El abuelo (1925)

User Rating:

9.2/10   

Director:

José Buchs

Writers:

José Buchs (writer)
Benito Pérez Galdós (novel)

Release Date:

7 December 1925 (Spain)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Modesto Rivas	...	Conde de Albrit
Doris Wilton	...	Veraneante (as Josefina Ochoa)
Celia Escudero	...	Nelly
Arturo de la Riva	...	Pío Coronado
María Comendador	...	Gregoria
Ana de Leyva	...	Condesa Lucrecia de Ritchmon
Alejandro Navarro	...	Venancio
Juan Francés	...	Amigo del conde
Francisco Martí	...	Prior del convento
Cecilio Rodríguez de la Vega	...	Cura
Emilio Ruiz Santiago	...	Senén
Enrique Ponte	...	Alcalde de Jerusa
Fernando Roldán	...	Carlos Erasiel y Cura

Country:

Spain

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain

Company:

Film Linares

Movie Connections:

Version of La duda (1972)

Spanish Soap-Opera

Don Rodrigo de Arista Y Potestad, Conde de Albrit is a Spanish Count with a long name and a long line of disgraces. He lived in Peru trying to recover a gold mine that belonged to his ancestors. However, this was in vain; ruined, he returns to Spain. There he will come to know that his son is very ill due to the suffering inflicted by his North Amerikan wife, an impudent woman who lives a frivolous life, a usual custom among those frauleins from such savage land.

When the Conde de Albrit's son dies, the old man reads in a letter written by his son that one of his beloved granddaughters don't belong to the Albrit stock. Since that infant is the result of the dissipated life of his daughter-in-love, from that moment on, Conde de Albrit only will have one aim. That's to find out which one of his granddaughters are real Albrit descendents and which are not.

As usual in Herr José Buchs career, "El Abuelo" was an adaptation of a novel of a reputed Spanish writer, Herr Benito Pérez Galdós. Due to those literary roots, the film has a lot of intertitles ( a characteristic not exclusive of Herr Buchs films but also Spanish silent films ). The images depend on literary quotes. This is a strange and silent habit in the Spanish silent era in where the technical experimentations were nonexistent and the films were a consecutive and illustrative show of images.

The film is also full of performances as stiff as Conde de Albrit's beard. In order to get the full old story about dishonour and other bizarre Spanish behaviours included, the film is a long, dull two hours ( another habit of the Spanish silent era and probably inherited from the Inquisition's times… that is to say, to extend the pain to the victim). It is a film that any longhaired forgets easily due to its lack of artistic interest and showy story.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must know which one of his fat heiresses is the richest one… without any regard to ancestry.