Main Cast: Betsy Blair, José Suárez, Yves Massard, Dora Doll, Lila Kedrova
Release Year: 1956
Country: FR/ES
Run Time: 98 minutes
Plot
The Franco-Spanish Calle Mayor (aka Main Street and The Lovemaker) is an excellent showcase for the underrated and brilliant American actress Betsy Blair. In a reprise of her characterization in Marty, Blair plays Isabelle, a repressed, unmarried 35-year-old. As a cruel joke, a group of middle-aged men persuade a handsome but thick-headed hunk named Juan (Jose Suarez) to romance the reclusive Isabelle. When it becomes clear that she is hopelessly in love with him, the pangs of conscience begin exercising their prerogative on Juan. He is able to extricate himself from this awkward emotional entanglement, but the price that he and Isabelle are forced to pay is precious indeed. Calle Mayor was able to secure American bookings on the strength of the success of director Juan Antonio Bardem's previous film Death of a Cyclist. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Isabel (Betsy Blair) is a good-natured and sensible spinster who lives in a small town with her widow mother. She is losing all her hopes of getting married and having babies.
A bunch of bored middle-aged friends decides to play a trick on Isabel: Juan (José Suárez), the youngest and most handsome of all them, will pretend to fall in love with her. As Isabel lives the courtship full of hopes and joy, Juan realizes too late the cruelty of the situation; and, still pushed by his buddies, he doesn't dare tell Isabel the truth.
When the day of the gala dance in the town's Club comes, Isabel is still living her dream of love. She expects her engagement to be publicly announced from the stage, but Juan, desperate, tries to do anything to shy away from the muddle.
Cast
Betsy Blair (dubbed into Spanish by Elsa Fábregas) ... Isabel
Similarities between Calle Mayor story and environment and Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni have been pointed out.
Calle Mayor was first Blair's performance outside the US, and she played very brilliantly her role, which bore a rather close resemblance to the one in her previous success, Marty. For Suárez this was his most dramatically profound role, and it shot him momentarily to fame all across Europe.
The name of the role played by Yves Massard (an educated and honest old friend of Juan, come from Madrid to pay a visit to him) was confessedly Bardem's inside hommage to Federico Sánchez, pseudonym used by then by Jorge Semprún to manage the clandestine activities of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE); Bardem was a well-known member of PCE.
