Video. Hollywood in Béarn and Soule: we saw the film shot in Pau in 1963 with Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn

The film (available for streaming) tells the story of the Spanish Republican Manuel Artiguez, played by Gregory Peck, a refugee in France at the end of the civil war in 1939. We find him in Pau twenty years later, in his shabby apartment in the Spanish quarter. “At 17 rue d’Espagne”, even specifies a local child, pointing to the current rue René-Fournets which goes up towards rue Joffre.

The film begins with a report on the war in Spain. An introduction that Columbia added at the last moment in order to make the plot intelligible to the American public. At the end of these two minutes of news, we witness the passage of refugees at the French border. It is here that we meet Manuel Artiguez, a republican hero who refuses to give up his arms like all his friends.

One ellipse and here we are twenty years later on the Pyrenean border. We follow a little orphan boy, Paco, who explains: “I am going to live in a French town called Pau with my uncle and many other exiled Spaniards. I hope to find one of the great leaders of the guerrillas there, Manuel Artiguez. The child’s father was a comrade in arms who never gave in despite the tortures of a captain of the Guardia Civil, the fearsome Viñolas played by Anthony Quinn.

Gramont, Hédas, the train station…

Paco takes the bus and arrives in Pau by Place Gramont before getting off at Hédas. There he discovered a poor neighborhood where kids played football in the middle of a vacant lot, the current Place Récaborde. He asks to see the hero who lives in the apartment just above. Paco and Artiguez sympathize quickly despite the gruff airs of the old Republican.

Will Manuel Artiguez find his beloved Spain and this village of San Martin where his dying mother is hospitalized? The little boy hopes not. Captain Viñolas, yes, who sets a trap for his intimate enemy, the one who killed several of his men before his exile from Pau. As Manuel Artiguez’s mother dies, he tricks her into believing she’s still alive through a corrupt friend.

Carlos is unmasked by the little newsboy, but Artiguez finds it hard to believe. Paco then recounts that a priest from San Martin came to find him to tell him the news. Francisco is played by Omar Sharif, in full post “Lawrence of Arabia” glory. On her deathbed, Artiguez’s mother had asked her to warn her son. Francisco had taken the train and disembarked at Pau station on his way to Lourdes with his companions.