As strong as his own figure was Orson Welles’ response when in 1960 he was asked which city he would choose to live in. “Ávila,” he said without hesitation. Faced with the journalist’s bewilderment, the filmmaker added the following clarification: “It’s in the center of Spain. The climate is horrible, very hot in summer, very cold in winter. It’s a strange and tragic place. I don’t know why I feel something so special.”
This city could have responded very little to the praise of the director, actor and screenwriter who shook cinema, theater and radio to fully enter the constellation of geniuses of the 20th century. Because, despite these words, he did not live in the walled capital for more than a few months, during the filming of what was, for him, his best work: It rings at midnighta film initially despised by critics, but ended up praised as “moving, elegiac and glorious”.
This 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of this film, which represented an unusual immersion in the universe. Shakespearean combining several tragedies of the English playwright (Windsor’s wives, Richard II, Henry IV AND Henry V) with a peculiar reinterpretation of the character of Falstaff. A film shot in various Spanish provinces which, together with other Welles titles, allows us to trace an emotional itinerary through the places that favored his love affair with the lands of Castilla y León.
The omnipresent wall
Ávila, of course, is in first place. It is here that he records the last shots of the film, always with his habit of shooting shots and reverse shots in different places and then inserting them into the editing. This is what happens in the coronation sequence, where a dejected Falstaff is seen leaving for the Basilica of San Vincenzo in a jumble of images from other cities.
But it is the mighty wall, especially in its view from the northern canvas, that appears most portrayed. That medieval wall from the 12th century which has the merit of being the only defensive fortification that has survived intact to the present day and represents the best example of Romanesque military architecture. An impenetrable belt of 88 towers, 2,500 battlements and nine doors, which keeps convents, churches and emblazoned palaces safe, and which is linked to what was the first Gothic cathedral in Spain.
Following in the footsteps of Orson Welles in the city of Santa Teresa means visiting what is now the Posada de la Fruta restaurant and, in its time, the house where he stayed during the filming of the film It rings at midnight. Some even say they bought it. Also to eat a good steak at the Mesón del Rastro, as the protagonist of this story did, who liked to get lost in the alleys on winter mornings, enjoying what the Avilans call “days of sun and ice”.
Cities that used to be London
Soria is another of the provinces that served as the setting for this film. Especially the capital, where the Romanesque church of Santo Domingo, in its monumental western façade, saw the funeral of Henry IV celebrated; and the town of Santa María de la Huerta, where Welles chose the refectory of his Cistercian monastery to frame the coronation of Henry V and his repudiation of Falstaff. Juan Pascual, mayor of this town, still remembers the imposing presence of the American director during those filming times. “Even though I was just 10 years old, I have an image of a huge man smoking cigar after cigar,” he points out.
But no enclave in Soria had as much impact as the town of Calatañazor, transformed, thanks to the work and grace of the seventh art, into the dark medieval London of the Hundred Years’ War. The cobbled streets, wooden porches, brick houses and remains of the fortress came in handy throughout this story, in which Falstaff is seen walking past the church of Our Lady of the Castle, of Romanesque origin in the 12th century and renovated in the 16th century. Today, visiting this beautiful town is like taking a step back in time to listen to the crowds in ceremonies or the trotting of horses in parades or the creaking of swords in battles.
From Macau to Snow White
Pedraza, already in Segovia, also claimed to be the British capital It rings at midnightalso helped by its perfectly preserved medieval farmhouse, which is located on a rocky spur and has a peculiarity: it has an underground electricity line that beautifies the streets and facilitates filming. The walls, the buildings, the porticoed square and the imposing 13th century castle completed the scenes filmed in this town, where at midday the restaurants give off a delicious smell of suckling lamb.
Perhaps it was this photogenicity that pushed Orson Welles to return to filming a year later An immortal storyhis personal adaptation of the story by Danish writer Karen Blixen. A recovery in which he transformed Pedraza’s Plaza del Álamo (as he also did with some corners of Brihuega, in Guadalajara, and Chinchón, in Madrid) into the exotic Macao of the 19th century.
We need to go to the capital Segovia to continue the journey through these scenes touched by the wand of those who, in 1938, managed to terrorize the United States with the radio version of The War of the Worlds. And you have to stop at the Alcázar, whose imposing silhouette does not only appear in Music box… but also in another of his films: Mr. Arkadin (1955), the enigmatic story of a billionaire with a dark past. What was one of the favorite residences of the kings of Castile served as inspiration for Disney (as the company finally confirmed in 2023) to design Snow White’s castle, the one in which the evil queen asked her mirror every day who was the most beautiful in the kingdom.
Student chaos
The journey ends in the city of Valladolid, which was the set of one of the most complicated scenes of the film Mr. Arkadin: that masked ball in the purest Venetian style which takes place at the Colegio de San Gregorio, currently the National Museum of Sculpture. Up to 200 university extras participated in the sequence, including a young Miguel Delibes who received 10 duros and a ham sandwich in exchange.
They say Orson Welles flew into a rage, unable to bring the rebellious students back into line. And even if the sequence, shot in the courtyard, in the cloister and on the monumental staircase, was not included in the film in the end (according to some it was subjected to the steamroller of censorship), it will always be a good idea to discover this late Gothic jewel which houses masterpieces such as Mercy by Gregorio Fernandez, Holy Burial by Juan de Juni o Penitent Magdalene by Pedro de Mena.
