THE ROCKET FROM CALABUCH (1956)

Prof. Hamilton (Edmund Gwenn), an American rocket scientist, is unhappy that his work is being used for warlike ends, so he walks away one day and secretly goes to the Spanish island of Calabuch to live a simple existence. When he arrives on the beach, Juan, a small-time smuggler, sends him into the village to take a small package to a man nicknamed Lobster. Lobster happens to be in jail, and the police chief (and military leader) Matias throws Hamilton in jail with Lobster, assuming he's a smuggler as well. Matias seems like a hard ass at first (we see him marching soldiers dressed in ancient Roman garb about town in an army drill), but it turns out not so much: the lock on Lobster's jail cell is broken, so Lobster and Hamilton can basically come and go at will—and because Lobster is the only projectionist in town, his presence is necessary on movie night. We meet the various charming and eccentric inhabitants of the town, including Matias's daughter Teresa who plans to elope with Juan; Elisa, the schoolteacher who has her students sing their multiplication tables; Vicente, who takes days to paint a name on a canoe on the beach; Fermin, a sad sack soldier left out in the elements to guard against an imagined threat from the sea. There is also a lighthouse keeper who plays chess over the phone with the village priest; a bullfighter to comes to the village for a festival with an older, lazy bull who manages to chase the bullfighters into the sea, and a fireworks maker who ends up getting some help from Hamilton for a festival display that they hope will win the village a prize. As in other movies filled with odd but good-hearted townspeople (Ealing comedies like TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT and WHISKY GALORE, any number of Frank Capra movies, the TV show Northern Exposure), there aren't really any bad guys, and everyone comes together at the end to try and save the outsider from a menacing force—in this case, the US government helicopter that arrives to take Hamilton back home.

I was unfamiliar with the Spanish director Luis Garcia Berlanga, but he displays a fine, light touch here; you occasionally expect things to move in the direction of magical realism, but it never goes that far. Gwenn, in his last film role, is fine, often coming off in personality like Kris Kringle (MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET), even going so far as to play matchmaker for Lobster and the schoolteacher. It's disappointing that, though it appears that Gwenn is reciting his lines in Spanish, a different actor dubs him, who sounds nothing like Gwenn. The only other actor I was familiar with is the Italian Valentina Cortese as Elisa. Lobster, the main secondary character, is played well by the handsome and charismatic Franco Fabrizi. The various plotlines are easy to follow, though I never figured out what was up with the Roman garb in the opening scene. This is a light and charming film (which is predictable in its unpredictability, if that makes sense) that should be better known. Pictured are Fabrizi and Gwenn. [Criterion Channel]