Belmonte, Cuenca’s Hollywood: this is the La Mancha town where Charlton Heston filmed

In the Cuenca municipality of Belmonte, there are moments that its less than 2,000 inhabitants remember as if they had happened today and not 60 years ago. This is the case of the recording of ‘El Cid‘, the first film shot there, starring Charlton Heston.

Mariluz García was only 17 years old when the Americans came to shoot her town. “People had to climb to the top of the castle and run down and it was necessary to repeat: ‘Let them go up again’ and, pull it up, go down, “recalls this neighbor.

Hundreds of extras were required for the recording. Belmonte’s neighbors didn’t think about it twice. “Carpenters, blacksmiths … they were there for almost a month before filming began,” explains anthropologist Luisa Abad, who points out that “the one who had the most or the least in his house had someone from the film crew hosted.”

She is the curator of the exhibition that now recovers all those memories and exposes the filming sets that. With the participation of more than 5,000 extrasThere, ‘El Cid’ was a revolution in the social sphere, but also in the economic sphere, since more than one hung up the farm implements for a few days. “In those days I think they paid 50 pesetas”, Mariluz points out, adding: “‘El Cid’ arrived and gave 110, because people didn’t think about it.”

The Franco regime was so delighted that the film was recorded there that even put the army at your disposal. “Franco was interested in an openness and they give them all the facilities, to the point that they are told that they can shoot in all the castles of Spain,” says Abad.

The hillside on the slopes of the Castle of Belmonte hosted the famous cinematic duel in which El Cid and Don Martín de Aragón fought Calahorra. However, it would not be the last film to be shot by Belmonte: six weeks and 30 million were the time and budget that Pilar Miró had to shoot there as well ‘Cuenca crime‘.

“They gave us 5,000 pesetas and a sandwich“, recalls Francisco Herrada, a neighbor of Belmonte, about that filming, who was 18 years old when he learned – he remembers – that” in the cinema they pay you to wait. ”

‘Juana la loca’ or ‘Fuenteovejuna’ are other films that were filmed in this town, whose neighbors still remember with nostalgia those filming times in which they lived touched by the magic wand of the cinema.