Catalonia Movie Walks

By Eugeni Osácar

300 Catalonia movie locations to visit.

Enjoy a star-struck holiday in Catalonia in the footsteps of Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor, Orson Welles, Robert de Niro, Woody Allen, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Pattinson and many more.

Make your visit to Catalonia a film-star experience: Catalonia´s famous beaches have been attracting film makers ever since the Golden Age of Hollywood. Visit the idyllic locations used for such mythical films as Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, Suddenly Last Summer or Falstaff - Chimes at Midnight. You can also take a walk with the stars of the 21st century.

Catalonia´s spectacular cultural heritage and vast natural diversity have made it one of the best places in the world to combine holidays and cinema. Discover the locations for great movies like Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Perfume or films by Pedro Almodóvar. Your holidays in Catalonia are about to begin - lights, camera, action!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diëresis
• Release date: Jun 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9788494143878

Eugeni Osácar

Es profesor de la Escola Universitària d’Hoteleria i Turisme CETT-Universitat de Barcelona, así como director de investigación y del Máster Universitario en Innovación de la Gestión Turística impartido por esta escuela. Experto en marketing, patrimonio y turismo cultural, se ha especializado en el ámbito del turismo y el cine, a partir del cual han surgido varias obras pioneras, publicadas siempre en Diëresis, que profundizan de una manera detallada y amena sobre la posibilidad de visitar Barcelona y Catalunya a través de su condición de escenario de multitud de rodajes de cine y series. En el mundo académico, Eugeni ha liderado proyectos sobre turismo cinematográfico, entre los que destaca ‘Barcelona Movie’ (2008), y publicado diferentes guías digitales para smartphones y tabletas, que permiten visitar los lugares vinculados al cine en ciudades como Barcelona, París, Londres, Roma y Venecia.

Book preview

chapter 1

The Golden Age of the Big Productions

In 1908 Ferran Agulló, a writer and journalist from Girona first gave the Girona coastline the name the Costa Brava. Specifically, it was on 12 September when the newspaper La Veu de Catalunya (The Voice of Catalonia) published "On the costa brava", an article which was considered a baptism of the Girona shoreline that starts at the rock of Sa Palomera, in Blanes, and ends at Portbou on the French border.

The strategic geographical location of the Costa Brava on the Iberian Peninsula has blessed it with a pleasant climate and some spectacular and unique scenery. Added to this, its human and artistic wealth have given it an identity and individuality that have made the area one of the top tourist destinations in the world.

Although tourism as we understand it today didn’t reach Spain until the end of the 1960s, the Costa Brava had built up a certain reputation decades earlier with the construction of some superb summer residences that saw the arrival of the first high class visitors. During the 1920s and 30s these practically virgin landscapes became home to the Woevodskys, a couple popularly known as The Russians, who built Cap Roig Castle and gardens. Two years later in 1929, Lord Islington, who was governor of New Zealand and Kenya, built La Musclera, near Tamariu. There were also major residences belonging to Catalan families, such as the Ensesa family with their grand garden city in S’Agaró, and painter Josep Maria Sert, who built Mas Juny on El Castell beach. All of these contributed significantly to making the Costa Brava a peaceful and pleasant refuge for people from the business world, European aristocracy and artists of all kinds to relax and have fun. At the same time, the first hotels were being opened: by the Trias family in Palamós, the Johnstones in Tossa de Mar and the Ensesa family, founders of the Hostal La Gavina in S’Agaró. All three are good examples of great pioneers of the Costa Brava.

But it was arguably the cinema, and the American productions in particular, which put the Costa Brava on the map once and for all. The first big shoot, in 1950, was Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, and even today the arrival of film legend Ava Gardner remains one of the most memorable moments in more than one hundred years of history of the Costa Brava.

Before looking in detail at this first major production, it is interesting to remember just why producers were keen to film in Europe from the 1940s onwards, first in England, then in Italy and finally in Spain. When World War II ended, the financial difficulties of most countries in Europe forced them to block profits from American companies. By making it illegal to convert European currencies into dollars, Hollywood producers believed they could get back their earnings by reinvesting in film production in Europe. So once the films had been released, the investments could be sent back to the United States in the form of films. This is how films made outside the USA earned the nickname "runaway productions". Pandora and the Flying Dutchman was the first film of its kind in Spain. But why did they choose the Costa Brava?

Let’s look at it step by step: Albert Lewin, an associate producer at Metro and director of several films, asked for leave to be able to work on Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, his most personal project up to that time. His own production company, Dorkay, along with the British company, Romulus, would be in charge of shooting although perhaps the most significant factor for getting the project off the ground was the involvement of Metro as the international distributor, and above all the fact that it was willing to offer a star as huge as Ava Gardner. Once the financing was settled, the participation of great names and a solid story penned by Lewin himself, all that was left was to decide where to make the film. They were looking for somewhere in the Mediterranean, but preferably in Italy or Greece, the idea being a beach location with some some kind of archaeological site site. This plan changed when the film director met a friend of his, Catalan businessman Alberto Puig Palau, in London, to talk about the project.

Do you know the Costa Brava? Palau asked him. Where’s that? answered Lewin. After showing him some photographs of the El Castell beach in Palamós, Palau convinced Lewin to spend a few days at Mas Castell, his house on the very same beach. While walking in that unique spot, between the pine trees and the sea, complete with an Iberian settlement on the hill above, Lewin was dazzled by the beauty of the place. On 25 March 1950, a few months after the meeting in London, the film crew, under the direction of Lewin, arrived at Tossa de Mar to start shooting what would mark a historic point in the film history of the Costa Brava. The decisive part that Puig Palau played was surely not coincidental. Besides being a successful businessman he was also a patron of the arts and a flamenco and gypsy enthusiast. He was the driving force behind the artistic career of the famous flamenco dancer La Chunga, and he set up the first tablao on the Costa Brava in Palamós, called La Pañoleta. He was also patron to Catalan singer Joan Manuel Serrat, who showed his gratitude in the song he dedicated to him, Tío Alberto (Uncle Alberto). He also helped produce several films and was deeply involved in the making of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman: once shooting on the Costa Brava was finished and when all the crew was back in London filming the interior sequences at the Shepperton studios, they realised that they didn’t have a scene with a flamenco dance. The only thing to do was to shoot it right there in London. When Puig Palau found out, he was horrified, and believing it wouldn’t be done well otherwise, had his gypsy friends flown to London by plane. And, naturally, he footed the bill!

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In 1950 the affair between Ava Gardner and Catalan bullfighter Mario Cabré turned the making of this film into a quite an event.

Editorial Diëresis

In spite of the iconic presence of Ava Gardner and James Mason, this free adaption of the Greek myth of Pandora and the legend of the ghost ship was not a box office success. It was considered too intellectual, and it was not recognised for its true cinematographic worth until the 1960s, especially by French critics. It did, however, manage to generate a lot of noise in the media, both in Spain and abroad. The rumours of an alleged affair between Ava Gardner, at the height of her beauty, and the Catalan toreador and poet Mario Cabré, who had a supporting role as a bullfighter in the film, provoked an immediate reaction from Frank Sinatra, who was married to Gardner at the time. In fact, the news was spread internationally by Cecilia Ager, one of the most feared reporters and critics of the time. She went to Tossa to cover the filming as columnist for the magazine Variety, and she also published an article under the particularly eloquent headline, ˝The Star and the Romantic Matador˝. Ava saw herself forced to call Frank Sinatra to tell him that it had all been made up, an explanation that failed to convince him, as he had also seen photos of the two together that the magazine had published. He cancelled his shows in New York and on 11 May, after a brief stopover in London, arrived in Barcelona accompanied by his friend and composer Jimmy Van Heusen. It is not hard to imagine that the arrival of Sinatra eclipsed the film shoot. Despite proof of the real reason for the visit, in an improvised press conference at the El Prat airport Sinatra stated that he had come to rest and get his strength back after a throat infection, and that he had chosen — what a coincidence — the Costa Brava! A lot of stories circulated about the days that the tumultuous couple spent together: rows, reconciliations, gift-giving and so on. Once he got back to New York on 28 May Frank Sinatra repeated the same version to the journalists there as to his reasons for going to Barcelona, and denied giving Ava necklace worth $10,000. We will never know the truth of the story for sure, but the fact is that the Costa Brava was witness to the noisy row and subsequent reconciliation of two Hollywood legends, with a Catalan bullfighter as an unexpected guest!

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S'Agaró was chosen by Orson Welles for the setting of the adventures of the enigmatic Mr. Arkadin.

Mercury / Cervantes Films / Filmorsa / Album

It was not long before a second international production with a famous cast followed. In the spring of 1952 filming began for Decameron Nights, A Spanish-British co-production starring Frenchman Louis Jourdan and the already revered British-American star, Joan Fontaine.

Winner of the Oscar for Best Actress in 1942 for Suspicion, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Fontaine had made her name internationally with Rebecca (1940), Hitchcock’s first film in the United States for which he had received his first Oscar nomination. Although a decade had passed since her tour de force, Joan Fontaine still kept her aura of a Hollywood great. So this particular comedy version of Boccaccio’s Decameron enabled one of the cinema’s iconic blondes to film for the first and last time in Spain. As well as Granada, Segovia and Sitges, the town of Blanes was chosen for one of the settings. It is interesting to note that among the cast was the British actress, Joan Collins, who would later become a household name for her role in the TV series Dynasty.

After the enjoying the presence of three Hollywood giants of the grandeur of Ava Gardner, James Mason and Joan Fontaine, the Costa Brava would once again be witness to the presence of another undisputable genius — Orson Welles. During the first half of 1954, the creator of Citizen Kane chose to shoot in different parts of Spain for his film Mr. Arkadin, a curious half-thriller half-psychological drama. Welles wrote, directed and acted in the film, making it one of the most personal and misunderstood films in his long and erratic film career. The film tells the story of the quest for the truth about Arkadin, one of the most mysterious and disturbing characters created by this extraordinary director. It is a muddled story, related in a fascinating and visually powerful way. For various reasons, one of them being disagreements with the producer, there are in fact at least five versions of the film: a Spanish one, with the participation of actresses Amparo Rivelles and Irene López de Heredia, one French, one German and two English versions; one for the United States and another international one under the name of Confidential Report. Despite the deleted shots and the changes of actresses, in all the versions we can see S’Agaró, one of the main settings for this enigmatic story.

In 1956 the powerful British production company, Rank Organisation, believed the Costa Brava would be the right place to shoot The Spanish Gardener. The drama was directed by Philip Leacock and featured a young Dirk Bogarde in the role of the gardener. The charismatic and attractive British actor, who achieved international fame with Death in Venice (1971), went largely unnoticed by onlookers during the film shoot, made entirely in the Girona region. As the plot included apparent homosexual tendencies, it was never released in Spain, and is still largely unknown here today.

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In The Light at the Edge of the World, the pirates led by Yul Brynner take over the lighthouse, built specially for the film.

Bryna Production / National General / Album

A few months after the shooting of The Spanish Gardener, several towns on the Costa Brava were chosen as settings by English director Michael Anderson for Chase a Crooked Shadow, a suspense movie which, according to the film’s advertising campaign, was a film Hitchcock would have liked to make. The cast was led by American actress Anne Baxter, who had won an Oscar in 1947 for her supporting role in The Razor’s Edge. In Spain she had become famous through her recent successes like All About Eve and I Confess. The great American actress played alongside Irish actor Richard Todd, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1949 and British actor Herbert Lom, who would later become known for his role as Inspector Dreyfus in the Pink Panther series. To top it all, the film was produced by Douglas Fairbanks Jr., the then retired actor and son of the giant legend of the silent screen.

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Much of the film Suddenly Last Summer (1959) was shot in the seaside town of Begur.

Columbia Pictures / Album

In 1958, L’Estartit joined the list of towns on the Costa Brava to play host to international film shoots. The British production Sea Fury, about an oil tanker run aground on the Cantabrian coast starred veteran actor Victor McLaglen. He was 75 years old when he came to film in Catalonia and, in spite of being in the twilight of his career, he was still remembered for his roles in some of John Ford’s memorable westerns such as The Informer. Made in 1935, it would bring Ford the first of his four Oscars for Best Director and Best Actor for McLaglen. Unfortunately, Sea Fury was never released in Spain.

It is no mean feat for films to be well-known for their visual effects technician, but this is what American Ray Harryhausen achieved (he died in May 2013). At the end of the 1950s and throughout the 60s he became interested in Eastern mythological fantasy cinema and several of these productions were made in Spain, specifically on the beach of Sa Conca in S’Agaró. Films like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The Three Worlds of Gulliver and Mysterious Island, are fine examples of a genre that had tremendous international appeal, especially among younger film-goers.

However, the next great movie event came along with the shooting of Suddenly, Last Summer. It was a film that had all the ingredients for success: produced by Sam Spiegel, who had already won two Oscars for Best Film and who would go on to win another for Lawrence of Arabia (1962), directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the most ingenious Hollywood director at the time The story was based on a play by the great Tennessee Williams, who was at the height of his fame and finally, a script co-written by Williams himself and revered American intellectual, Gore Vidal. Evidence of William’s prestige as a playwright at that time is that he asked for the then astronomical sum of $50,000 for the script plus 20% of the profits. Spiegel accepted without hesitation. To round off the group, the starring roles would feature three of the top Hollywood stars, Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Katherine Hepburn.

The film tells a disturbing tale based on themes which were controversial at the time — some of them still are today — such as incest, homosexuality, male prostitution and cannibalism. Notwithstanding the problems of American censorship and the fact that it was ahead of its time, it enjoyed considerable box office success. Many of the outdoor scenes were filmed in 1959 on different beaches of the Costa Brava and in the town of Begur, representing an undefined place somewhere in Spain. Of the three stars, only Elizabeth Taylor, playing Catherine Holly, came to Spain to film what would be one of the best performances of her career.

After fifty spectacular years the 1960s gave way to low budget and experimental Spanish productions. It seems, and to some extent it was true, that the Costa Brava’s heyday as a natural setting was over. Nevertheless, in the 1960s the Costa Brava would still be home to a few interesting films and the great stars would once again travel to its shores.

In 1970, Cap de Creus, today a natural park, was the setting for the filming of The Light at the Edge of the World. It was an adaption of the novel by Jules Verne, directed by Kevin Billington and starring Kirk Douglas, one of the greatest American actors of all times, famous for epic films such as Spartacus (1960), and Yul Brynner, winner of the Oscar for Best Actor in 1951 for The King and I. A US-Spanish co-production, it also featured Spanish actor Fernando Rey, internationally renowned for his character performances. Despite the ambition of the project (which included three months of filming in Catalonia) and the international distribution by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the film failed to live up to expectations.

About a year later, in the spring of 1971, S’Agaró and Sant Feliu de Guíxols were once again the setting for an international super production. Producer Sam Spiegel and Columbia Pictures decided once again that Spain, and specifically the Costa Brava, would provide the star locations for Nicholas and Alexandra. The film was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, who was still celebrating after his recent success with Patton, winner of seven Oscars, including Best Film and Best Director. It starred top-class actors, albeit in supporting roles, such as Lawrence Olivier and Michael Redgrave. The film relates the life of the last Russian monarchs, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra, who would see the end to 300 years of the Romanov dynasty. Among the many awards it received was the Oscar for Best Artistic Direction for the team which included Spaniard Gil Parrondo, who had already won his first Oscar for Patton.

Although they lacked the glitz and glitter of previous eras, the last years of the 1960s still brought several big films to the Costa Brava, which would practically mark the end of the love story between the big stars and the Catalan coast. In 1977, British film director Ken Russell made Valentino, a biography about the legendary Hollywood star and idol of the silent cinema. Surprisingly enough, the role fell to Rudolf Nureyev, the great Russian ballet dancer, who had no acting experience. In the same year Calella de Palafrugell fell victim to the visit of the unstable Maria Schneider, famous for Last Tango in Paris (1972). She was acting in Io Sono Mia, which turned out to be a total flop: Ms Schneider’s presence is remembered more for the pages it filled in the gossip magazines and tabloids than for her thespian talent.