The Executioner
This masterpiece of black humor, beloved in Spain but too little seen elsewhere, threads a scathing critique of Franco-era values through a macabre farce about an undertaker who marries an executioner’s daughter and reluctantly takes over her father’s job so the family can keep their government-allotted apartment. As caustic today as it was in 1963, this early collaboration between Luis García Berlanga and his longtime screenwriter Rafael Azcona is an unerring depiction of what Berlanga called “the invisible traps that society sets up for us.” A furiously funny personal attack on capital punishment, The Executioner evaded the state censors who sought to suppress it, and today is regarded as one of the greatest Spanish films of all time.
Special Features
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New interview with filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar
- New program on director Luis García Berlanga, featuring interviews with his son José Luis Berlanga; film critic Carlos F. Heredero; writers Fernando R. Lafuente and Bernardo Sánchez Salas; and director of the Berlanga Film Museum Rafael Maluenda
- Spanish television program from 2012 on The Executioner, featuring archival interviews with Berlanga
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film critic David Cairns
New cover by Brian Stauffer
Special Features
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- New interview with filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar
- New program on director Luis García Berlanga, featuring interviews with his son José Luis Berlanga; film critic Carlos F. Heredero; writers Fernando R. Lafuente and Bernardo Sánchez Salas; and director of the Berlanga Film Museum Rafael Maluenda
- Spanish television program from 2012 on The Executioner, featuring archival interviews with Berlanga
- Trailer
- New English subtitle translation
- PLUS: An essay by film critic David Cairns
New cover by Brian Stauffer
Cast
- Nino Manfredi
- José Luis Rodriguez
- Emma Penella
- Carmen
- José Isbert
- Amadeo
- José Luis López Vázquez
- Antonio Rodriguez
Credits
- Director
- Luis García Berlanga
- Produced by
- Nazario Belmar
- Story by
- Luis García Berlanga
- Story by
- Rafael Azcona
- Screenplay by
- Luis García Berlanga
- Screenplay by
- Rafael Azcona
- Screenplay by
- Ennio Flaiano
- Cinematography by
- Tonino Delli Colli
- Film editing by
- Alfonso Santacana
- Art direction by
- Luis Argüello
- Music by
- Miguel Asins Arbó
A scene from The Executioner
