---
name: "Francisco Reiguera"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/francisco-reiguera"
fi1m_id: "francisco-reiguera"
imdb_id: "nm0717592"
tmdb_id: 108688
wikidata_id: "Q5483863"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "9 November 1899"
died: "15 March 1969"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "actor"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-22T01:09:37.962961+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Francisco Reiguera

## Identity

Francisco Reiguera

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/francisco-reiguera
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** francisco-reiguera
- **IMDb ID:** nm0717592
- **TMDB ID:** 108688
- **Wikidata ID:** Q5483863
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Reiguera, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5483863, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0717592/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/108688

Actor. Born 9 November 1899 in Madrid, Spain. Died 15 March 1969.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 9 November 1899, Madrid, Spain
- **Died:** 15 March 1969
- **Also known as:** Paco Reiguera, Francisco Reyguera, Francisco Reiquera
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Reiguera, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5483863, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0717592/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/108688

## Fi1m on Francisco Reiguera

> A lifetime of bishops, judges and monks at the edge of Mexican frames, and one lead shot on and off for twelve years and never finished. Reiguera's face carries Welles's *Don Quixote*; the film around it does not deserve him.

Look at the eyes first. In *Don Quixote* (1992) Francisco Reiguera plays the knight as a man who has already decided what he is looking at before he looks, and the century around him, all tarmac and scooters, simply fails to register. The face does the work: hollow cheeks, a beard like frayed rope, a profile as thin as a blade. He does not act mad. He acts certain, which is harder and funnier and sadder.

That certainty was the end of a long apprenticeship in standing at the edge of the frame. Reiguera started as a child actor in Madrid at eight, was a bit player and extra in silent-era Europe and Hollywood from around 1913, and moved to Mexico in 1940, where he became one of the most prolific character actors of the Golden Age: over a hundred films between 1942 and his death in 1969, most of them as judges, bishops, monks, mayordomos and doctors. He worked for Emilio Fernández and Fernando Cortés, and for Luis Buñuel as the old monk in *Simon of the Desert* (1965). He directed twice and wrote scripts. A great many of the parts were small and uncredited, and a great many of the films are forgotten.

Then, in 1957, Orson Welles asked him to be Don Quixote, and kept asking, on and off, until shortly before Reiguera died. The footage sat unfinished until Jesús Franco assembled it in 1992, and the result is muddy, badly dubbed and often a slog. Twice, though, it comes close to greatness, and both times it is Reiguera who gets it there. Charging a flock of sheep with the camera down among the animals, he makes us believe in the army for a few seconds. Riding at the windmill, with Welles cutting between the blades and his face, he plays the defeat as a victory, and we were moved by him far more than we expected to be, because for once the camera took the old man's side.

Against him is everything else. Akim Tamiroff's Sancho is a proper partner, round and put-upon, but the voices are not theirs: Pepe Mediavilla dubs Reiguera over a mouth filmed years earlier, and the words often do not fit. So the one lead performance of a career that began before the First World War survives with its face and without its voice, in a film assembled twenty-three years after he died.

It is fair to say his reputation rests almost entirely on that unfinished project, and that a hundred supporting parts do not add up to a body of work a viewer can trace from a sofa. Go to *Simon of the Desert* for the authority he brought to a monk in a good film, and to *Don Quixote* for the windmill. Bring patience for the rest. The man spent his life as the bishop in the corner; when he finally got the middle of the picture, the picture fell apart around him.

## Biography

Francisco Reiguera (also credited as Paco Reiguera) was a Spanish actor. Born in Madrid, he began his career as a child actor in theatre and worked in silent films in Europe and Hollywood before emigrating to Mexico in 1940.

He appeared in over 100 films, primarily as a character actor during the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, with credits including *Simon of the Desert* (1965), *Major Dundee* (1965), *Viva Maria!* (1965), *Guns for San Sebastian* (1967) and *El analfabeto* (1961). He played the title role in Orson Welles’ unfinished adaptation of *Don Quixote*, with footage later used in the 1992 release.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Don Quixote* (1992), Fi1m 54, as Don Quijote — [page](https://film.one/film/don-quixote.md)

## Complete filmography (60)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *Don Quixote* (1992), as Don Quijote — Fi1m 54, [page](https://film.one/film/don-quixote.md)
- *Super Colt 38* (1969), Actor
- *Seis días para morir* (1967), as Don Joaquín
- *Guns for San Sebastian* (1967), as Bishop
- *Viva Maria!* (1965), as Father Superior
- *Simon of the Desert* (1965), as The Devil as an Old Witch
- *Major Dundee* (1965), as Old Apache
- *Entrega Inmediata* (1963), as Odilon Campos Santos
- *The Getaway Face* (1963), Actor
- *The Brainiac* (1962), as Mayordomo / Vitelius' Butler
- *Dos tontos y un loco* (1961), as Guitarrón I
- *Jóvenes y rebeldes* (1961), as Don Celso, dueño del Cafe
- *El analfabeto* (1961), as Juez (uncredited)
- *Pegando con tubo* (1961), as Doctor
- *The Phantom of the Operetta* (1960), as Jeremias (uncredited)
- *Three Black Angels* (1960), as Doctor
- *Mysteries of Black Magic* (1958), as Director funeraria
- *Enchanted Island* (1958), as Medicine Man
- *With my finger on the trigger* (1958), as Licenciado Lara
- *Plazos traicioneros* (1958), Actor
- *The Last of the Fast Guns* (1958), as Pablo
- *Casadas en Apuros* (1958), Actor
- *Pobres millonarios* (1957), as Simón, el enterrador
- *The Head of Pancho Villa* (1957), Actor
- *La faraona* (1956), as Don Isaac
- *Wuthering Heights* (1954), as José
- *Rebellion of the Hanged* (1954), as Director funerario
- *Ofrenda* (1954), Director, Writer
- *The Devil's Money* (1953), as El papi
- *Misericordia* (1953), as Don Carlos Moreno Trujillo
- *Me traes de un ala* (1953), as (uncredited)
- *Mexican Bus Ride* (1952), as Miguel Suárez (uncredited)
- *The Martyr of Calvary* (1952), as Anás el Viejo
- *Las locuras de Tin Tan* (1952), as Lucas de Mente
- *Kill Me Because I'm Dying!!!* (1951), as (uncredited)
- *The Port of the Seven Sins* (1951), as Capitán
- *La bienamada* (1951), Actor
- *Apartment house* (1951), as Abogado
- *Victims of Sin* (1951), as Don Gonzalo
- *El sol sale para todos* (1950), as Don Justino (uncredited)
- *Vino el remolino y nos alevantó* (1950), as Detective privado (uncredited)
- *Confidencias de un ruletero* (1949), as Joyero (uncredited)
- *¡No me defiendas, compadre!* (1949), as Invitado (uncredited)
- *Hipócrita..!* (1949), as Don Simón
- *Las tandas del principal* (1949), as Don Joaquín de la Cantoya y Rico (uncredited)
- *Los amores de una viuda* (1949), as Ayudante espiritista (uncredited)
- *Salon Mexico* (1949), as Complice de Paco (uncredited)
- *Oh What Beautiful Legs!* (1949), as El muerto
- *Ahí vienen los Mendoza* (1948), as Don Gorgonio, boticario
- *Rosenda* (1948), as Padre Rubio
- *Hermoso ideal* (1948), as Jacobo Levine
- *El Supersabio* (1948), as Profesor Peralta (uncredited)
- *An Adventure in the Night* (1948), as Malachias el mayordomo
- *Nocturno de amor* (1948), Actor
- *Arsenio Lupin* (1947), as Napoleon Manicornio, aka Francisco, the servant
- *The Noiseless Dead* (1946), Actor
- *El superhombre* (1946), Actor
- *The Secret of the Spinster* (1945), Writer
- *Yo soy usted* (1944), Writer, Producer, Director
- *Jesus of Nazareth* (1942), as Apostol

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/francisco-reiguera