Scholar Susan Larson has written that:
“José Antonio Nieves Conde’s film El inquilino (1957)–much like his earlier film Surcos–stages the frustration and despair felt by many madrileños over the lack of substantive improvements in the living conditions of the majority of the inhabitants of the nation’s capital after the end of the Civil War. Within the generic confines of a popular comedy, the film uncovers the cruel, everyday realities of a family looking for affordable housing behind a paternalistic Nationalist facade–a false image whose values are seen as having more to do with the privatization of capital and attracting foreign investment than the preservation of the traditional Catholic Spanish family” (Larson 2012: 123).
(The film is available in its entirety on vimeo, and you can download as an .mp4 it using the website http://www.keepvid.com).
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