Very fine social comedy

To someone from an English-language background, this film plays as a hybrid of 3 very good things: Billy Wilder's social insight and slightly bitter wit, Preston Sturges's absurdism and quick wit with physical comedy, and Ealing Studio's Post-WW2 comedies of austerity & enterprise & shenanigans (Passport to Pimlico, Whisky Galore!, Man in the White Suit). Welcome Mr Marshall is hilarious, really well scripted and acted, and Berlanga has a sure hand visually & editing-wise. On first viewing, then, this film is a real keeper, maybe a classic (and well worth its high IMDb-score). I'm definitely going to be checking out other highlights of Berlanga's filmography.

Slight proviso: the subtitles I had weren't comprehensive. E.g., no songs were translated & neither was most of the talk in the dream-sequences. And various other smaller passages weren't translated either. I dare say that someone careful like Criterion would probably really improve this movie (particularly its ending), not least with the vastly improved subtitles they'd doubtless commission.