That Happy Couple

Juan is an electrician at a film studio and Carmen keeps house. They live in a small flat in Madrid and the money is never enough. When they win a competition run by a soap brand they are named "the happiest couple" for a day: presents, a taxi, a restaurant, the cinema. When the day is over they see what is left. The film is the first feature Juan Antonio Bardem and Luis García Berlanga directed together; both went on to become among the most important names in Spanish cinema. Fernando Fernán Gómez and Elvira Quintillá take the leads. The comedy shows the poverty of Franco-era Spain without saying so directly: the distance between what an advertisement promises and an actual life.