If you’re good enough, you’re young enough, as Hugh ‘Chariots Of Fire’ Hudson, now 78, is in the process of proving on the set of his new film Altamira. The period drama, his first feature film since 2000, has started shooting in northern Spain and here’s a first look at the film to prove it. Click on the image to see it in its enlarged form. Ooo, matron, etc. As the pic reveals, Antonio Banderas has exchanged Expendables 3 for the less shooty-shooty-creaky-creaky terrain of Spain in 1879. He plays Marcelino, father to a young girl, Maria Sautuola (Allegra Allen), and a keen amateur archaeologist whose land is home to natural caves. But despite dad’s hobby, it’s the eagle-eyed Maria who spots the paintings of galloping bison etched on the ceiling of his cave, the first ever discovery of such prehistoric art.
This is, of course, based on a true-life tale and one that had its share of controversy and heartache. In the film, the religious and scientific communities will rally around to deny the veracity of the father-and-daughter find on the basis that “savages” couldn’t create art. Marcelino will find himself left to languish in disgrace until Lee Christmas, Barney Ross and Gunner Jensen turn up and machine-gun all concerne... no, wait, that’s another film. As you were.
Banderas was the best thing in the otherwise ponderous Expendables 3, although his dramatic chops will be more stretched by Hudson’s film. The screenplay is by Olivia Hetreed (Girl With A Pearl Earring) and Spaniard José Luis López-Linares, with the shoot taking place in and around the story's real locations in Cantabria’s Santillana del Mar.