The Heifer

The Heifer (1985)

La vaquilla

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.

Date of release
1985-03-06
TMDB
6.7 / 10 (70)
Runtime
2h 2m
Genres
Comedy, War
Director
Luis García Berlanga

Casting

Interesting facts

La vaquilla is a 1985 Spanish comedy film written and directed by Luis García Berlanga. It was the first comedy made about the Spanish Civil War and the highest-grossing Spanish film in Spain at the time surpassing Los santos inocentes.

Filming

The film was shot, for the most part, in Sos del Rey Católico (Zaragoza), with a large portion of the local population participating as extras. At the time, the filming was a major event for the town, which threw itself wholeheartedly into the occasion.

The Republican camp scenes were filmed in the abandoned village of Ruesta.

Ultimately, the production proved to be a challenging undertaking, boasting a budget of 250 million pesetas (1.5 million euros) and involving some 500 extras. This made it the most expensive film in the history of Spanish cinema—a record that would be surpassed just one year later by Fernando Colomo's El caballero del dragón, with a budget of 300 million pesetas.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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