RIP José Luis Merino Abbey Bersano
By Juan Pedro Lazo & José Luis Rodríguez Salvador Estébenez
December 30, 2014
The Spanish film Academy announced on December 30, 2014 the death of Jose Luis Merino.
Born on June 10, 1927 in Madrid, Merino began as an assistant director in 1947 and not until 1958 when given a chance to make his first film with Aquellos tiempos del cuplé, directed by Matthew Cano and whose screenplay won the award of the National Union of the Spectacle. Cano also made his next work, El vagabundo y la estrella (1960), starring the great Canary Island tenor Alfredo Krauss. After several titles, Merino began directing in the then successful spaghetti-westerns Kitosch, l'uomo che veniva del Nord (1967), first of the four titles that would roll under such generic parameters (provided they do not consider as such their different approaches to the character of Zorro), among which are one of the damn tapes of our cinema par excellence, 6.7 cabalgan hacia la muerte (1979), produced at a time when the European western was frankly obsolete.
Having made his entry into the cinema of subgenres with said Frontera south, Merino develop most of his career, concentrated main form between 1967 and 1973 and framed within gender politics, delving into war movies adventure films and, of course, fantastic. It is this last point that owns the he considered our favorite work, adaptation of the original Jardiel Enrique Ponce Satan's Five Warnings / Os five notices of Satan (1970) and two of his most memorable works, Ivanna / Il castello di fuoco dalle porte (1971) and The Hanging Woman / La orgy dei morti (1972), only that title went under the seal of his own production company, Petruka Films, and despite not currently enjoyed a distribution in the domestic sphere of our country, beyond our borders is considered a whole cult film which even boasts deluxe editions on DVD format as that marketed by Troma, whose extra features interviews and an interesting audio commentary by Merino.
After shooting Gritos de ansiedad / Cries of anxiety in 1984, would stay temporarily away from the cameras until 1990 when he filmed Superagentes in Mallorca, an attempt to revive the Euro Spy film, to which he had contributed SID against Kocesky / Colpo sensazionale the service of Sifar (1968). Nor can we forget his appearances as an actor in some of the films of José Luis Garci, of which highlight his small role Meri in both parts of El crack / The Crack.
José Luis Merino Boves leaves us at 87 years old but leaves behind his thirty film titles that demonstrate humility and mastery of one of the most versatile directors claimable by our native landscape. Rest in peace.
MERINO, José Luis (José Luis Merino Boves)
Born: 6/10/1927, Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Died: 12/29/2014, Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Jose Luis Merino’s westerns – director, screenwriter:
A Fistful of Songs - 1966 [as J.L. Merino] [director, screenwriter]
Kitosch, the Man Who Came from the North – 1966 [director, screenwriter]
Duel in the Eclipse – 1968 [director]
Gatling Gun – 1968 [screenwriter]
Another Dollar for the McGregors – 1970 [director, screenwriter]
7 Ride to Death [director, screenwriter]