Acting
Juan Calvo
Born 1892-05-22 · Onteniente, Valencia, Spain
Juan Calvo was a Spanish actor. He began his contact with cinema in 1934, with a small part in the sound version of Florián Rey's La hermana San Sulpicio. During part of the war he was representing theatrical plays in the national zone, but at the end of the war he abandoned the stage to devote himself fully to the cinema, whose filmography consists of about eighty titles. In 1938 he shot in the German studios of Ufa, Suspiros de España, by Benito Perojo, and the following year he finished shooting the film by Fernando Delgado, El genio alegre, begun in 1936, which had remained unfinished due to the outbreak of the Civil War. After shooting Florián Rey's La Dolores in 1940, he spent a couple of seasons filming between Spain and Italy, where he stood out in Ladislao Vajda's film Conjura en Venecia. In the first half of this decade he also stood out in two other films by this director, El testamento del Virrey and Cinco lobitos, as well as in Raza and El escándalo, by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia; Huella de luz, El clavo, Eloísa está debajo de un almendro and Tierra sedienta, by Rafael Gil; Boda en el infierno and Los últimos de Filipinas, by Antonio Román, or Tuvo la culpa Adán and Ella, él y sus millones, by Juan de Orduña. In 1946 he moved to Mexico, where he filmed until 1953, although he finished filming Don Quixote de la Mancha for Rafael Gil in Madrid in 1947, excelling in his interpretation of Sancho Panza. In his Aztec journey he worked under the orders of some Spanish directors who were in exile, standing out in Bel Ami, la historia de un canalla (Bel Ami, the story of a scoundrel), by Antonio Momplet. It is also worth mentioning his performance in Allá en el rancho grande, by Fernando de Fuentes. After filming La venenosa, La virgen desnuda and El mártir del calvario for Miguel Morayta, and, finally, Educando a papá, for Fernando Soler, he returned to film again in Spain, although at this stage he definitively stopped alternating with theater. Of his activity on the screen, in this decade he stands out in the film by Ladislao Vajda, Marcelino, pan y vino, in which he gave a memorable performance in the character of Fray Papilla, for which he received the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos Award in 1955, an entity that also distinguished him the following year for his work in Calabuch, a film by Berlanga, which gave him the same year the award of the Sindicato Nacional del Espectáculo (National Union of the Spectacle). He also shot for Vajda, Aventuras del barbero de Sevilla, Tarde de toros and Mi tío Jacinto, and for Berlanga, Los jueves, milagro, as well as in Historias de la radio and in Diez fusiles esperan, for Sáenz de Heredia. His last screen appearance was in 1961, in Fray Escoba, by Ramón Torrado. In his long cinematographic history, he was mainly cast in the roles of bullfighting impresario and businessman, often with the repeated image of an angry man, with a Havana cigar between his fingers, although it was also common that behind that interpretative mask he was allowed to show off his bonhomie. That easy-going spirit was consubstantial in him. He always stood out for his very personal voice, which he had undoubtedly educated in his years of work in the theater.
Acting credits
6.0Dolores works as a washerwoman with her daughter Sole and they both live with the girl's stepfather and her godfather, a nice good-for-nothing guy. Although they all have a very different personality, they share the illusion of seeing Sole become a great artist.
Suspiros de España
1939
5.5Garcia, a shy young musician who can not release any of his works, is in love with Lupe, a singer who makes a living working in a modest amusement park.
… Y después del cuplé
1959
9.0Nora leaves the convent where she has been raised to marry a relative. Just arrived she has an accident resulting in total amnesia. Her identity mistaken a new life begins for her, where she will encounter love, adventure and even crime.
Tuvo la culpa Adán
1944
7.4Left on the doorstep of a monastery as an infant, Marcelino was raised by the monks. He was well-cared for but lonely and missed having a mother. One day he found a special friend in the forbidden attic, hanging on a cross. A friend that would repay Marcelino's kindness by granting him one heart-felt wish.
The Miracle of Marcelino
1955
6.0Two Spanish children, boy and girl, make friends with a Mexican boy while on vacation. In adulthood, their friendship turns into a romantic triangle. Then bullfighting and the Foreign legion and stuff.
Hermoso ideal
1948
7.5Professor Hamilton, a naive Nuclear scientist who once thought bombs were good for humanity, realizes his mistake and runs away from his inventions. He hides in Calabuch, a beautiful seaside town where people still believe in humor and friendship.
The Rocket from Calabuch
1956
6.9In 1860s Madrid, Fabián Conde is a dissolute young man who drives his dishonored identity into a life of seduction and dueling. When he eventually falls in love, changes for good and finds the truth about his family, his two opposite friends give him contrasted advice on what he should do. He chooses and time goes by. Then something unexpected happens that will put him on the brim of loosing everything he has fought for.
El escándalo
1943
4.2Fearing that her niece Rosita will abandon her true love and enter into a marriage of convenience, doña Juanita tells her the story of when, many years ago, she fell in love with an accountant who worked in a circus.
El fantasma y doña Juanita
1945
7.3No synopsis available yet.
Fray Escoba
1961
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Ana María
1944
5.4No synopsis available yet.
Mi marido
1951
6.8Melodrama based on the homonymous novel by the Spanish writer José María Carretero Novillo (El Caballero Audaz), which tells a romantic story about a pair of lovers who endure great suffering in their attempt to be together.
La virgen desnuda
1950
5.8No synopsis available yet.
Capitan Tempesta
1942
6.2Crooked lawyer runs amok, making a mockery of the legal system.
Entre abogados te veas
1951
7.5Three short stories based on radio competitions, all linked by speaker Gabriel and his fiancee. Two inventors who want to patent a piston and need money, a thief who answers a phone call while robbing and a child who needs to go to Sweden for an operation are the protagonists of these stories around the radio.
Radio Stories
1955
9.0No synopsis available yet.
Fiebre
1943
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Le belle dell'aria
1957
7.0Alberto, a newspaper man, tries a one-time shot of living the good life with the help of his penniless mentor.
Il conte Max
1957
10.0Claudio and Maurizio, two young and reckless taxi drivers in a Roman gas station meet two American tourists, daughters of a Spanish man that has oil wells in America. Maurizio and Claudio walk the tourists to the Eternal City and forget their girlfriends Patricia and Lorella. The brides, aware of their wanderings,begin to pay them with the same currency.
Quanto sei bella Roma
1959
10.0A detective investigates on the death of a factory owner.
L'ispettore Vargas
1940
6.0The old hidalgo Don Alonso Quijano, maddened by the excessive reading of books on chivalry and determined to become a famous and heroic knight-errant, leaves his village and sets out on the road in search of adventure, accompanied by his faithful friend Sancho Panza.
Don Quixote
1947
6.7Hyacinth, a former matador who lives miserably with his nephew Pepote, receives a letter reminding him that, as agreed a few days before, he must participate in a bullfight to be held that same afternoon.
Uncle Hyacynth
1956
5.0The troubled story of the Churruca family, a noble lineage of brave seamen, descendants of Cosme Damián Churruca, the Spanish hero of the Battle of Trafalgar; from the Spanish-American War (1898) to the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). (In 1950, a new cut of the film was released with less ideological depth and ten minutes shorter.)
Raza
1942
6.0Spain, late 19th century. When, in a time of great political instability, Flora, a beautiful young woman, starts working in a ministry doing a job that supposedly only a man can do, a great scandal breaks out.
For Men Only
1960