No desearás al vecino del quinto

{{Infobox film

| name = No desearás al vecino del quinto

| image = No desearás al vecino del quinto poster.png

| caption = Film poster

| director = Tito Fernández

| producer = José Frade

| writer = {{ubl|Juan José Alonso Millán|Sandro Continenza}}

| narrator =

| starring = {{ubl|Alfredo Landa|Jean Sorel|Ira von Fürstenberg|Isabel Garcés}}

| music = Piero Umiliani

| cinematography = Hans Burnman

| editing = Pedro del Rey

| studio = {{ubl|Atlántida Films|Fida Cinematografica}}

| distributor =

| released = {{Film date|1970|10|26}}

| runtime = 85 minutes

| country = {{ubl|Spain|Italy}}

| language = Spanish

| budget =

}}

No desearás al vecino del quinto (Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Fifth Floor Neighbor,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OWWzDwAAQBAJ&dq=No+desear%C3%A1s+al+vecino+del+quinto&pg=PA222|title=Historical Dictionary of Spanish Cinema|date=15 December 2019 |publisher= Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=9781538122679|page=222}} released in Italy as Due ragazzi da marciapiede) is a 1970 Spanish-Italian sex comedy film directed by Tito Fernández and starring Alfredo Landa, Jean Sorel, and Ira von Fürstenberg. A massive box office hit in Spain, the film became a linchpin for the mega-successful and profitable formula of Spanish sex comedies.{{Sfn|Jordan|2003|p=177}}

Plot

In Toledo, a provincial town, Andreu, a handsome gynecologist, opens his practice without any success, as he is too attractive for the husbands and boyfriends of his patients not to be jealous of him. While Dr. Andreu fails miserably, the dressmaker Antón, owner of a boutique and with a reputation of being effeminate due to his manners and his little dog, makes the husbands feel confident in him, letting their wives shop in his boutique.

Dr. Andreu goes to Madrid to attend a gynecology conference and, dragged by his colleagues, decides to go to a cabaret. There, the doctor is frightened to see how Antón, his neighbor from the fifth floor, without a wig and displaying all his hidden masculinity, is having a great time between two beautiful women. When discovered, Antón confesses to Andreu that he pretends to be homosexual so as not to have problems with the husbands of his clients. Later he takes him to his apartment where, through a telescope, they flirt with two beautiful hostesses from the apartment across the street. Shortly afterwards they return to Toledo. There everything is gossip and provokes the same comment: what dirty friendship unites the gynecologist with the sensitive dressmaker?

Cast

Alfredo Landa as Antón Gutiérrez
Jean Sorel as Pedro Andreu
Ira von Fürstenberg as Jacinta
Isabel Garcés as Socorro
Margot Cottens as Jacinta's mother
Adrián Ortega as Luis
Annabella Incontrera as Matilde
Guadalupe Muñoz Sampedro as Jacinta's grandmother
Franco Balducci as Fred Corleone

Release and reception

The film premiered in Madrid in October 1970 and became one of the most commercially successful Spanish films of the early 1970s, earning at least 177.5 million pesetas at the box office and watched by over 4 million people. Stewart King and Jeff Browitt consider the film to be the "most representative of a highly idiosyncratic comedy genre that flourished in Spanish cinema in the last years of the Franco regime".{{cite book|author=Browitt, Jeff, King, Stewart|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tGE0WZ2x3sQC&dq=No+desear%C3%A1s+al+vecino+del+quinto&pg=PA12|title=The Space of Culture Critical Readings in Hispanic Studies|year=2004|publisher=University of Delaware Press|page=12| isbn=978-0-87413-917-4 }}

{{ill|César Santos Fontenla|es}} declared the film "one of the most aesthetically void [...] and morally repulsive [...] films [...] ever produced.{{Sfn|Jordan|2003|p=178}}

{{ill|Alberto Mira|es}} dennounced the film to be "worse than homophobic", "oligophrenic, machista".{{sfn|Martínez Expósito|2004|p=19}}

References

Bibliography

{{Cite journal|year=2003|title=Revisiting the ‘comedia sexy ibérica’: No desearás al vecino del quinto (Ramón Fernández, 1971)|first=Barry|last=Jordan|journal=International Journal of Iberian Studies|volume=15|issue=3|pages=167–186|doi=10.1386/ijis.15.3.167}}
{{Cite book|title=The Space of Culture: Critical Readings in Hispanic Studies|editor-first=Stewart|editor-last=King|editor-first2=Jeff|editor-last2=Browitt|publisher=University of Delaware Press|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?hl=es&lr=&id=tGE0WZ2x3sQC&oi=fnd&pg=PA12|chapter=Visibility and Performance in the Anti-Gay Sexy Spanish Comedy: No desearás al vecino del quinto (1970)|pages=12–28|isbn=0-87413-917-1|first=Alfredo|last=Martínez Expósito}}