''The Last Torch Song'', better known under its Spanish title ''El último cuplé'', is a 1957 Spanish jukebox

musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, but in some cases, they serve merely as breaks ...

directed by

Juan de Orduña Juan de Orduña y Fernández-Shaw (27 December 1900 – 3 February 1974) was a Spanish film director, screenwriter and actor. Subservient to the ideological tenets and preferences of Francoism, he was one of the regime's standout directors du ...

and starring

Sara Montiel María Antonia Abad Fernández MML (10 March 1928 – 8 April 2013), known professionally as Sara Montiel, also Sarita Montiel, was a Spanish actress and singer, who also held Mexican citizenship since 1951. She began her career in the 1940s an ...

Armando Calvo Armando Calvo (25 December 1919 – 6 July 1996) was a Puerto Rican-born Spanish actor. His father was Juan Calvo Domenech, a Spanish actor and his mother was Minerva Lespier, a Puerto Rican. Calvo worked in Spain, Italy, and Mexico appearin ...

and Enrique Vera. It was released in Spain on 6 May 1957. It was immensely popular domestically and it had a wide international release making it the worldwide highest-grossing Spanish-language film made up to that point. The film's

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'' ...

had also a wide international release.

Cast

Production

The filming took place in

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

between November 1956 and January 1957. Montiel accepted to star in the film as a deference to its director

and during a vacation in Spain in between her Hollywood filmings ''

Serenade In music, a serenade (; also sometimes called a serenata, from the Italian) is a musical composition or performance delivered in honor of someone or something. Serenades are typically calm, light pieces of music. The term comes from the Italian w ...

'' and '' Run of the Arrow''. The film was filmed with a very low budget. Initially, the songs in the film were going to be sung by a professional singer who would dub Montiel, but due to the low budget, she eventually sang the songs herself. Orduña had to sell the distribution rights to Cifesa to finance the completion of the filming.

Release

''The Last Torch Song'' opened on 6 May 1957 in Spain. The film was running at the 1,400-seat Rialto Theatre for forty-seven weeks, making it the highest grossing film in Madrid in the 1950s. The film was there for so long that, as a result of the rain and the wind, the large billboard announcing the film had to be replaced by another, something unusual in the history of film exhibition in Spain. The film soundtrack album also became a hit. The film had a wide international release with the dialogues dubbed or subtitled into other languages in non-Spanish speaking countries, while the songs kept in their original version. It was the worldwide highest-grossing Spanish-language film made up to that point, only surpassed in the 1950s–60s by her next film ''

The Violet Seller ''The Violet Seller'', better known under its Spanish title ''La Violetera'', is a 1958 Spanish-Italian historical jukebox musical film produced by Benito Perojo, directed by Luis César Amadori and starring Sara Montiel, Raf Vallone, Frank Vi ...

'', and catapulting Montiel's career as an actress and a singer.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* Labanyi, Jo & Pavlović, Tatjana. ''A Companion to Spanish Cinema''. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.

External links

* 1957 musical films Spanish musical films 1957 films 1950s Spanish-language films Films directed by Juan de Orduña 1950s Spanish films {{musical-film-stub