The Tyrant Father

O Pai Tirano (lit. The Tyrant Father) is a 1941 Portuguese film comedy directed by António Lopes Ribeiro, starring Vasco Santana, Ribeirinho (Francisco Ribeiro), Leonor Maia, Teresa Gomes and Laura Alves. It is one the best known comedies of the Golden Age of Portuguese cinema, still popular six decades after its release.

O Pai Tirano was the first film produced and directed by António Lopes Ribeiro.

Plot

Francisco Mega (Ribeirinho), a clerk at the then leading department stores of Lisbon, "Grandes Armazéns do Grandella", is in love with Tatão (Leonor Maia), who works in front at "Perfumaria da Moda". Tatão, however, is a cinephile who largely ignores him, whereas Francisco is also an amateur theatre player; so his amateur theatre company, the Grandellinhas, uses its rehearsals of the play O Pai Tirano (ou O Último dos Almeidas) to present Francisco as a son who split from his tyrant father for love, and woo Tatão.

Distribution

• Francisco Ribeiro : Francisco 'Chico' Mega
• Leonor Maria : Tatão
• Arthur Duarte : Artur de Castro
• Vasco Santana : Mestre José Santana
• Barro Lopes : Lopes
• Graça Maria : Gracinha

Popular culture

O Pai Tirano offered a number of situations that became common reference in Portuguese culture.

Among them, a scene almost at the end of the movie, where one of the members of the theatre company, middle-aged Mr. Machado (a caricature of the don't-bother-couldn't-care-less Portuguese) takes his new girlfriend to...
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