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

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to sele ...

musical film 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 d ...

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 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 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'' and ''

Run of the Arrow ''Run of the Arrow'' is a 1957 American Western film written, directed, and produced by Samuel Fuller and starring Rod Steiger, Sara Montiel, Brian Keith, Ralph Meeker, Jay C. Flippen, and a young Charles Bronson. Set at the end of the America ...

''. 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'', 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