The story of the young Santiago Segura, who was born in 1881, is a story of a man who lived in the village of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Luis García Berlanga took the baton and directed these 19 great actors of Spanish cinema in Everyone to jail, considered a re-reading of The national shotgun, made 15 years earlier.
“The first one talks about the political corruption of the late Franco era and this film talks about the same political corruption, but about the change that came after, new politicians, new businessmen and new rich people, “a bunch of shameless, scoundrels and bunglers who only perpetuate the same old tricks,” said Elsa Fernández-Santos in ‘Historia de nuestro cine’, on RTVE. “We don’t want the banks to get involved,” says the minister. “And we don’t want the government to get involved,” says the businessman.
End of the relationship with Rafael Azcona
Everyone to jail marks the end of the Berlanga-Azcona tandem, and the script is written by the director with his son Jorge, with whom he will repeat in his next film Paris-Timbuktu. As in all Valencian films, this is an ensemble film.Maybe I don’t know how to direct and what I do is put two thousand people in front of the camera so that it’s not obvious that I don’t know how to direct.“I think it must be for some similar reason. Maybe also because I am a pyrotechnician, from Valencia, and that helps,” said Berlanga.
Much talk about Cine Berlanguiano, expression that, in the same program, Elsa Fernández-Santos defines as films with a chaotic, choral, crazy, grotesque, grotesque situation, and at the same time familiar, recognizable and credible.
A scene from the ending of ‘Everyone to Jail’, by Luis García Berlanga
All behind bars
Taking advantage of the fact that the prison is celebrating International Prisoner’s Day, a small health care entrepreneur, Artemis Bermejo, goes there to He has been trying to collect the 80 million pesetas that the Public Administration owes him for some time, but he wants the money to be placed in Panama, to evade taxes.. The party was organised by Quintanilla, a clever guy who turned the event, which featured a comic bullfight, into a meeting of politicians. Behind bars, authorities, cultural figures, businessmen and representatives of the Church met. Meanwhile, outside, The escape of the mobster Paolo Tornicelli, an influential Italian banker who runs an international crime network, is being preparedThe prison director is the one who coordinates the operation and is assisted by a banker who is also at the party. All the characters have their own interests and the prisoners are the last thing they care about. The situation ends up exploding and a riot breaks out: Tornicelli manages to escape, as does the prison director who leaves with his lover, a young transsexual.
This character is played by an unrecognizable David Delfínthe famous designer who died in 2017 and who we later saw making a cameo in Julieta, by Pedro Almodóvar. The Italian mobster Paolo Tornicelli is played by the famous artist Torrebruno.
Director Luis García Berlanga with the team of ‘Everyone to jail’
Shooting notes
The film was shot in Valencia, the director’s homeland. The prison is La Modelo prison and to turn it into a film set the prisoners had to be moved to the new prison in Picassent. The hospital we see is the Virgen del Consuelo clinic. The soundtrack features two songs: ‘Todos a la cárcel’, sung by Merenguito and his flamenco group, and ‘Tractor Amarillo’, performed by Zapato Veloz.
Many were alarmed, as the film humorously criticizes both the public administration and the socialist government, but the director met the comments with his head held high.I have used tenderness and humor to make a vivisection of this society in which I have had to live and which I abhor.“It’s not a bad thing that I’m harsher or that the barb is more acidic or profound, because I treat my supposed enemies in a very endearing way. I hope that they have the same sense of humor when watching the film that I had when making it.”
Berlanga’s final years
It premiered on December 22, 1993, the day of the Christmas Lottery, and The director hit the jackpot a little later: he won the Goya for Best Film and Best Director. and, what’s more, the film won the award for Best Sound. It was a very special gala: Berlanga had not received any Goyas and, what’s more, he was the one in charge of presenting the honorary award to Tony Leblanc. 50 years have passed and the film retains its freshness and irreverence, as well as its corrosive and, at times, acidic tone.
Everyone to jail It was the penultimate film that Berlanga shot. Six years had passed since Moors and Christians and finished his career with Paris-Timbuktureleased in 1999. Three years later he surprised with the short film The teacher’s dreamwith its own script, and with Luisa Martín and Santiago Segura leading the cast. The filmmaker died on November 13, 2010 at the age of 89.. Con Everyone to jail The RTVE Play catalogue is being expanded, with titles such as: Don Lucio and Brother Pio, Happy 140thKing Peret, I give them a year.
