Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Awesome Movie

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Dirk Bogarde was a wonderful actor. Despite being barely known here in the States, we have begun to see more and more of his films thanks to Turner Classic Movies...and this is thrilling. However, "The Spanish Gardener" is one case where I really think he was wrong for the part. Although a fine performer, here he is miscast as a Spanish man--a Spanish man with barely a trace of a Spanish accent...and a bit of a British one! Why the studio simply didn't hire a Spanish actor is beyond me, but Hollywood also had a tendency to do this as well, so I can't just bash the British film industry.The story begins with an angry and disappointed diplomat (Michael Hordern) in the British foreign service. I say disappointed because his wife recently left him and because he was not given the choice assignment but sent to a relatively insignificant town in Spain. He is going to take his young son (Jon Whiteley) with him instead of sending him to a boarding school. However, the boy is lonely and his father a bit distant. When a new gardener is hired (Bogarde), the boy comes out of his shell and begins to idolize Bogarde--who gives the boy what he needs--his time. Sadly, instead of learning from this, the father becomes jealous and behaves in a petty fashion towards the gardener and forbids him from talking to the boy. Eventually, this leads to a collision course between the father and gardener--one that even lands the gardener in jail! Where exactly the film goes after this is up to you to see for yourself in this charming family drama.It's a shame that in these times, someone watching this sweet film might easily assume that the gardener is a pedophile--and not just a decent man trying to help a very lonely boy. Overall, it's well worth seeing and well acted throughout--even with the odd casting.

Dirk Bogarde is "The Spanish Gardener" in this 1956 film also starring Michael Hordern, Cyril Cusack and Jon Whiteley. Hordern is Harrington Brande, a low-level diplomat sent, against his wishes, to Catalunya. His marriage is over, and his young son Nicholas (Whiteley) is everything to him - so much so, that he cannot see that his son needs to be with children his own age and participate in the same types of activities that other children do.He hires a gardener, Jose (Bogarde) who befriends the boy and becomes almost a surrogate father to him, letting him help with the planting and digging, talking with him and playing with him. When Nicholas' father finds out how close the gardener and his son have become, he forbids the boy to speak to him any longer. When that doesn't work, he takes further steps to make sure that Jose doesn't steal the love of his son."The Spanish Gardener" is a wonderful character study of a gentle soul with a kind heart, the gardener, coming up against a class-conscious, jealous, embittered man who thinks the best way to keep his son's affection is to make sure he never socializes with anyone else who may pose a threat. He doesn't realize that the worse he treats Jose, the more his son hates him, and that love sometimes means letting go.The acting is superb. Hordern is fabulous as a person whose career hasn't progressed because he hasn't progressed as a person, and Whiteley is sympathetic and earnest as the young boy, whom the gardener calls Nico. Bogarde is at the peak of his handsomeness in this film, and gives a beautiful performance, playing a man of humility but not submission.Interestingly, I doubt a film like this could be made today. I'm sure in the '50s, the friendship between the gardener and Nico was taken for what it was without suspicion of sexual misconduct, which would certainly be an element now and add another dimension. Simpler times.Definitely worth seeing.

I watched this movie when I was a kid and it has left a very nice feeling inside me whenever I remember it.It is a very emotionally complicated movie with wonderful actors.I also very much like the acting of the boy and the gardener.The actor who plays the father is also very natural and delivers a believable and wonderful acting.The other remarkable point is the screenplay and the story which is very deep. sometimes it makes you feel satisfied and entertained sometimes it makes you cry.In all, It's a movie that you have to watch if you are a film lover.8 out of 10 is my vote.

A British consul and his young son move from Madrid to a peaceful villa in the Spanish country-side.Michael Hordern plays a dominant father who treats his son Nicholas as a sickly child; giving him cod-live oil every evening and denying the boy's obvious pleasure in active outdoor activities. This over-bearing protection of his son is no doubt due to his wife's recent abandonment of the family. Nicholas soon becomes friendly with the gardener (Dirk Bogarde) his father has reluctantly hired. Over the insuring weeks, Nicholas comes to devote most of his spare time to the Spainards company. This offends Michael Hordern as the gardener soon becomes a surrogate father to the young Nicholas.It's funny to see a lightly sun-tanned Dirk Bogarde portraying a Spaniard!This movie is quite enjoyable, though I doubt whether a major studio today could imagine anything more than 30 minutes of film being drawn from the screenplay. In it's decidingly 50's theme, I also doubt whether many film-makers would consider the material interesting enough to be the sole subject of a movie.