Rafael Azcona

Writing

Rafael Azcona

Born — Died

1926-10-24 — 2008-03-23

Place of birth

Logroño, La Rioja, España

Known for

Writing

Credits

47 titles

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Rafael Azcona Fernández (24 October 1926 – 24 March 2008) was an awarded Spanish screenwriter and novelist who has worked with some of the best Spanish and international filmmakers. Azcona won five Goya Awards during his career, including a lifetime achievement award in 1998. He was born in the northern Spanish city Logroño on 24 October 1926. Azcona initially began his career writing for humor magazines. He became known as a screenwriter when he penned the screenplay for the film, El Pisito (The Little Apartment), which was based on his own novel. The 1959 film was directed by Italian film director, Marco Ferreri. Azcona teamed up with director Ferna…

Known for

Film credits

2000s · 2 titles

Behind the camera

La Grande Bouffe poster
7.1

Four friends gather at a villa with the intention of eating themselves to death.

La Grande Bouffe

1973

Belle Époque poster
6.7

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.

Belle Époque

1992

It Can Be Done Amigo poster
5.8

An outspoken boy and a gunfighter-pimp save a drifter's life from hanging. The boy's uncle dies, leaving a house and some dry, useless land to the boy. The dying uncle has obtained the drifter's promise to help the boy get what is his. Meanwhile the gunfighter has decided that the drifter should marry his daughter after being with her previously. The two get into a series of brawls and shoot-outs until they arrive in the town and find the boy's inheritance -which turns out not to be as useless as it first appears.

It Can Be Done Amigo

1972

Chechu and Family poster
5.3

Chechu is a 13 year old boy who lives surrounded by peculiar people: his grandfather, his uncle, and two maids. He falls in love with one of them.

Chechu and Family

1992

The Ape Woman poster
7.3

A modest Neapolitan man meets a young woman with excessive hairiness. He exhibits her at fairs and marries her. It is after marriage that he receives a tempting offer from a French manager.

The Ape Woman

1964

A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die poster
6.3

A dishonored Union Army officer leads a group of convicts to retake Fort Holman from the Confederate Army.

A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die

1972

The Girl of Your Dreams poster
6.5

During the Spanish Civil War, a troupe of Spanish filmmakers is invited to shoot a film at UFA studios in Nazi Germany.

The Girl of Your Dreams

1998

Anna and the Wolves poster
6.8

The young but traveled Ana arrives in a manor in the countryside of Spain to work as nanny of three girls and finds a dysfunctional family.

Anna and the Wolves

1973

The Last Woman poster
6.2

Psychological drama of the compelling relationship between a young French engineer and the girl he takes into his home after his wife has left him with their baby son.

The Last Woman

1976

Bye Bye Monkey poster
6.2

In metahistorical New York city electrotechnician Lafayette deals with a megalomaniac director of a wax museum of ancient Rome, an italian lonely anarchist, a group of feminist actresses - including Angelica who falls in love with him - and a small adopted chimpanzee.

Bye Bye Monkey

1978

Don't Touch the White Woman! poster
5.5

A highly stylized surreal farce about the events leading up to Custer's Last Stand anachronistically reenacted in an urban renewal area in modern Paris.

Don't Touch the White Woman!

1974

Year of Enlightment poster
6.0

April, 1940. Manolo, 16 years old, and Jesus, who is just 8, are taken by their older brother Pepe, a lieutenant in the Army, to a sanatorium for children suffering from tuberculosis, situated on the border with Portugal. Once in the sanatorium, Manolo, surrounded by boys all much younger than he is, feels a bit like the cock of the walk since the only other man around is the handyman Emilio who looks after the gardens and does whatever needs to be done about the place. His wife, Rafaela, is the cook. Manolo meets Irene, a falangist who runs the sanatorium, and the school teacher, Miss Transito, a crabby spinster. He has his first sexual experience, albeit as a voyeur, with his nurse Vicenta. When she has to leave, her place is taken by a girl from the village, Maria Jesus, with whom Manolo falls hopelessly in love. A relationship grows up between them which will mark them both for ever.

Year of Enlightment

1986

Blood and Sand poster
5.0

Remake of the tale of an acclaimed matador who finds himself involved with a beautiful woman, jeopardizing both his marriage and career.

Blood and Sand

1989

Ay, Carmela! poster
6.7

During the Spanish Civil War, a group of comics lightens the days of the Republican troops. Tired of life in the front lines, they make their way to Valencia, accidentally entering enemy land and falling prisoner.

Ay, Carmela!

1990

Kiss the Other Sheik poster
6.4

Italian comedy film in three segments

Kiss the Other Sheik

1965

Sound of the Sea poster
5.9

A new literature teacher, Ulises, comes to a small town near the sea and falls in love with a young woman, Martina. This woman is loved by a rich businessman named Alberto but chooses Ulises. Soon after their marriage and the birth of their son, Ulises vanishes while fishing at sea. In the meanwhile Martina marries Alberto, but all is not what it seems...

Sound of the Sea

2001

In Praise of Older Women poster
5.5

In the turmoil of the Spanish Civil War, a young man comes of age sexually, through a string of relationships with a wide range of mature, older women.

In Praise of Older Women

1997

Life Size poster
5.7

Michel is a middle-aged man with money and social standing. But he dreams of owning a doll to be his lover. When he finally gets one, he realizes he has become a slave to his own fantasy.

Life Size

1974

Placido poster
7.7

In a small Spanish town, during the Christmas holidays, a group of rich old ladies organize a peculiar event that consists of inviting a homeless person to sit down to dinner at their wealthy table. Plácido, a humble worker, is hired by the organizers to participate in a parade with his three-wheeled vehicle, a seemingly simple mission that will not be easy for him to accomplish.

Placido

1962

La Celestina poster
4.8

The young nobleman Calisto falls in love with Melibea, the daughter of a rich merchant. Calisto's servant Sempronio suggests they get the sorceress Celestina to further the romance. However Calisto's other servant Parmeno is suspicious of Celestina, as he knows about her tricks.

La Celestina

1996

The Executioner poster
7.6

An undertaker gets married to an old executioner's daughter and, although he doesn't like it, must continue the profession of his father-in-law after his retirement.

The Executioner

1963

How Good the Whites Are poster
6.6

The humanitarian aid expedition "Angeles Azules" (Blue Angels), comprising twelve Europeans and six trucks loaded with provisions to alleviate hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa, advances across the continent. As a result of the difficulties the team encounters, disorganization gradually takes over the convoy. Each of the members of the group, little by little, yield to their petty, selfish impulses: violence, power, nostalgia - The breakdown of one of the trucks forces Michele and Nadia to wait at an oasis for the arrival of spare parts. But a starving local tribe settles threateningly near them. The chief of the tribe makes a speech they don't understand, which is followed by a macabre purification ceremony.

How Good the Whites Are

1988

In the Eye of the Hurricane poster
6.2

Ruth and Michel separate after Ruth finds another man, Paul. Ruth and Paul go to her sunny, idyllic beach side villa to spend summer. They are having a great time together, and then things start happening. The brakes of the car fail, and Ruth narrowly escapes death. The driving equipment goes faulty, and Ruth almost drowns. Michel turns up at their doorstep for an uninvited social call, and Paul asks him in. Ruth suspects Michel of being the person behind the mechanical faults of the car and the diving equipment, but Paul dismisses such a possibility - but he does suggest it to Michel. Then, the heat does go up.

In the Eye of the Hurricane

1971

Butterfly poster
7.3

The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.

Butterfly

1999

Peppermint Frappé poster
6.6

Julián, a middle-aged single doctor, is reunited with Pablo, a childhood friend who has just married Elena, a beautiful young woman.

Peppermint Frappé

1967

The Man with the Balloons poster
7.1

Mario is a Milan industrialist who is constantly testing balloons to see how much air one can take before busting.

The Man with the Balloons

1967

Mafioso poster
7.6

When a good-natured factory supervisor living in Milan with his Northern wife returns to his native Sicily, a decades' old oath forces him to fulfill a nightmarish obligation.

Mafioso

1962

The Court of the Pharaoh poster
5.6

In the early Spanish Civil Post-war, in Madrid, during the most hard times of the Franco dictatorship, a group of second-rate players try to get out of their wretched lives taking advantage of the artistic caprices of the son of a rich man who supports the regime. They try to stage a Pre-war 'zarzuela' (a sort of Spanish operetta), 'La Corte Del Faraón', which ironically, thirty years later, is too obscene for the regime censorship. They finally manage to perform the 'zarzuela' but end up in the police station where they confirm that justice depends on which side are you on

The Court of the Pharaoh

1985

The Wedding March poster
6.5

Satirical film in four episodes about family and marriage.

The Wedding March

1966

Goodbye from the Heart poster
6.4

Juan is now in his fifties, has a protruding belly, dyes his hair gray and lives alone with a cat who has urinary problems, but despite this, women still find him attractive.

Goodbye from the Heart

2000

The Heifer poster
6.7

During the Spanish Civil War a platoon of mismatched Republican soldiers cross the front-line to steal the bull that the enemy is going to fight on the local holiday of the nearby village. In addition to ruining the Nationalist faction's celebration they want the animal in order to butcher it and feed their famished troops. They get caught in the process and have to go through a series of funny and pathetic incidents before they can get back to their side.

The Heifer

1985

The Garden of Delights poster
6.1

The greedy relatives of a paralysed 45-year-old amnesiac millionaire go to extreme lengths to help him recover his memory.

The Garden of Delights

1970

The Seventh Floor poster
6.0

In this unusual offbeat black comedy directed by Ugo Tognazzi, Giuseppe (Tognazzi) is a middle-aged industrialist obsessed with gadgets. When his nose starts to whistle uncontrollably, he checks into a clinic to resolve the problem. What begins as a minor affliction worsens, and Giuseppe is placed on a different floor as his ailments multiply. The sicker he gets, the higher he goes up in the floors of the clinic, until he is near death's door.

The Seventh Floor

1967

L'Estate poster
7.0

A young student joins her rich lawyer stepfather and then her mother who the selfish man does not love, for a summer vacation in Sardinia with the man's posh friends

L'Estate

1966

Honeycomb poster
6.5

Teresa and Peter settle down in their new home after the wedding. Things are going well until her childhood furniture arrives, sending Teresa into horrible flashbacks of turmoil from memories of her youth.

Honeycomb

1969

La familia bien, gracias poster
6.0

Sequel to "The Great Family" and "Family and one more". A widower and the godfather of his 16 children, aged two, wistfully contemplate the past. The father was left alone in the family home, but loneliness overwhelms him so he decides to spend some time at home for each of their children, most of whom are married. But the experience ends up being disastrous.

La familia bien, gracias

1979

The Conjugal Bed poster
6.5

A forty-year-old employee marries a seemingly quiet girl who turns into a mantis after the wedding.

The Conjugal Bed

1963

Run for Your Wife poster
6.3

Riccardo, an unhappily married middle aged Italian working for a shoe factory, goes to America on a four day business trip.

Run for Your Wife

1965

Pasodoble poster
5.3

A family, expelled from their shack, occupies the museum in Cordoba where once lived the prince who, in his youth, was the grandmother's lover. The curators and administrators of the museum, aided by a couple of inexperienced policemen, harass the squatters to force them to leave.

Pasodoble

1988

Tuset Street poster
4.5

Barcelona 1967. The pop culture revolution. Jordi (Patrick Bauchau) is a rich playboy who runs around with a bunch of high-end hippies, smoking, drinking, dancing and daydreaming about Tuset Street, an effort to develop a popular street in the newer section of Barcelona after the models of Haight Ashbury Street in San Francisco and Carnaby Street in London. Jordi and his gang represent the new Barcelona, wealthy, artificial and striving for imported sophistication. On the older side of the city is El Paralelo, the theater district. At El Molino, one of its many music halls, performs Violeta (Sara Montiel), a showgirl in the old style tradition who supplements her singing income with prostitution. Somehow Violeta represents the old values, the "real world" living along side an artificial creation such as Tuset.

Tuset Street

1968