Almeriacine
August 30, 2021
It has just been the centenary of the birth of director
and screenwriter Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent (August 1921-August 2012), one of
the main figures of the beginning of cinema in our province.
Joaquín, "Tato" to friends, got to know Almería thanks to Alfredo Fraile. According to the director himself in Carlos Aguilar's book 'Joaquín Romero Marchent, la firmeza del profesional' (Diputación de Almería, 1999), "The director of photography Alfredo Fraile was a good friend of mine and coincidentally we coincided in the studio where they saw projection ('Tierra brutal', Michael Carreras, 1962, the first western shot in Almería). I entered the room with him, with interest since it was a film of the genre that I was playing, and I was amazed by those landscapes. Logically I asked Fraile where that was filmed and he replied that in Almeria. As you can imagine, I didn't have time to tell Grimaldi that I knew of an ideal place in Spain to shoot our next westerns."
The 'CINE' guide published by the Institute of Almerian Studies (1st edition 2011 and 2nd edition updated and expanded 2018), dedicates a chapter to the Madrid director with the suggestive title 'The paella westerns of Joaquín Luis Romero Marchent', because, in chronological order, they could well be called 'paella' or 'gazpacho' western, as precursors of the subsequent huge production of European westerns, known as 'spaghetti westerns'. The writer and journalist Juan Gabriel García, co-author and coordinator of the aforementioned work, highlights how the decision to shoot in Almería 'El sabor de la venganza' (1964) "would decisively mark both the artistic career of the director and the immediate future of Almería as a film set. ' The taste of revenge' finished consolidating and promoting the virtues of Almeria as a setting for the shooting of films and consolidated a form of collaboration between different countries, co-productions, which facilitated the success of the European western among the spectators. These circumstances, enhanced by the technique of Romero Marchent and the quality of his films, elevated Almería as the new set of the European western."
"Joaquín L. Romero Marchent -continues Juan Gabriel García- can be considered as the pioneer of the European western in the Mediterranean and as the author who endowed this genre with a narrative entity at the height of the North American productions of the time. "
Romero Marchent directed four films in Almeria:
'El sabor de la venganza' (1964), 'Antes llega la muerte' (1964), 'La muerte cumple condena' (1966) and 'Fedra West' (1968), with the participation of actors such as Robert Hundar, Fernando Sancho, Gloria Milland or Jesús Puente, as well as figures of the genre at the time such as Richard Harrison or regulars of the genre such as Luigi Pistilli, Aldo Sambrell, Benito Stefanelli...
[Álvaro de Luna at FICAL 2017]
Álvaro de Luna, who was the endearing 'Algarrobo' in the series Curro Jiménez, of which Joaquín Romero Marchent himself was the soul (he directed no less than twelve chapters – unfortunately none of the seven "Almerienses" chapters – and was a screenwriter of another six), took his first steps in cinema as a specialist and in two of the westerns cited in this publication he is credited in small roles.
The festival 'Almería en corto' paid tribute to Joaquín Romero Marchent in 1998 with the award 'Almería, tierra de cine'. Thus justice was done with his work and with his link with this province, of which he said that he was attracted by "the landscape and the light. The trade-off, in a nutshell. [...] And suddenly I found a kind of beauty that I didn't know, which is the beauty of deep contrast. [...] That is, hard beauty, which impresses and is beautiful as a result precisely of its hardness. [...] Almeria leads to a mood for me more attractive in the cinema, that of hardness" (Statements to Carlos Aguilar for his cited book).
Bibliography:
'Guides of Almeria. CINEMA'. Various authors. Institute
of Almerian Studies. 2011 and 2018 (2nd edition expanded and updated)
'Joaquín Romero Marchent, the firmness of the
professional. Carlos Aguilar. Diputación de Almería. 1999
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