The Executioner (1963, Sp.) (aka El Verdugo, or Not on Your Life)

In Luis García Berlanga's macabre black comedy (with gallows humor) and family drama - a subversive critique of the Spanish bureaucracy, institutional violence, and capital punishment:

• the trio of characters brought together under unusual circumstances: José Luis Rodríguez (Nino Manfredi) - an apprentice 'undertaker' (the driver for the coroner’s office), Amadeo (Jose Isbert) - an elderly, about-to-retire, unassuming state prison executioner, and Carmen (Emma Penella) - Amadeo's marriage-aged daughter
• in the opening scene following a prison execution, as Jose helped the coroner carry the victim's coffin, he evaluated the appearance of the executioner he briefly glimpsed leaving and signing papers: "Actually, he looks like a normal person. If we met in a cafe, I'd never suspect"
• the budding romance between Jose and Carmen, who both felt a kinship of rejection due to their positions in life: (Carmen: "When guys find out I'm the executioner's daughter, they take off running." Jose: "Is that all? Same here! Women run at the word 'undertaker.' We have the same disease!")
• the bargain: if Jose agreed to take over Amadeo's 'family business' after his retirement - his executioner job, then Jose would be allowed to marry the already-pregnant Carmen; then, as a retired civil servant, Amadeo would still qualify to move into a government-provided, luxury high-rise apartment
• Amadeo's amusing although dark comments about execution methods in Spain - arguing that garroting (strangulation) was better than the gallows, the electric chair or the guillotine: "People who say the garrotte is inhuman make me laugh. Is the guillotine better? Should we bury a man in pieces?"
• the sequence of cowardly Jose Luis reluctantly filling out paperwork to become the executioner, as he licked a melting strawberry ice cream cone
• Jose's reluctant take-over of Amadeo's occupation as Madrid's official executioner - reading the dreaded newspaper's crime section each day, stalling, and hoping and praying for last-minute pardons or a prisoner's sickness to avoid his official responsibilities
• in the conclusion (a parody of a pleasant honeymoon) set in Majorca (or Mallorca - a sunny vacation destination), Jose begged with the prison warden (who offered champagne) to be relieved of his duties: ("He said if this moment arrived, I could resign...I can't be an executioner. I want to resign!"); however, Jose (with his legs buckling) was forcibly dragged through a white courtyard by prison guards behind his first victim (a condemned convict) to perform his killing duty - there was a reversal of roles (the executioner was seemingly now the one condemned); a priest counseled Jose: "It is best that you kill him now, my son; his soul is ready for heaven. If we send to Madrid for another executioner, two or three days will elapse and he may fall from grace"