a great Spanish actor. He was born in Pamplona (Navarre), Spain. He finished his pre-university studies in San Sebastián. He then began university studies on Law, where he began to work with university school groups. He left university to work in the theater. After working as a dubbing actor for a short time in the 1950s, he debuted with his first considerable role in film in José María Forqué's Atraco a las tres in 1962. Other essentila roles were in : Forty Degrees in the Shade by Mariano Ozores , Un diablo bajo la almohada by José María Forqué , Los subdesarrollados by Fernando Merino , Los que tocan el piano by Javier Aguirre , No somos de piedra Manuel Summers , La dinamita está servida by Fernando Merino , Tío ¿de verdad vienen de París? Mariano Ozores , Esclava te doy by Eugenio Martín , Mayordomo para todo : Mariano Ozores , Alcalde por elección : Mariano Ozores , El puente : Juan Antonio Bardem , Borrasca : Miguel Ángel Rivas , Historia de S. : Francisco Lara Polop , El rediezcubrimiento de México : Fernando Cortés . When Francisco Franco died in 1975, censorship began to disappear. This led to a growth of erotic comedies on Spanish cinema. Landa became the "sexually repressed" role of that trend, especially under directors Mariano Ozores and Pedro Lazaga. He even created his own trend, that some people called landismo . Afterwards, Landa changed his image, taking much deeper roles, like his bandit in El Bosque animado .And with filmmaker Jose Luis Garci : Las verdes praderas , began a new important period with hits as Crack I and Crack II . Here Landa is married to very nicely played Laly Soldevilla, she performs masterfully the stiff and really practicing wife. Here stands out an awesome support cast such as Jose Luis Coll in a surpring role as a hippieEsperanza Roy, Ingrid Garbo, Emilio Laguna, Patty Shepard, Joaquín Pamplona, Manuel de Blas, Victor Israel, among others.

The motion picture was professionally directed by Manuel Summers, following his peculiar cinematic style with ups and downs. He belonged to New Spanish cinema of the 60s, he was an actor and director who made various movies that who were strongly censored. His films included fun scripts from Summers himself concerning Spanish way of life and youngful loves such as Del rosa al amarillo or From Pink to yellow, Adios cigueña adios, El niño es nuestro, Juego de la oca, Me hace falta un bigote, Ya soy mujer, Mi primer pecado and Angeles Gordos that shot in USA. He also directed documentary as Juguetes rotos , Urtain rey de la selva. And Sketches films as Todo er mundo e gueno, Todo el mundo er mejor, Todo e mundo es demasiado and La Biblia en pasta. Finally, he made two movies for his son David Summers, leader of the successful band Hombres G, Sufre mamon and Sueltate el pelo. This original comedy has a rating 5.5/10.