AFTER shooting three disappointing films in Britain, Woody Allen may finally have rediscovered the plot in Spain.

For his latest production, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which was premiered last night at the Cannes film festival, the American director has returned to his trusted formula of combining glamorous Hollywood tales with a witty, angst-ridden romantic storyline.

On this occasion he has enlisted two of Hollywood's hottest stars, Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz. The film has numerous sex scenes and two lesbian kisses between the actresses. The audience welcomed the film, made mostly in Barcelona, as a return to form for Allen, 72. The director persuaded the Barcelona city government to provide £800,000 of the £12m budget. Allen, in return, has provided ravishing views of the Catalan capital.

In the — often improbable — film, Johansson and a friend played by Rebecca Hall arrive in Barcelona and fall for the ex-husband of Cruz's character, played by Javier Bardem. The sexual tangle is made more complicated when Cruz and a male American tourist are drawn in, not to mention Hall's fiancŽ in America, who appears in Barcelona to marry his girlfriend.

Allen's film may play well with Spanish audiences but his apparently special treatment so upset Catalan film-makers that he believes he will be unwelcome in the region if he tries to make another film there. "There were people in Barcelona who took issue," Allen said.

"I really don't know why they did."

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