'New Wave' in Spanish Films:

...There were plans to show, among other pictures, Juan-Antonio Bardem's "Main Street" (Calle Mayor...

...The picture won no prize but it stirred interest as one of the first socially critical films to come out of Spain and it was picked, along with "The Midget Car," for a London showing of the year's best foreign films...

...ABC continued: "If we don't hide the seamy side of life we will go on to create something of value and virtue...

...Even a film which has been cleared by the Ministry of Information does not always have smooth sailing...

...The picture was a pioneering venture in the new socially-oriented type of film...

...But the new generation is up against tough opposition: stiff censorship that seldom tolerates pictures that do not show Spain in the most favorable light, and a system of economic controls and subsidies designed to induce writers and directors to follow Government specifications and impede and penalize the non-conformists...

...Carlos Saura's "Young Delinquents" (Los Golfos) was given the lowest commercial classification by Spain's film authorities, but, sensing that this was the kind of picture that might go over well abroad, the local film industry selected it to represent Spain at the Cannes Festival last year...

...But Bar dem himself was not allowed to go to Rome because he had been implicated in student demonstrations the previous year...

...The country's "new wave" of young film people wants to portray the problems of modern Spain in a truer light, emphasizing social themes not merely for the sake of showing up some of the seamier sides of Spanish life, but in order to needle the public conscience...

...it depicted 18th century Spain through the eyes of a child who sees little justice or consideration...

...Last year Spain refused to enter a similar type picture, "The Midget Car" (El Cochecito), officially at Venice, and it had to be submitted to the festival's commercial section, where it walked off with the critics' award...

...Yet in the past three years the authorities have rejected all of Berlanga's scripts, and he has produced nothing...

...Regime cracks down on 'NEW WAVE' IN SPANISH FILMS By Richard Scott Mowrer Madrid Anew generation of Spanish film writers and directors has emerged which is trying to break away from the familiar folklore, bullfighting or religious pro-regime type of picture that has characterized much of Spain's film output in the past...

...When the Italian press protested, Bardem finally was given a passport...

...The film, which deals with the problems of old people who are no longer of use to society, was conceived by Marco Ferreri, a young Italian living in Spain and a member of this country's "new wave...

...For almost 30 years," the paper said, "we have been complacently wallowing in our past virtues Spanish films for the most part have succeeded in portraying Spain in the manner of Cecil B. DeMille's papiermache Egypt...

...A few films have branched off the path trod in the same way a thousand times before, but it seems that such films have had more success abroad than at home...

...Bardem and the screen writer Luis Berlanga are probably the best film talents to develop in Spain during the postwar years...

...A picture by José Nieves Conde, "The Tenant" (El Inquilino), was passed by Government censors but was banned in the provinces by the Ministry of Housing because it was suspected of containing sly digs about the housing situation...

...We need films that show dishonest, brutal, cowardly Spaniards: This will be our best proof that everything is going well in Spain...

...But the film censors, who conceive of themselves as loyal guardians of Spain's political, religious and moral values, are still on the job and progress is slow in coming...

...Last year, there was a brief flurry of hope in Spain's film world when Government press censorship allowed Madrid's leading newspaper, ABC, to publish a sharp criticism of the state of Spanish film production...

...BANNED IN SPAIN [A partial list of foreign films which Spaniards are not permitted to view.] The Fugitive Kind Some Like It Hot Inside the Mafia Suddenly Last Summer They Came to Cordura Anatomy of a Murder Blue Denim Compulsion Peyton Place The Sun Also Rises The Seven Year Itch Tunes of Glory...

...Often a picture that is frowned upon here makes a hit abroad, as in the case of Cesar Ardavin's "Ragamuffin of Tormes" (El Lazarillo de ?ormes), which won the 1960 Berlin Film Festival award...

...A few years ago a showing of Spanish films was organized in Rome under Spanish Government auspices...