Varietés (1971)

movie

(78)

Country: Spain
Genres: Drama, Musical
Release: 1974-01-04
Director: Juan Antonio Bardem
Writers: Juan Antonio Bardem
Language: Spanish
Stars: Sara Montiel , Vicente Parra , Chris Avram , Trini Alonso , José María Mompín , Antonio Ferrandis , Emilio Laguna , Rafael Alonso , Rafael Conesa , José Morales
Runtime: 99 min
Awards: 1 win & 1 nomination
AKA: Variedades (Portugal, Portuguese Republic) , Varietés (Spain) , Varietes (Brazil) , Varietés , Varieties
Plot: Spain 1930s. A troupe of performers travel from city to city entertaining audiences and earning a living. The cast includes a magician, a ventriloquist, muscle men, dancers, singers and a full orchestra. The star of the show is Carmen Soler (Trini Alonso) a celebrated singer, now way past her prime, who refuses to retire gracefully and defends her stardom ruthlessly. On her shadow lives and works Ana Marques (Sara Montiel) a younger singer who dreams of the big time and patiently waits for her break. Meanwhile, Ana is having an affair with piano player Miguel (Vicente Parra), who comes from a wealthy and conservative family that frowns upon his show business career and specially upon his relationship with a show girl. As time passes without Ana achieving success, Miguel tries to talk her into quitting and marrying him but Ana loves the stage too much and finally renounces Miguel who, brokenhearted, leaves the show and goes back to his family.The tour continues and some popular composers, realizing Ana's potential, agree to write good songs for her. She sees in this new material her opportunity to shine but Carmen finds out and uses her influence to steal the songs from her. There is a major confrontation between the two singers and Ana decides to quit but she is persuaded to stay by Arturo Robles (Chris Avram) the owner of an important chain of theaters who offers to help her. Soon it is obvious that he expects Ana to become his mistress in exchange for backing her career. Ana accepts the proposition but before Arturo's plans develop Carmen is taken ill and Ana is asked to replace her temporarily. She has an uncontested success and decides to break up with Arturo since she has proven to everybody and to herself that she can make it on her own without being anyone's mistress.Time passes and Ana is the superstar in another traveling show. Every night she goes on stage and receives the ovations of the adoring fans. All her dreams have finally come true and she expects to remain in the number one spot for many years. She doesn't even notice that in the cast of her show there is pretty young singer (Sandy Brown) who dreams of stardom and is waiting patiently for her own turn to shine.
IMDB:tt0067928