La corona negra: the international face of Francoist cinema

This article examines an obscure Spanish film, La corona negra, directed in 1951 by Argentine film-maker Luis Saslavsky and starring María Félix, and proposes a re-evaluation of established views that portray Francoist cinema as an insular, provincial and artistically conservative industry, solely engaged in the production of fascist propaganda and low-brow entertainment. In the light of this film’s multinational elements, cosmopolitan setting, and self-conscious mix of popular and art-cinema styles, and its positioning as an export product for foreign audiences, I seek to draw attention to the interplay of national and transnational elements in Francoist cinema, to the range of its operations of transcultural reinscription, and to its producers’ attempts to create markets abroad for Spanish films, especially in relation to Franco’s cultural policies towards Latin America.