Overview: A group of poor youths tear around Madrid pulling scams and petty crimes. As one of their gang prepares to perform in a serious bullfighting competition, they plan a heist that will raise the money to finance his entry.

Breaking with tradition by filming in the streets and utilizing documentary techniques to give the film an urgent resonance, Carlos Saura and producer Pere Portabella (Viridiana) were announced as a powerful new force in Spanish cinema when the film was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Suffering curtailed distribution by Francoist censorship, this new restoration reinstates previously removed footage and presents the film as originally intended.

Blu-ray Verdict: It’s a shame when you pull off a heist to finance one of your friends’ dream of becoming a bullfighter during which one of the other friends dies but it turns out that he’s actually shit at it. You just hate to see it.

So anyways, Los Golfos (aka The Delinquents) is a pretty decent portrait of the said delinquents. Little meandering but that’s by design. It clearly owes a lot to Italian neo-realism with the use of non-professionals and the on-location work. The world feels naturally grim with a strong sense of hopelessness, a world where you have to resort to crime just to survive. Overall it is a little rough around the edges but a solid debut otherwise and one that I will sit and watch again sooner rather than later, as it has that engrossing cinematic appeal to it that warrants a second viewing.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
Restored in 4K in 2024 by Filmoteca Española in collaboration with Films 59 at Digital and Electronic Systems laboratory from the 35mm acetate negative, 35mm prints and other intermediate photochemical materials
Restoration supervised by Javier Rellán
Introduction by author and former director of Filmoteca Catalunya Esteve Riambau (2025, 22 mins)
Interview with filmmaker and curator Ehsan Khoshbakht on Los golfos, its influences and makers (2025, 17 mins)
Censored scenes - scenes affected by censorship are presented alongside notes from the censorship committee and Carlos Saura (2025, 13 mins)
Two early short films by Saura: La llamada, about a solider leaving for war (1955, 7 mins) and La tarde del domingo, about an oppressed live-in maid (1957, 34 mins)
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Vincent Wild
Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Mar Diestro-Dópido, reprints of original documents including committee notes on the script and a detailed breakdown of the restoration process

Official Purchase Link

www.radiancefilms.co.uk