The Games Men Play
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Daniel Tinayre
Maria Antinea
Amelia Bence
Elsa Daniel
Mirtha Legrand
Malvina Pastorino
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Patronizing the small, out-of-the-way hotel La Cigarra, a convenient setting for illicit sexual adventures, are six couples in search of seclusion: a middle-aged taxi driver and his wife, who seek the intimacy they are denied at home with a large family and a mother-in-law sharing the household; an industrial executive accompanied by a petulant model; a ruthless newspaper columnist and his glacial secretary-mistress; a schoolteacher and her whimsical ventriloquist boyfriend; an aging musician and his maid; and two students very much in love. The plans of the guests are disrupted when a sailor brought to the hotel by a local prostitute becomes ill with bubonic fever. As a result, all guests at the hotel are quarantined, to the amusement of the townspeople, and their predicament becomes public knowledge. As a result of their confinement, the columnist and the secretary find that their affair loses its excitement without the threat posed by his wife; the executive and the model discover that they loathe each other; the schoolteacher splits up with the ventriloquist but looks forward to an improved relationship with her students, who have been cheering her from outside the hotel; the student couple renounce the opportunity for illicit lovemaking and decide to marry; and the married couple, enjoying what is essentially their first honeymoon, rekindle their love. Only the prostitute remains unchanged, bestowing her favors on the cooks during the incarceration. The sailor is finally declared healthy and the guests leave La Cigarra, but the prostitute quickly engages a new customer and returns with him to the hotel.
Director
Daniel Tinayre
Cast
Maria Antinea
Amelia Bence
Elsa Daniel
Mirtha Legrand
Malvina Pastorino
José Cibrian
Narcisco Ibañez Menta
Angel Magaña
Luis Sandrini
Enrique Serrano
Teresa Blasco
Guillermo Bredeston
Diana Ingro
Miryan De Urquijo
Leda Zanda
Guillermo Battaglia
Hector Calcano
Homero Carpena
Ludio De Val
Hector Mendez
Crew
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Released in Argentina in 1963 as La Cigarra no es un bicho; running time: 107 min. Spanish language version shown in the United States in 1964. English version includes additional nude footage. Also reviewed under the title translation The Cicada Is Not an Insect; May also be known as The Hotel.
