''The Delinquents'' (, also translated ''The Hooligans'') is a 1960 Spanish neorealist

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Carlos Saura Carlos Saura Atarés (4 January 1932 – 10 February 2023) was a Spanish film director, photographer and writer. With Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, he is considered to be among Spain's great filmmakers. He had a long and prolific career th ...

. It was entered into the

1960 Cannes Film Festival The 13th Cannes Film Festival took place from 4 to 20 May 1960. Belgian writer Georges Simenon served as Jury President for the main competition. The ''Palme d'Or'', the festival's top prize, was awarded to ''La Dolce Vita'' by Federico Fellini. ...

Production

''Los golfos'' was filmed on location around

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

(the first Spanish film filmed entirely on location), locations including the Legazpi market, the slums around the Manzanares and the

Cementerio de la Almudena The ''Cementerio de Nuestra Señora de La Almudena'' (), former ''Necrópolis del Este'' (East cemetery) is a cemetery in Madrid, Spain. It is the largest in Western Europe. The number of bodies buried is estimated at five million since it was th ...

Plot

Julián, Ramón, Juan, el Chato, Paco and Manolo are six Andalusian migrants from the depressed, suburban and shantytown outskirts of Madrid who survive off the product of their assaults, thefts and robberies. Only one of them, Juan, eventually works as a porter in the Legazpi fruit market, and it is him that the others try to help, in solidarity, to make his dream of being a bullfighter come true. Although they manage to collect the money that the intermediary asks for, everything goes wrong. Paco and El Chato are identified by a taxi driver who was the victim of a robbery while selling tickets for his friend's debut; Paco, fleeing from him, hides in a sewer and, at dawn, appears dead in a dunghill. In the afternoon, in the Plaza de Vista Alegre, the bullfight is held with a disastrous result: between boos and whistles, after several failed attempts, Juan manages to kill the bull.

Cast

Manuel Zarzo Manuel López Zarza (; 26 April 1932 – 16 or 17 June 2025), better known as Manuel Zarzo (), was a Spanish film actor. He appeared in more than 200 television and film works over his 7-decade long career. Zarzo made his film debut in ''Day b ...

as Julián * Luis Marín as Ramón * Óscar Cruz as Juan * Juanjo Losada as El Chato * María Mayer as Visi * Ramón Rubio as Paco * Rafael Vargas as Manolo *

Carmen Sánchez Carmen Sánchez (21 April 1898 – 20 November 1985) was a Spanish producer, dancer, and actress. She started her career as dancer and singer of zarzuela at very young age. At age 20, she finished working on copla or chotis and was featured in f ...

as ("Gossipy woman")

Release

''Los golfos'' premiered at the

but was not released in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

until 1962 due to the censorship regime.

Reception

''Los golfos'' is considered a classic film today, appearing on the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

's list of "10 great films set in Madrid;" Maria Delgado writing that "The use of untrained actors, a raw documentary feel and recognisable outdoor locations ��give the film both immediacy and resonance." In ''Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain'',

Marsha Kinder Marsha Kinder (born 1940) is an American film scholar and Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California. Background Kinder began her career as a scholar of eighteenth-century English Literature before moving to the study ...

wrote of ''Los golfos'' that "The fact that no fathers appear in the film shows an ideological departure from the

Fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

glorification of the patriarchal family and its

idealization Psychoanalytic theory posits that an individual unable to integrate difficult feelings mobilizes specific defenses to overcome these feelings, which the individual perceives to be unbearable. The defense that effects (brings about) this process i ...

of the bond between fathers and sons and also speaks to the historical reality of so many Spanish fathers having been killed in the Civil War."Kinder, M. (1993:99). ''Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain.'' Switzerland: University of California Press.

References

External links

* 1960 films Spanish drama films 1950s Spanish-language films 1960 drama films Spanish black-and-white films Films directed by Carlos Saura Bullfighting films 1950s Spanish films Films set in 1959 {{1950s-Spain-film-stub