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Poster for Only Once in a Lifetime
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Released
1979 · FILM

Only Once in a Lifetime

A down-on-his-luck painter, grievous over his wife's death, commits to improving his life and finding new love.

Runtime
90 min
Drama

Synopsis

For 20 years, since his wife died only a year after they came to California as young, hopeful newly-weds, life has been hard on Francisco. A talented, but as yet unrecognised artist, he is forced to scratch a living growing corn and breeding canaries until the Public Health Authorities step in. Out of this develops a humorous and quizzical love story. Francisco searches for a new home for his old and alcoholic dog, having decided that he himself is worth more dead than alive. But just as his old dog finds that it is never too late to learn new tricks so Francisco rediscovers love and a zest for living in the beauty and serenity of Consuela.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 13

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Esperanza VasquezShot by Turner BrowneScored by Robert O Ragland

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