Saeta del ruiseñor

When I was a kid, in the early sixties, Joselito Jiminez was a big star in French Canada. Some older people never forget him. I remember that this movie was at the Madelon cinema house of my hometown when it burned. We kids, at school, have fun talking about Joselito with the burning voice ! Now, I'm much older and I had a second grade university degree in history, and my subject was the French Canadian distributor France-Film, who was a very very conservative company. In the fifties and early sixties, that was France-Film who made Joselito a star in Quebec. After seeing this film, I know why! This is a very conservative movie! We had to know that in Spain, by that

time, dictator Franco was looking very closely to every point of what's goin' on in his country. Movies had to reflect his conservative and dictatorial regime. So, this movie reflects really that. See the big presence of Catholic religion propaganda, the naive melodrama, the sense of the family and the touristic look of the landscapes of Spain. Quebec, in the fifties and early sixties, was exactly in this same way: very catholic and conservative. So, I now really understand why Joselito was a star back then! Today, this movie really looks awful, but we can also enjoy it as a representation of the Spain of Franco.