The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking: Out from Hollywood's Shadow, 1929-1939 9780813553283

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The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking

LATINIDAD Transnational Cultures in the United States This series publishes books that deepen and expand our knowledge and understanding of the various Latina/o populations in the United States in the context of their transnational relationships with cultures of the broader Americas. The focus is on the history and analysis of Latino cultural systems and practices in national and transnational spheres of influence from the nineteenth century to the present. The series is open to scholarship in political science, economics, anthropology, linguistics, history, cinema and television, literary and cultural studies, and popular culture and encourages interdisciplinary approaches, methods, and theories. The series grew out of discussions with faculty at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, where an interdisciplinary emphasis is being placed on transborder and transnational dynamics. Marta E. Sánchez, Series Editor, School of Transborder Studies Rodolfo F. Acuña, In the Trenches of Academe: The Making of Chicana/o Studies Marivel T. Danielson, Homecoming Queers: Desire and Difference in Chicana Latina Cultural Production Rudy P. Guevarra Jr., Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego Lisa Jarvinen, The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking: Out from Hollywood’s Shadow, 1929–1939 Regina M. Marchi, Day of the Dead in the USA: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon Priscilla Peña Ovalle, Dance and the Hollywood Latina: Race, Sex, and Stardom Luis F. B. Plascencia, Disenchanting Citizenship: Mexican Migrants and the Boundaries of Belonging

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The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking Out from Hollywood’s Shadow, 1929–1939

LISA JARVINEN bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY, AND LONDON

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Jarvinen, Lisa, 1969– The rise of Spanish-language filmmaking : out from Hollywood’s shadow, 1929–1939 / Lisa Jarvinen. p. cm. — (Latinidad: transnational cultures in the United States) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–8135–5285–9 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–5286–6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–8135–5328–3 (e-book) 1. Motion pictures—United States—History—20th century. Spanish—United States—History—20th century.

2. Motion pictures,

I. Title.

2012

PN1993.5.U6J38 791.430973—dc23

2011033052

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Jarvinen All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 100 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854–8099. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. Visit our Web site: http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu Manufactured in the United States of America

Vencerá la voz. . . . Puede ser que duden en América Latina, a donde han llegado sólo tenues ecos . . . pero todo irá: máquinas, películas, electricistas y todo cambiará radicalmente. . . . Aquí viene el dilema, el de las lenguas. ¿Cómo se las van a arreglar? ¿Qué idioma adoptarán para la India? ¿El urdu, el esperanto? ¿De dónde van a sacar a los actores? . . . Huelga dirigir más preguntas al espacio. El lector no necesita ayuda mía para imaginarse los innumerables enredos que trae consigo el nuevo invento. The voice will win. . . . In Latin America, where only faint echoes have arrived, some may doubt . . . but everything will get there: machines, movies, electricians, and everything will change radically. . . . Here is the dilemma, that of the languages. How will that be solved? What language will they use for India? Urdu, Esperanto? Where will they get the actors? . . . It’s pointless to throw out more such questions. The reader does not need my help to imagine the innumerable problems the new invention brings with it. Jorge Hermida, Cine Mundial, 1929

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

ix

Note to the Reader

xiii

Introduction

1

1

First Responses to the Challenge of Sound, 1929–1930

16

2

Hollywood’s Spanish Versions, 1930–1931

35

3

Language Controversies, 1930–1931

60

4

The Start of National Competition, 1931–1932

83

5

Modes of Translating Hollywood Films, 1930–1935

102

6

Fox Film’s Prestigious Spanish Productions, 1932–1935

119

7

Exaggerating the National, 1934–1939

139

Conclusion

160

Notes

167

Selected Bibliography

195

Index

207

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many years ago I came across a copy of Cita en Hollywood at Ocho y Medio, an excellent bookstore dedicated to film in Madrid. Although I did not yet know it at the time, the rigorous research that Juan Heinink and Robert Dickson put into their filmography of Hollywood’s Spanish-language film production made it possible for me to pursue the project that became this book. Although Cita is now out of print and hard to find (as is a companion volume, Los que fueron a Hollywood), Juan and Bob have continued to work on updating and making its information available through other sources, including the American Film Institute’s Catalog of Motion Pictures and the online offerings of Spain’s Instituto Cervantes. Bob Dickson is also an extraordinarily generous scholar and friend who assisted me in countless ways as I worked on this project. The research for this book took me across and outside of the country and would not have been possible without substantial institutional support. At La Salle University, I thank the Office of the Provost for summer research funding. I also thank the Department of History and Information Technology. In 2008, I was fortunate to be selected as a member of a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminar held at the Library of Congress. At Colgate University, the Office of the Dean helped fund research travel. In 2006, I was invited to participate in a week-long conference celebrating seventy-five years of sound cinema in Mexico. I thank José Romay, Iván Trujillo, and Magdalena Acosta. At Syracuse University, I was able to devote time to research and writing with fellowships from the Graduate School, Dean’s Office, and Department of History. I received travel support from the Roscoe Martin Fund, administered by the Maxwell School. Also at Syracuse, the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, the Program on Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Goekjian Summer Research Grant program funded my archival research in Mexico, Los Angeles, Madison, and New York. I am especially grateful for the opportunity I had to hone my findings at the Goekjian Scholar seminars during 2003 and 2004. I performed the initial phases of research in Madrid with funding from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports and U.S. Universities.

ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

x

I greatly enjoyed the time I was able to spend in the archives. At each, I found knowledgeable and interested archivists and staff. All deserve my thanks. In Spain, the staff of the Hemeroteca Municipal in Madrid and of the Filmoteca Española made the time I spent there as productive as possible. At the Filmoteca, Javier Herrera Navarro, Margarita Lobo, and Trinidad del Rio were especially helpful. In Mexico, I likewise benefited from the professionalism of the staff of the Filmoteca de la UNAM and the Cineteca Nacional. In Los Angeles, I was able to make use of the exceptional holdings at the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, at the Arts Library of the University of California at Los Angeles, and at the Cinema-TV Library and Warner Brothers Archive at the University of Southern California. I was able to see many of the extant Hollywood Spanish-language films at UCLA’s Film and Television Archive and at the Academy’s Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Los Angeles. Special thanks to Barbara Hall, Jenny Romero, Ned Comstock, Mark Quigley, and Lauren Buisson for going out of their way to be helpful. I also thank the staffs of the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at the New York Public Library, the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress, and the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, as well as the librarians at Syracuse University’s E. S. Bird Library, Case Library at Colgate University, and Connelly Library at La Salle University. Numerous mentors and colleagues contributed to the development of this book. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn was unfailingly kind yet always rigorous. I owe special thanks to Karin Rosemblatt, who pushed me to reach further and think harder at every stage. I had especially looked forward to sending a copy of this book to Robert Sklar of New York University, who gave generously of his time during the research and writing of this project. I was deeply saddened to learn of his unexpected death shortly after I completed the manuscript. At Syracuse, Andrew Cohen, Gail Bulman, and Michael Ebner gave invaluable assistance. I would also like to thank Margaret Hermann and David Richardson, who ran the Goekjian seminars. I am also grateful that Bob Sklar put me in touch with Nick Deocampo, a scholar who shared his innovative work on the history of Spanish influences on the cinema of the Philippines. In Mexico, I was pleased to finally meet Francisco Peredo Castro in person and to discuss our shared interests in transnational cinema. My work also benefited from discussions with colleagues at the NEH Summer Seminar under the direction of Carl Guarneri and John Gillis. Like all scholars, I relied on the work of many others for both insights and information. All errors of fact or interpretation that remain are my own. This book would never have come to be without the encouragement of my editor, Leslie Mitchner. I thank her and the entire staff of Rutgers University Press, as well as the two anonymous readers whose comments and suggestions

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xi

were enormously helpful. Friends and family offered me their support, assistance, suggestions, and encouragement. I would like to thank Melixa AbadIzquierdo, Saul Anton, Tom Bach, Ethan de Seife, Kathy Fox, John Martin, Stephen Patnode, Fernando Plata, Patricia Rogers, Francis Ryan, Masha Salazkina, Dana Scott, Lucy Smith, and Rachel Urkowitz. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my parents, Larry and Marian Jarvinen. I dedicate this work to my children, Simon and Alejandro.

NOTE TO THE READER

On first reference, the titles of Spanish-language films are given in Spanish followed by a parenthetical notation of the title of the English-language original upon which the Spanish version was based or, in a few cases, the film’s Englishlanguage release title. If the film was not based on an English-language original or did not have an English-language release title, a literal translation of the film’s Spanish title is given. These literally translated titles are not italicized. On subsequent reference, all titles are given only in the original Spanish. Unless otherwise noted, all translations from the original Spanish are the author’s.

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The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking

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Introduction

From the 1910s on, the U.S. film industry—better known as Hollywood—has dominated the world’s screens. The powerful hold that Hollywood exercised on what was arguably the twentieth century’s most significant culture industry provoked admiration, fear, and envy in other countries. Yet only rarely do we think of the ways in which Hollywood has had to make accommodation to the vast international audiences from which it now derives the majority of its profits.1 This book is about a key moment in the history of the world cinema when the addition of synchronized sound, and with it spoken dialogue, provoked a crisis. Dialogue meant language and language specificity meant an end to the easy international circulation of silent films.2 When Hollywood studios, and film industries the world over, first began to produce sound films, no obvious solution to the problem of how to translate spoken dialogue for speakers of other languages existed. First and foremost, this need to make “talkies” comprehensible meant reconceptualizing film markets as language markets in ways that challenged national or regional groupings.3 The case of Spanish-speaking audiences, after English the largest language market for films during the period of the transition to sound, demonstrates the ways in which this transformed Hollywood, created new competitors, and fundamentally changed world film culture. This study asks: What strategies did Hollywood studios employ to deal with cultural and linguistic difference following the transition to sound? What kinds of opportunities did these strategies create for outsiders to gain access and training in Hollywood and for audience preferences to shape the new language market? More broadly, how does this history help us to understand the relationship between cultural identities and globalized media industries? It is necessary to start with the question of strategy because Hollywood led the way in converting the international film industry to sound. The conversion to sound was based on technological innovations but was adopted by the industry 1

2

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FIGURE 1 Argentine actress Berta Singerman with her daughter Myriam during the filming of Nada más que una mujer (Fox Films, 1934). Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

as a means of offering a differentiated product: moving images with synchronized soundtracks. Domestically, Warner Brothers had first gambled on sound in 1926 as a way to get ahead of its competitors. Its successes led other studios to follow in a race to rewire theaters and reequip production studios, a conversion process mostly completed by 1929. This competition soon spilled into Europe as American companies battled with German firms, the most technologically

INTRODUCTION

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advanced film industry in the world outside of the United States, over the patents for sound reproduction equipment and the rights to wire movie theaters throughout the world. Once this trade war came to a negotiated end in 1930, the real question became whether international audiences would respond favorably to Hollywood films made in English. For the most part, film historians have judged the transition to sound a thorough success for Hollywood and rejected the notion that the addition of synchronized sound represented a significant rupture either economically or stylistically.4 The language question, after all, plagued European film producers as much or more than it did the Americans. The “Film Europe” movement that in the 1920s had attempted to foment a common market for pan-European films foundered once sound made the linguistic diversity of Europe an obstacle for coproduction.5 Recent scholarship has demonstrated that such linguistic crises pushed some European producers to develop distinctive uses of sound recording that allowed them to take advantage of niche markets that Hollywood production could not satisfy.6 While this is worth exploring, focus on competition between the United States and Europe has distracted attention from the generative effects of sound in other areas of the world. Language may have divided Europe, but for the Spanish-speaking world the transition to sound held out the possibility of a film market unified by language. Standard histories of the American cinema mostly fail to recognize the extent to which language barriers could not be, and have not been, resolved simply by the use of technologies of translation. Most accounts accept the claim that the standardization of dubbing and subtitling by about 1932 effectively allowed Hollywood to resume exporting its films throughout the world as it had during the silent period.7 This claim rests upon the fact that most studios abandoned the production of multiple language versions (films made from scripts originally acted by an English-speaking cast and replaced in the version by foreign-language-speaking casts), which had represented the most striking attempt to overcome the problem of translation. It also points to the larger history of Hollywood’s continued dominance of the international film industry. Here I argue that the persistence of the direct production of Spanish-language films by American film studios through 1939 suggests not only that audiences continued to have strong preferences for films spoken in the local language that dubbing and titling failed to satisfy, but also that for very large language communities, this preference created opportunities to redefine film markets. Indeed, if we look closely at Hollywood’s attempts to maintain its position in Spanish-speaking countries during the 1930s, we find that studios were deeply alarmed by the rise of successful sound film industries in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. It was this development that led Hollywood not only to continue direct production in Spanish but also to actively seek distribution and coproduction deals with these competitors.

4

THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

Spoken language in film was more than just a mechanical problem to be solved. Actors who spoke identified themselves in ways that their counterparts in silent films never had. Their voices and the words they used were intimately linked to their bodies through the artificial, yet convincing, illusion of synchronization between sound and image tracks. This troubled critics of the time who feared that movies would become little more than filmed stage plays. Yet as Rick Altman has noted, over the course of the 1930s “it became increasingly clear all over the world that language, far from being anathema to the cinema experience, lay at its very heart.”8 Most audiences were interested in hearing the new voices emanate from the formerly silent images. What they heard were qualities of voice such as pitch or timber, but also accent and argot. Suddenly an actor’s nationality or ethnicity might be revealed not only visually by physiognomy, but aurally by speech. The addition of this new sensory information proved powerful. While costuming and makeup provided a range of plasticity to an actor’s image, the voice was less malleable. Now the ability to perform a role in an unfamiliar accent is widely recognized as an important and valuable trait for a film actor. This should suggest to us the dilemma that speech posed during the transition to sound. No longer could audiences imagine their favorite film stars speaking to them in the language of their own thoughts. The new linguistic specificity of sound films brought questions of culture to the fore. Hollywood sound films, spoken in English, became more markedly American than silent films had been. In 1930, the New York Times worried that the talkie would “break up the unity of mankind established by the movie. . . . [T]he universal brotherhood of the sign language is menaced by the advent of the sound film—the story of Babel Tower all over again.”9 For an industry that prided itself—as it continues to do—on the “universality” of its products, this posed a problem. As Ruth Vasey has shown, the introduction of sound pushed studios yet further in the direction of big-budget films that emphasized spectacle and action, fantasy and escapism.10 These characteristics helped to relieve the difficulties of cross-cultural communication that a reliance on international markets made inescapable. They failed, however, to eliminate audience appreciation for films that spoke more directly to local experience. Of course, “Spanish” itself was not so easy to pin down. The Spanish-version films of the early 1930s suffered from reviews that ridiculed film dialogues that mixed the argot of Argentina and Cuba, casts that featured Spaniards portraying Mexicans, or, worse yet, scripts that sounded like the language of no country at all. Far from a merely functional tool of communication, Spanish could also divide rather than unify its speakers. This would hinder Hollywood’s efforts to make and market films to Spanish-speaking audiences whether in the form of versions or dubbed or titled English-language originals—but it also sometimes complicated attempts by Spanish-speaking nations to circulate their films outside of national borders. Nor has this obstacle to broad appeal disappeared.

INTRODUCTION

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In recent years, with the massive growth of television programming aimed at Spanish speakers, the development of “neutral Spanish” has emerged as a contentious issue for contemporary broadcasting and marketing aimed at Spanish speakers. In this context, “neutral” means “nationality-neutral” in terms of accent and regional idiom.11 The long history of conflicts over language usage among and within nations—and diasporic communities—where Spanish is a majority language informed the debates that emerged over the use of spoken Spanish in early sound films. Indeed, much like the notion of national community, the idea of a Spanish-language media market had to be imagined but, like national identities, remains subject to ongoing reformulations and debate. For the purpose of discussing a media market, it is more appropriate to describe Spanish-speakers as a cultural-linguistic grouping.12 Even so, the concept of a Hispanophone community or cultural tradition is tenuous. “Spanish” became a global language through the establishment of the Spanish empire, which lasted into the twentieth century, and also through the centralizing tendencies of the Spanish state that sought to impose Castilian as the standard language of both Spain and its overseas possessions. Local differences persisted nevertheless, and through processes of nation formation, regional accents, and idioms—along with other languages identified with indigenous or immigrant groups—became linked to national identities.13 While intellectuals and politicians from throughout the Spanish-speaking world had engaged in vigorous debates over the status of language usage in education, publishing, and the arts since the breakup of the Spanish empire, the advent of technologies that could faithfully reproduce the spoken word brought a new urgency to these discussions. The diffusion of sound films from the late 1920s on led to struggles over appropriate language usage for film dialogue in terms of accents and local idioms, the nationality of actors, narrative strategies, use of music, and film genres. These issues merged with what seemed to be the most pressing question of all: whether, and on what terms, Spanish speakers might use a shared definition of culture and a common language to wrest control of a transnational Spanish-language film market from the hands of the U.S. film industry. During the 1930s, as the worldwide economic recession undermined liberal internationalism, increased and often extreme nationalism exacerbated conflicts within and between Spain and the Spanish-speaking nations of Latin America. At the same time, despite the problems of language usage that plagued Hollywood Spanish-version films, their mixed nationality casts and crews and the resulting linguistic hybridity foreshadowed the important influence that U.S. Latinos would have on the development of an interand transnational media market for Spanish-speakers.14 Indeed, Hollywood’s Spanish-language film production of the 1930s owed much to the Latino communities of the United States. Some actors and writers made the transition from

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local Spanish-language theater to work in film, and Latino audiences became an important part of the market for these movies. During the years of the Great Depression, the increasing availability of Spanish-language films, first made in Hollywood and later from other Spanish-speaking countries, kept theaters afloat when stage productions became too expensive to mount. These theaters ultimately became the basis for Spanish-language film circuits in the United States.15 The development of an international Spanish-speaking film market presupposed a belief that a common language was a reality that unified people from throughout the Americas, Spain, and, to a lesser extent, diasporic communities elsewhere. Whether other characteristics unified this group was less clear. During the 1930s, correspondence from within Hollywood shows that writers most often referred to people by nationality, as in Mexican, Cuban, Spanish (even in the case of individuals with U.S. citizenship). They frequently used the term “Spanish-speaking” to refer to the worldwide market for films in that language. At times, the word “Spanish” was used as an adjective to describe the market, a film, or—more ambiguously—a Spanish-speaking person who was not necessarily a Spaniard. “Hispanic” was occasionally used in the Englishlanguage press of the time period to refer to people from Spanish-speaking countries. The Spanish-language press also tended to prefer national or regionspecific references but frequently used “el pueblo hispano,” “paı´ses hispanos,” and “la raza hispana” to refer to Spanish-speaking people, countries, and race. On occasion, one can find references to “Latin” people or culture in Englishlanguage sources and “latino” in Spanish-language sources—in relation to either Latin America or to those countries and cultures with languages derived from Latin. These terms have persisted through the present day, although the question of appropriate usage has only grown more vexed. Within the United States, the distinction between “Hispanic” and “Latino” as ethnic labels remains a contentious issue that emerged in the wake of the civil rights movement and subsequent social activism. After government agencies, and the Census Bureau in particular, began adopting the term “Hispanic” in the 1970s for official use, many people and groups so described rejected the imposition of this label. Instead, some chose to use “Latino” in both adjectival and noun forms.16 In this book, I refer to people of Latin American descent in the United States as Latinos, and I use national terms of identification (Mexican, Cuban, Spanish, etc.) where appropriate. I use the word “Hispanic” when making a general reference to people from the broad grouping of countries and diasporic communities in which Spanish is a predominant language. Similarly, I sometimes refer to Anglo-America to distinguish the English-dominant population of the United States from the Spanish-speaking world. While discussions of which words are best suited to describe such heterogeneous groups frequently turn on arguments about the existence of shared

INTRODUCTION

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cultural characteristics and the political implications of the terms, the influence of market concerns on the formation of group identities is one of the central points of this book. As Arlene Dávila has shown in her study of Latinos as a market segment for the advertising industry in the United States, the commodification of ethnic identities has political significance due to the centrality of consumerism and symbolic representations in contemporary society. She further argues that linking Latino identity to the Spanish language and to purportedly fixed cultural traits such as allegiance to family in marketing and advertising has strengthened a sense of pan-ethnicity among Latinos yet has carried the concomitant cost of reinforcing perceptions of Latinos as an immigrant group not fully integrated into American society.17 One might make a somewhat similar point about language differentiation in the mass media. If language difference has created opportunities for the fantastic growth of Spanish-language television throughout the Americas, it has grown along with commodified representations of “Latinidad.”18 In this book, I demonstrate that the transition to sound was a major precedent for these more recent developments. The creation of a Spanish-language film market came about due to Hollywood initiative as it sought to preempt any competition for sound films spoken in Spanish. This, in turn, provoked a response from Spanish-speaking countries and communities to insist that they were not only the arbiters of “appropriate” language usage, stories, settings, or casts for films in Spanish, but that they had superior claims to produce such films. An emphasis on pan-Hispanicism in the Spanish-speaking world was typically presented as resistance to cultural and economic domination by the United States, but this cultural anti-imperialism also implied accepting and, indeed, reinforcing the concept of a cultural-linguistic Spanish-speaking media market. The ability to insist on Hispanic particularity carried with it the cost of increasing the importance of the market as terrain for expressing social identities—an area in which the United States and Hollywood had distinct advantages.19 Timing also mattered to the development of Spanish-language filmmaking. By late 1929, when Variety’s famous headline blared, “Wall Street Lays an Egg,” most of the major American film studios had taken on large amounts of debt to finance the costs of the domestic conversion to sound.20 In 1930, the studios were still in the black thanks to profits from audience enthusiasm for the talkies. By the middle of the decade, however, most studios were in receivership as ticket revenues fell both at home and abroad and political turmoil in Europe began to close off some markets entirely. The hard times pressed Hollywood studios to streamline their production practices yet further and standardize the ways in which they prepared films for export. The larger context of worldwide economic depression also shaped how other nations responded to Hollywood and the rising tide of American cultural exports. In Spain and Latin America, the crisis years of the early 1930s gave rise to national-populist governments that

8

THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

were often willing to put in place protectionist measures, promote domestic industry, and play up national culture. While American film studios began the decade by making Spanish-version films with little concern for their cultural reception, both the economic pressures of the mid-1930s and producers’ increasing awareness of the need to compete with growing sound film industries in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina led to a turn toward coproduction and distribution deals and a final spate of Hollywood-based Spanish-language filmmaking.21 During the early 1930s, the seemingly large Spanish-speaking market had lacked depth. Rates of wiring cinemas for sound film projection varied widely between Spain and Latin America and, within Latin America, between major cities and less populous cities and towns. The sound film market in the Spanishspeaking world slowly expanded throughout the 1930s and increasingly favored Latin America over Spain (definitively so with the start of the Spanish Civil War in mid-1936). Furthermore, in rural areas of both Spain and Latin America, high rates of illiteracy made subtitling—the least expensive mode of film translation—an unacceptable option for many moviegoers. By this time, just as Hollywood studios, squeezed by the Depression, had begun to eliminate foreignlanguage-version productions, producers of sound films in Spain, Mexico, and Argentina found broad popular acceptance for movies that often played up national folklore and drew on popular theater traditions. The growth of these industries owed much to the years of Hollywood’s Spanish versions. Actors, writers, and directors who had worked on these films gained technical experience with sound film production and forged connections with each other that would later serve as transnational networks between Spanish-speaking film industries. Audiences for the Spanish versions made some of their favorites into stars who would later have greater box office draw when they worked in national cinemas elsewhere. Audience preferences also suggested what would later become popular genres. At the heart of this study are over 170 films that Hollywood studios made directly in Spanish between 1929 and 1939, the film professionals who worked on them, and the audiences who watched them.22 Film historians have long portrayed the multiple language versions (MLVs) of the early sound period as an eccentric experiment that flopped both at the box office and with critics. More recently, a few scholars have noted that MLVs persisted well past the 1930s, particularly in European film industries, and have argued that measuring their success or impact only by the standard of Hollywood’s bottom line obscures their true significance. Furthermore, so little archival work has been done on these films that generalizations about their quality, aesthetic interest, audience reception, or financial returns have rested on surprisingly little evidence.23 The heterogeneity of Hollywood’s Spanish-language production has also complicated an understanding of these films. While many qualify as MLVs and

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FIGURE 2 José Crespo and María Alba dancing in a scene from Olimpia (1930), the

Spanish version of MGM’s His Glorious Night (1929). Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

were versions of (usually) English-language originals, some were so heavily adapted in their Spanish version that they might better be termed remakes, while others were entirely original productions. Finally, the difficulty of adjudicating these films to the history of Hollywood, or to the history of various national cinemas, has further hindered their study. Even where scholars have recognized as unprecedented the brief period when actors, writers, and directors from Spain, Latin America, and Spanishspeaking communities in the United States congregated in Hollywood to work on the new sound films in Spanish, few have systematically investigated the longer-term connections between this experience and subsequent developments, either for Hollywood itself or for film industries elsewhere.24 Yet the first years of commercial sound cinema during which only Hollywood studios were making films in the Spanish language demonstrated deep audience demand for films spoken in Spanish, created a network of Spanish-speaking film stars and professionals, generated creative activity (both within and outside of Hollywood) to build on successes and learn from failures, and sparked concerted efforts in the public and private sectors of Spanish-speaking countries to vie for control over this language-defined market. The history of these films’

10

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production, circulation, and reception shows how language, as a key source of cultural identity, became a means of creating new space for audiovisual production that was deeply imbricated with the economic and symbolic power of Hollywood, but not entirely subsumed by it. One of the major issues that this study addresses is how Hollywood Spanish productions were received. Audience and critical reception, along with success at the box office, are issues with intrinsic interest, and they also bear on a more general appraisal of the significance of foreign-version production to the history of film. Evidence from the time period is frustratingly hard to come by. For many of the films, it is simply not available. Film criticism as we now understand it was incipient during the time period, and most of what passed for film reviews were no more than plot summaries. Other published writing on films often came directly from studio press releases. Information on a film’s box office is even harder to find as the very few financial ledgers from the time period that are held in public archives do not include a single Spanish-version film. The conclusions I am able to come to about the overall financial success of some Spanish productions (in chapters 2 and 5) are tentative given that they are based on an interpretation of disparate pieces of evidence drawn from a wide array of often partial and incommensurate sources. Nevertheless, they are a significant corrective to interpretations of Hollywood’s Spanish-language films that have relied primarily on published criticisms in the Spanish-language press as well as on the response of film executives who were dismayed both by negative publicity and by what were often initially disappointing box office receipts. One of the central contentions of this book is that while poor critical reception was significant in its own right as a cultural backlash and also because of its effect on film industry practice in regards to Spanish-speaking markets, such evidence has skewed our understanding of the real appeal that the early Spanish-language films had for popular audiences whose tastes and preferences were often ignored or derided by journalists and intellectuals. From 1929 through the 1930s, actors, writers, musicians, and directors from Argentina, Mexico, Spain, Cuba, and elsewhere worked on films made by U.S. film studios exclusively for Spanish-speaking audiences throughout the world. Not all of these films succeeded, but many did. A few became blockbusters. Paramount, with films starring tango singer Carlos Gardel, and Fox Films, with musicals featuring the Mexican tenor José Mojica, produced box office hits— allowing Gardel and Mojica to gain substantial control over their contracts and projects. While Gardel and Mojica commanded higher salaries, they were closely followed in popularity by singer and actress Imperio Argentina, who starred in some of the biggest movies of the decade in the Spanish-speaking world. Beyond the genre of musicals, major figures from the Spanish-speaking stage worked in Hollywood during these years. Spanish playwrights José López Rubio, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Gregorio Martı´nez Sierra, and Edgar Neville wrote screenplays,

INTRODUCTION

11

and some adapted their own plays for the screen. Internationally known stage actors Ernesto Vilches and Catalina Bárcena starred in a series of films. Hollywood also tapped Spanish-speakers who had begun working in Hollywood in silent films for sound pictures, most notably, veteran star Antonio Moreno and newcomer Gilbert Roland (born Luis Alonso). Two of Spain’s most important directors from the silent period, Florián Rey and Benito Perojo, got Hollywood contracts and some of their first experience with sound production. Significant actors and directors of the early Mexican and Argentine sound cinema—such as René Cardona, Ramón Pereda, José Bohr, Arcady Boytler, Carlos Borcosque, and Manuel Romero—also got their start in Hollywood productions. Not only did the films of these years launch a Spanish-speaking star system, they encouraged both industry insiders and audiences to believe in the viability of a Spanish-language film market. These unintended consequences grew out of Hollywood’s attempt to forestall competition from film producers in Spanishspeaking countries. More intensely than at any other moment, the introduction of sound into the cinema seemed to present an opportunity for the reassertion of national and regional identities in the face of Hollywood’s domination of not just the film

FIGURE 3 Ramón Novarro directing during the filming of Sevilla de mis amores, the

Spanish version of MGM’s Call of the Flesh (1930). Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

trade, but cinematic expression itself. The rise of important film industries following the introduction of sound in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina in the 1930s demonstrates that the addition of spoken dialogue to films formed a protective barrier for the production of locally made movies. Cultural ties mattered as much as linguistic ties. Yet the constant exchange of people and cultural products throughout the world complicated attempts to create fixed notions of culture. In this sense, Hollywood’s Spanish-version films provided an excellent foil for other industries that could differentiate themselves by appealing to specifically national cultural norms; however, the need to compete with Hollywood for the whole of the Spanish-speaking market partially compromised this advantage. Quite often, national critics charged some of the most commercially successful films made in these industries in the 1930s with not usefully advancing a national project. Intellectuals routinely denounced, first, Hollywood’s Spanish-version films and, later, national films that seemed excessively influenced by Hollywood; but these critiques failed to stop audiences from voting with their feet. Popular preferences for films in the Spanish language, whether Hollywood versions or low-budget national films, ultimately exercised more influence over film production than did critical diatribes and provided the impetus for sustained local production. The transition to sound sparked a vibrant period of experimentation and often intense, if localized, competition. Direct production of films in the Spanish language may have started in Hollywood, but it did not end there. The creation of a market for Spanish-language audiovisual products succeeded and prompted a reorganization of production across national boundaries. This period became a transnational moment of opportunity for a group of nations, peoples, and cultures broadly defined as “Hispanic” to participate in cultural production—albeit often on terms defined by Hollywood’s dominance. Too often film historians have understood other cinemas as significant, but subordinate in importance to Hollywood—the only film industry that has had global audiences and global influence for a sustained period of time. This emphasis, while not unwarranted given the historical and contemporary reality of Hollywood’s power, has distorted understanding of the ways in which other cinemas have successfully exploited local and regional markets precisely by employing popular but non-universal appeal. Ultimately, market-based appeals to specific cultural and ethnic identities played a role in processes of modernization by linking social identities to the consumption of mass media products. When viewed from the perspective of language, we can see how this history of the transition to sound shapes part of the prehistory of the globalization of media and forms of popular culture that characterize the contemporary world. Much like the contradiction that lies at the heart of the term “globalization,” synchronized sound both accelerated homogenization in the commercial cinema and fostered a new heterogeneity of sites of production and modes of address.25

INTRODUCTION

13

In the chapters that follow, I trace the beginnings of Spanish-language filmmaking, first in Hollywood and then outward toward the Spanish-speaking world where these films were watched, debated, imitated, and vilified. I also follow the webs of connection between film workers who circulated between Hollywood and various national industries. I look closely at the personal, economic, and symbolic relationships that linked films across their production and reception histories. Throughout, I develop the theme of what language meant vis-à-vis Spanish-speaking cultures and in relation to modern identities that became increasingly mediated through audiovisual forms of entertainment. To reconstruct key developments, I have drawn upon substantial collections of film studio correspondence, business and production files, extensive reviews of contemporary film magazines and newspapers, and viewings of extant Spanishlanguage productions from the time period. While Hollywood, that ambiguously defined place that exists as much in our imagination as on a map, is an organizing presence at the center of this study, in the historical narrative that follows, the soundtrack is slightly out of synch. Although presented here in English, the principal actors in this narrative mostly spoke Spanish. This slippage between the tight synchronization of sound and image, which in the narrative style of classical Hollywood cinema serves to distract attention from the material construction of the film, here creates a space for the history of film workers and audiences who heard something different.26 Chapter 1 briefly outlines Hollywood’s relationships to international markets, particularly in the Spanish-speaking world, during the period just prior to the conversion to sound. It next explores initial reactions in these markets to Hollywood’s earliest sound films. Since many of these were in English with little, and frequently poor quality, translation, the sharply negative responses of critics and audiences led Hollywood to begin making short films in Spanish, even as a few independent studios jumped in to make the first Spanish features. Covering roughly 1928–1929, this chapter demonstrates the improvisation of these early responses to the problem of language and, by looking closely at a few maverick producers, suggests how this transitional period created opportunities for innovation. In chapter 2, we see how Hollywood studios turned to largescale foreign-language production to forestall competition. During 1930 and 1931, studios produced foreign versions en masse. While Hollywood did little to take into account cultural difference beyond the substitution of the casts, many of these films did well at the box office with popular audiences pleased to hear their language without the distraction of dubbing or titles. This chapter surveys the large body of Spanish-language versions made during these years and introduces the significant theme of the split between popular and elite responses to them among their target audiences. The following two chapters deal with the explosion of nationalist and sometimes pan-Hispanic resistance on the part of cultural elites to the Hollywood

14

THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

Spanish versions, and their insistence that they must fight cinema with cinema. Chapter 3 studies the “war of the accents,” or the polemic that raged between Spaniards and Latin Americans over appropriate usage of the Spanish language in Hollywood sound films with multinational casts. It looks first at the deliberations of a committee formed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to mediate this dispute and then turns to a detailed history of Warner Brothers’ first Spanish-language feature, El hombre malo (The Bad Man, 1930). While casting a Spaniard to play the lead character of Mexican bandit Pancho López seemed to be the misstep that sparked a controversy in the Mexican press over this film, a more broadly negative response to the film by critics throughout Latin America and Spain shows the depth of resentment that Hollywood stereotypes of Hispanic cultures provoked. Chapter 4 continues this theme by looking at the most significant political response to Hollywood’s foray into Spanish-language production, the 1931 Spanish American Film Congress. This multinational meeting hosted by Spain sought to forge treaty agreements between Spanish-speaking nations that would create a protected film market and industry, but the weakness of local film industries doomed this ambitious project to failure. Still, the rhetoric of pan-Hispanic solidarity became a useful tool for the promotion of some of the earliest sound films in Spanish made outside of Hollywood, even as these were made by professionals who had worked on Hollywood versions. Chapter 5 examines how Hollywood studios responded to the severe economic crisis of 1931–1932 in terms of its international markets. Most studios eliminated or cut back on version films and worked to improve and standardize dubbing and titling methods for translation. These moves seemed to make sense given the often sharp critical backlash against version films and the apparently poor performance of version films at the box office. This chapter features a case study of the Foreign Department at Warner Brothers as the studio worked feverishly to find solutions that would allow it to continue to export films internationally but keep the costs associated with translation to a minimum. For the Spanish-speaking market, many of the linguistic controversies associated with versions also played into critical reception of dubbed films, while subtitling ran into the problem of widespread illiteracy among potential audiences. This chapter suggests that the turn to dubbing and titling was a choice conditioned by circumstances that did not reflect the full potential of Spanish-language filmmaking. In chapter 6, a study of Fox Films’ Spanish Department from 1932 to 1935 confirms that Hollywood could and did make money on its Spanish-language films, but also shows how the difficulties of trying to please both elite and popular Spanish and Latin American audiences continued to hinder this studio’s efforts. The studio veered between hiring some of the most noted writers and performers ever to work on Spanish versions in order to acquire greater cultural capital and trying to make popular fare that would appeal to the widest possible

INTRODUCTION

15

audiences. This chapter also highlights the ambivalence of the relatively powerful writers and performers who worked on these films toward the Hollywood studio system and its role in dictating mass culture. Chapter 7 suggests the resolution of some of these conflicting interests. Sound filmmaking exploded in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina, but it tended to draw on popular forms such as the musical and melodrama that exaggerated national characteristics. Hollywood studios, in turn, began to buy distribution and coproduction rights to these films as a way of participating in the profits without having to take responsibility for their cultural authenticity. Studios preferred working with known quantities, whether in terms of genre or the people involved in the productions, many of whom had first gained experience working on Hollywood’s Spanish versions. While these developments frequently displeased national critics, they allowed films to attract wide audiences in the Spanish-speaking world. The concluding chapter reflects on the longer-term implications of the changes provoked by sound in the 1930s. The onset of World War II, and with it the direct intervention of the U.S. government into the film industry, significantly favored Mexico and crippled Argentina, while Spain remained devastated by the outcomes of the Civil War. The boom years of the Mexican Golden Age cinema revealed the full extent of the popular market for films in the Spanish language. Although made in Mexico, the films circulated throughout Latin America, Spain, and Spanish-speaking communities in the United States. The casts were often multinational and the favored genres drew on precedents already in place by the late 1930s. Although an excessive reliance on outworn formulas and on government subsidies ultimately contributed to the decline of the Mexican industry by the late 1950s, a Spanish-language audiovisual market remained viable. In terms of cinema, the clearest expression of this was the rise of the New Latin American cinema of the 1960s. These films represented a significant pan–Latin American conversation about the possibilities of film art as a means of social critique in nations that increasingly identified with the concerns of the Third World. These films drew worldwide attention for their aesthetic and political interest and helped shape the intellectual culture of the Latin American left, but were not widely popular among Spanish-speaking audiences in the way the Spanish, Mexican, and Argentine hits of the 1930s and 1940s had been.27 Rather, one must look to the rise of popular television genres, such as the telenovela that began by the late 1950s, to see the continued appeal of Spanish-language entertainment among mass audiences. Likewise, in other areas of the world such as India, Hong Kong, and Egypt, the chance to market films and later television to large audiences as defined by language had transformative effects on the growth of new entertainment industries. The precursor to these developments was the introduction of synchronized sound to the commercial cinema. It is to that moment that we will now turn.

1 bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

First Responses to the Challenge of Sound, 1929–1930

Hollywood had well established control over international film markets by the 1920s. If some European industries, though recovering from the effects of World War I and hampered by small domestic markets, could still hope to compete, neither Spain nor any Latin American country could do so. To create and maintain its advantage, the American film industry used the power of an integrated system of production, distribution, and exhibition; the advantage of a large home market; the support of the U.S. government in trade treaty negotiations; and sophisticated strategies for accommodating and assuaging critiques of its films.1 Foreign resentment of Hollywood’s domination of local screens—with often more than 90 percent of screen time—persisted nonetheless. When sound came in, and with it an increased awareness of cultural difference brought about by the greater reliance on dialogue, the terms of the relationship between Hollywood and its foreign markets stood to be renegotiated. It was a moment of improvisation and of opportunity. The Hollywood studio system was not only powerful, but also flexible, and thus could be expected to successfully improvise responses to the challenge of sound and foreign marketing. Already by the interwar years the American film industry made 20 to 40 percent of its profits from international markets and would increasingly depend on this income.2 Still, the problem of spoken language in film was profound. How would Spanish-speaking audiences respond to sound films in English? How could Hollywood supply a demand for films in Spanish? Who would make such films? From the perspective of Hollywood studios, these questions were a relatively minor matter and only a part of the larger challenge posed by the conversion to sound. This, too, would have its consequences. The small-scale and somewhat haphazard response of the industry to the question of how to sell films to Spanish-speaking audiences created opportunities for newcomers to influence how this production would develop. 16

FIRST RESPONSES TO THE CHALLENGE OF SOUND, 1929–1930

17

Prior to sound, the countries in which Spanish was the majority language had never merited much attention as an important source of talent or potential competition. This changed once film studios realized that they needed material in the local language. Since Hollywood’s profitability rested in large measure on employing economies of scale, the new requirements of sound film favored language-specific production for markets lucrative enough, such as the major European countries, or numerous enough, such as Spanish-speaking countries. The need to produce films in Spanish was further propelled by the often fierce critical backlash against early sound films that were shown in English and seemed to smack of linguistic imperialism. These responses would lead some countries to make credible threats of passing legislation that would ban films with English-language dialogue or songs. Even so, any duplication of production meant a loss of profit for Hollywood studios. Thus early efforts to make films in Spanish tended to take place around the edges of the industry or in small-scale experiments. Much of the early sound film production in Spanish would be made either at major studio B units or at independent studios that produced films but contracted with the majors for distribution deals. The language barrier and lack of cultural knowledge on the part of English-speaking industry insiders, coupled with the low profile typical of early Spanish-language productions, meant that newcomers could take chances, gain exposure, and shape the new field.

City of Dreams In 1931, German-Chilean actor José Bohr starred in a film titled Hollywood, ciudad de ensueño (Hollywood, City of Dreams, Fenix Film) that was based on a script treatment he wrote. The film’s story is autobiographical and both it and Bohr’s career trajectory suggest to us major tendencies in the history of Spanishlanguage filmmaking, both during the first few years in Hollywood and later outside of the United States. In Hollywood, ciudad de ensueño Bohr plays the lead role—as himself. The fictional José Bohr wins a talent contest sponsored by a local cigarette company and travels to Hollywood “from the remotest corner of South America” to become an actor and, if possible, to meet the famous film star Alice Drexel, played by the less-than-famous actress Nancy Drexel. Bohr invents pretexts to see Drexel and takes a job as a waiter on one of her film sets before finally getting a chance to convince the director of his talent. After a successful screen test, Bohr costars with Drexel. One day during a break from filming a Western on location, Drexel wanders over to the sound recording set up and puts on the earphones. Suddenly she is able to overhear a conversation between Bohr and another woman through the boom mike hanging from the tree under which they are standing. Romantic complications ensue, and once Drexel is convinced that Bohr is seeing another, she returns to her old flame.

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THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

Depressed and unable to hide his feelings while filming scenes with her, Bohr loses his job and decides to leave Hollywood. Although Drexel finally realizes he loved only her all along, she arrives at the docks too late—just in time to see Bohr’s ship leaving for South America. Bohr sits sadly below, in steerage class, singing a tango titled “Hollywood, City of Dreams.”3 Bohr’s self-referential film narrates part of the story of the first few years of Spanish-language filmmaking in Hollywood. In his film, a combination of luck, talent, and persistence nets him a chance to break into an industry that suddenly needs Spanish-speakers with star potential. Likewise, in real life, the possibilities seemed limitless for a man like Bohr. The multitalented, selfconfident, and entrepreneurial José Bohr frequently found that he was his own best commodity. Bohr, whose family emigrated to Latin America when he was a child, had worked briefly in silent films in Chile before becoming known as a composer and singer of tangos for the radio in Argentina. He began to tour the Americas, including New York, where he opened his own nightclub and performed in an Argentine musical act as a gaucho. In 1926, he made a few short films with Lee De Forest, the inventor of a sound system that served as a model for other inventors. The fame of his stage act and his contacts in the recording industry led Universal and Paramount to feature him in some short musical revue films in 1929. Intended to test the market and fill at least some of the audience demand for films in Spanish, these early shorts also served to test the appeal of their stars. Bohr proved to have plenty of appeal, but the first contract for a featurelength film in Spanish came not from a major studio, but from an independent, Sono Art Films. He played the lead in the second-ever Spanish-language feature and the earliest dual-version film in Spanish and English: the 1929 Sombras de gloria (Blaze o’ Glory).4 Bohr’s first sound feature helped cement his popularity throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and he soon starred in another feature for Sono Art, Así es la vida (What a Man, 1930).5 Though independently produced, Paramount and Universal distributed these two films. Also in 1930, Bohr had a featured role as a Mexican bandit in an English-language Western, The Rogue of the Rio Grande, with Myrna Loy. Unlike many of the performers who appeared in the early musical shorts and first independent features made in Spanish, Bohr never made the leap to the Spanish versions of the major studios during 1930 and 1931. This was most likely due to his successful singing tours during this time period. Bohr’s Hollywood, City of Dreams would be his last movie made at the edges of Hollywood, but far from his last film. By the mid-1930s he was directing films in Mexico before moving on to work in the Chilean industry, where he became director general of Chile Films. By the 1950s, he made the transition to television. Bohr’s experiences in Hollywood suggest important features of the early years of sound when the possibilities of targeting film markets defined by

FIGURE 4 Advertisement for a showing in Mexico City of José Bohr’s first featurelength film, Sombras de gloria, the Spanish version of Sono-Art’s Blaze o’ Glory (1929). Author’s collection.

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THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

language led film studios to improvise and aspiring film professionals to find— or create—opportunity. Often they would have to do so on the sets of lowbudget, low-profile films and on short-term contracts. Like Bohr, many would have their hopes of Hollywood stardom dashed but would take away with them important experience, contacts, and name recognition that would later serve them well in their careers and help develop Spanish-language filmmaking outside of Hollywood.

Sounds American The fictional José Bohr may have left Hollywood in steerage class as a failed immigrant, but the real Bohr left to embark on a triumphal singing tour that featured the hit songs from Hollywood, ciudad de ensueño and his earlier two films. The tour took him throughout Central America and the Caribbean, where he was consistently greeted by ecstatic crowds. He used the opportunity to promote his vision of a Spanish-language cinema made in Latin America, by Latin Americans. When he presented the film in Managua, Nicaragua, he repeated this message: “It’s time that we end movies in other languages with subtitles. We need movies in our Spanish language to invade the screens of our countries.” Bohr reported that the crowd responded with loud cries of “Viva el Che Bohr” and “Viva Sandino”—a reference to the revolutionary leader Augusto Sandino, then leading resistance against the U.S. military presence in Nicaragua.6 Such responses suggest the potency of the language issue during the early years of sound films. They also help to explain why it was that ultimately the first ever commercial sound films in the Spanish language would be made in Hollywood. Sound films in English often provoked nationalist backlash and threats of consumer boycotts or restrictive legislation that alarmed American film studios, especially as they faced a deteriorating economic situation. The U.S. film industry had converted to sound in response to competition between the major and minor studios that comprised Hollywood. At the time— about 1927—these studios did not know whether talking pictures would catch on or how best to exploit the possibilities of synchronized sound. By 1929, sound films had ceased to be novelties in the United States, although abroad the conversion process was just getting started. The initial confusion and dismay frequently expressed by film studio executives over selling sound films to nonEnglish-speaking audiences indicated more than a momentary crisis of confidence. Film studios had no plan for the problem of translating sound film dialogue or song lyrics, and most of their early efforts to do so were a process of trial and error. Furthermore, in Hollywood’s foreign markets, the transition to sound took place just as a prolonged period of worldwide recession was beginning. The flush economic conditions of the late 1920s had permitted film studios to gamble by investing heavily in sound and buying up theater chains.

FIRST RESPONSES TO THE CHALLENGE OF SOUND, 1929–1930

21

Studios achieved greater degrees of vertical integration of production and exhibition and also expanded horizontally into industries such as radio and recorded music.7 The conversion to sound initially paid off in enormous profits, but by 1931 the motion picture industry suffered from a combination of falling rates of attendance, lower ticket prices, higher production costs (due to making all dialogue films), and theater closings. Massive layoffs, wage-cutting, and costcutting throughout the motion picture industry helped staunch the losses but could not offset them.8 Internationally, the American film industry faced falling revenues as governments began taking national currencies off the gold standard and instituting conversion controls. The slower pace of sound conversion abroad exacerbated these problems. While domestically most theaters had wired for sound by the start of the Depression, in Europe sound spread more slowly from urban to rural areas. In Latin America, even theaters in major capitals did not show their first sound films until 1929. International distributors of American films continued to require a supply of both sound and silent films beyond the point when producing silent films for the domestic market remained profitable. Yet the most complicated situation Hollywood faced in its international markets was the need to address problems of cultural reception for sound films in English. In the major cities of Europe and Latin America, the first sound shorts and features that included sound segments drew attention for their novelty but also provoked sharp criticisms both for their use of English and for the poor translation provided. A few cases were extreme, such as when Parisian filmgoers at a Montmartre theater protested on three consecutive nights during showings of a Fox musical revue in English with French subtitles. On the third night, rioters did their best to demolish the 1,500-seat theater, making clear that they were enraged at having been duped into seeing a sound film in English.9 While such audience reactions were far from typical, anti-Americanism in response to the first showings of sound films often characterized critical reception in Europe and Latin America.10 The first sound film to be shown in Mexico City, Al Jolson’s second feature, The Singing Fool, played in 1929. While this and other early sound films were popular with Mexican audiences, they set off an avalanche of editorials, articles, and letters to the editor. Critics advertised the dangers that sound films made in the United States represented for Mexico. Federico Gamboa, an eminent novelist (whose book Santa would serve as the basis for the first ever commercial sound film in Mexico), urged his compatriots to “oppose, by all available means, letting [the Yankees] poison us . . . with this pernicious immigration of celluloid men and women.” The anti-talkie fury in the press was such that when Jolson’s The Jazz Singer was premiered in Mexico about two months after The Singing Fool, it was shown as a silent.11 The new medium of sound film drew attention to linguistic difference and reinvigorated underlying concerns about the growing predominance of American culture in the world.

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THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

Silent film had relied on the active participation of spectators to interpret actors’ pantomime performances, to read visual cues, and to construct a narrative that relied on very few brief lines of text in intertitles. This interaction bound the spectator to the screen in a way that some contemporaries believed the excessive specificity and realism of films with dialogue, sound effects, and music would undermine.12 Charles Chaplin declared in 1929 that sound destroyed “the great beauty of silence.” The performer most famously associated with the new talkies, Al Jolson, replied to this remark: “What he’s really got is a gentleman complex. He’s afraid he talks too nice to fit in with the characterization he has built up on the screen.” Jolson meant, of course, that Chaplin’s “Tramp” character would not work with Chaplin’s refined English accent.13 Both men’s remarks pointed to the salient differences between silent and sound films as well as to aesthetic concerns about film as art and class tensions. The new voices emanating from the screen heightened listeners’ sensitivities to the imagined identities of film stars. In Spain, one journalist wrote of how he believed audiences there experienced the novelty of sound. “We can no longer imagine, for example, that our heroines possess the lovely voice that we would want them to have. . . . [Instead,] when a lovely figure appears on the silver screen she belts out a ‘very well thank you’ with a voice that stuns us with its resemblance to that of a street tough.”14 If silence had lent itself to ambiguity and imaginative possibilities, sound often meant direct, vernacular realism. For non-American audiences, this produced a double shock since the stars had begun to speak not only with surprising voices, but also in a foreign language or unfamiliar accent. Popular audiences would often prove far more tolerant of the new sound films from Hollywood than film critics or intellectuals, but cultural elites had greater power to influence government policies. The introduction of sound into the cinema crystallized long-simmering discussions about the cultural threat posed by Hollywood. In Mexico, Carlos Noriega Hope, publisher of a major newspaper, led a campaign against the use of spoken English in sound films. One writer warned that “within a year there will be no more silent films in Mexico, and [the] talkies are in English. If American propaganda had reached amazing proportions through the film medium before, now it will culminate in taking away the only thing that halfway remained to us: our language. In five years, we won’t just be chewing gum, but we’ll be mangling our Spanish as well.”15 Fears about sound films were often linked to fears of a general onslaught of an American way of life. They were grounded in larger critiques of the United States as a neocolonial power in the hemisphere, and both Latin American and European intellectuals often made arguments about what would come to be called cultural imperialism. Such articles demanded legislation against the importation of English-language films. In 1929, some American studios began to adapt their films by suppressing dialogue and leaving only music on the sound track. Nevertheless, restrictive

FIRST RESPONSES TO THE CHALLENGE OF SOUND, 1929–1930

23

legislation passed in Italy and Spain—and threats of similar legislation in Cuba, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil—that banned films in foreign languages, including “dubbed” films that left songs in the original English, also pressed the U.S. industry.16 This situation accelerated the pressure to improvise better solutions for translating films and to try direct production in foreign languages. The economic pressures of the Great Depression and the political turmoil in Europe made conceiving of and maintaining a Spanish-language market a priority. Adapting films into Spanish, whether through translation or direct production, was necessary to overcome audience resistance to sound films in English and feasible because the size of the Spanish-speaking market still allowed studios to take advantage of economies of scale.

New Markets In the 1910s and 1920s, the American film industry, as the world’s leader in exports, had already dealt with problems posed by cultural acceptance of its products and regularly made minor adaptations to suit foreign sensibilities.17 Studios had developed distribution networks with foreign offices, and industry trade papers published articles about the European, South American, or other regional markets. For the most part, all foreign markets received films that had also played domestically. The translation and substitution of intertitles was a minor matter in terms of cost and significance. The addition of spoken, language-specific dialogue to film changed this. After a short phase when the sheer novelty of sound films attracted spectators even if they did not understand the words, film producers realized that their films had to be made linguistically comprehensible to continue to attract audiences. Both in the United States and abroad, those involved in marketing films began to conceive of film markets as coterminous with large linguistic communities. At first, in the United States, this division seemed merely mechanical. In the film industry, making the original negative of a film required a large investment, but it could then be reproduced for a fraction of the cost. Adapting films into different languages, whether through titling, dubbing, or direct foreign-language production, increased costs substantially. The greater numbers of negatives and master prints alone was costly; a Variety article from early 1930 estimated that the raw film stock industry grew by 300 percent because of the multiple copies required for the export of sound films.18 Cutting down the number of additional, distinct copies of films for export required studios to limit the number of languages into which films would be adapted. In 1930, after surveying market conditions in Europe, George Canty, a representative of the Department of Commerce’s Motion Picture Division, recommended English, Spanish, German, and French as the principal languages for sound film

THE RISE OF SPANISH-LANGUAGE FILMMAKING

24

production. These would cover much of Europe. Canty suggested that smaller countries that did not speak any of these languages fell into two different categories: those too small to merit direct productions in their own language, but unlikely to accept films in one of the “major” languages (such as Sweden or Italy), and small countries that might accept sound films in a second language (such as Portugal, which could show Spanish-language films).19 This division only considered Europe, but the linguistic needs of other parts of the world confirmed the four principal languages. A Variety article from early 1930 “market-rated” languages for sound films: “English, first and far away the bulk of the market; German, second; Spanish, because of South American [sic], third; French, fourth, taking in Canada and Egypt in addition to the French colonies. Italian, Norse country and other dialects and dialogs don’t matter— much.”20 This rank order roughly corresponded to the percentages that these countries, or combinations of countries, had represented as sources of foreign profits during the 1920s. This grouping makes two divergent trends apparent. It prioritized the European countries, but it also signaled the fundamental difficulty that would face European film producers—the lack of a common regional language. Nevertheless, the concept of language markets meant new opportunities for those countries that could produce films in one of the major languages. German and French represented relatively few problems of cultural diversity within the language market. The extent of the German-language market was mostly contained in central Europe, and the French market, while more complicated, still derived most of its profitability from France itself. English and Spanish were significantly different cases because they consisted of many diverse nations and colonies. Germany, France, and Great Britain all had film industries of some significance and with the introduction of sound could hope to use their domestic and ancillary markets in order to compete with the United States. In the newly conceived Spanish-language market, no single country was in a position to take the lead in film production. Spain, Argentina, and Mexico had small film industries and the silent films they produced had mostly circulated only domestically. Nevertheless, these three countries were important markets for films from the United States. Latin America imported more linear feet of film per year than any other region. While in the mid-1920s the Spanish-speaking countries represented just over 16 percent of all foreign profits for the American film industry, in 1927 and 1928 Latin America alone (including Portuguesespeaking Brazil) accounted for a little over 30 percent of foreign profits—the increase due to the effects of restrictive legislation on films in Europe.21 During the early sound period, observers typically estimated the Spanishspeaking market as over 100 million people, although this figure was based on population, rather than on the actual number of people who had access to

FIRST RESPONSES TO THE CHALLENGE OF SOUND, 1929–1930

25

cinemas and the means to buy a ticket. Its size was matched by its diversity. The most ample definition included the Spanish-speaking countries of North, South, and Central America, the Caribbean, Spain, diasporic communities in the United States, the Philippines, and even the Sephardic Jews of the Middle East.22 Of course, this market did not come ready-made but was developed in response to the new requirements of selling sound films. By any measure, however, the film industry recognized that Spanish speakers constituted a market large and lucrative enough to merit special attention. By late 1929, Hollywood studios had begun to search for the best solution to the problem of adapting sound films for the large language markets. For Spanish, French, and German, most studios debated between dubbing and making versions of their films with native-speaker casts. Most tried dubbing first, but the initially poor technical results and audience rejection pushed most of the major studios to a policy of making at least some version films and adapting the rest of their films with a combination of titling and dubbing.23 The threat of European competition also made finding solutions to the language issue urgent. In October of 1929 Variety predicted that films made in France would soon outperform American sound films. “[Now] that the novelty of American dialog is wearing off . . . as soon as native-made talkers, in the native tongue, are marketed, it will sweep everything before it.”24 By March of 1930, Variety ran a fullpage headline declaring “U.S. May Lose Europe.” The article, which threatened that the situation would worsen, stated that the lack of films in local languages was undermining the “supremacy of American pictures.” Not only were American studios failing to supply European markets, but German and French producers were “making a bold play to benefit from the condition, rushing through French, Spanish, Italian and German dialog material. It is pretty certain to click, regardless of its poor quality as compared to American standards.”25 Throughout 1930, the trade press continued to chronicle the efforts of European competitors to make films in not just their own languages, but other European languages as well. For most of the American film studios, the question became not whether to make multilingual versions, but whether to produce them in the United States or abroad.26

Short-Term Solutions In 1930, a new film journal in Spain by the name of Mudo y sonoro (Silent and sound) summed up the problem succinctly. “[The] Spanish audience, like the Spanish American, will accept sound film with just two conditions: either they are given talkies in their language, or in their absence, films that are easy to understand, with a minimum of dialogue and a maximum of musical numbers. . . . [O]nly with these two formulas will [the major film producers] manage to satisfy us and avoid losing the extensive Spanish-speaking market.”27

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By 1929, studios had already come to this conclusion. Developments would push the major studios into producing foreign-language features by about mid-1930, but their initial response during 1929 was to start by making a series of shorts and films such as musical revues that cobbled together a series of variety acts. Sound film conventions were not yet well established even in the predominant English-language cinema. The uncertainty over audience preferences, whether in terms of genres, stars, or—in the case of non-English speakers—language and modes of translation, made relying on entertainment with a proven track record, such as stage acts, an appealing and less risky choice. After all, the novelty of synchronized sound came not only from dialogue, but also from songs and music. These factors help to account for the musical revue films of 1929–1930, such as The Broadway Melody or Paramount on Parade. Not only could the revues play for domestic audiences, they could also easily be reformatted for export. The sequences in which an English-speaking master of ceremonies introduced the acts could be substituted with sequences of a master of ceremonies speaking in the local language if the market merited it—otherwise, the relatively small amount of dialogue could be subtitled or simply eliminated. Furthermore, since the revue films did not depend on narrative development, it was also possible to adapt them by adding some musical acts or sketches performed in the target language.28 For Spanish-speaking export markets, a number of studios and independent producers also made stand-alone shorts consisting of musical acts or sketches. These one- or two-reel films accompanied the first partial or full sound features (usually English-language films). Many of the shorts featured performers already working in stage shows in the United States or Spanish-speaking film actors with vocal skills. José Bohr, for instance, appeared in a musical short for Paramount titled simply Canciones típicas (Popular songs). Studios also used these films as an inexpensive and quick way to try out new talent. Initially, the market’s diversity defied Hollywood’s reliance on the star system to promote its products. In a strategy later repeated by others, one producer decided to “test the various Spanish speaking countries” with a musical revue film that would star a Spaniard, an Argentine, a Cuban, and a Mexican.29 Numerous actors who would later appear in studio version films first worked on short films intended to accompany the earliest sound features as they began to be exported. In late 1929, Variety reported that major studios were worried about “the inroads the independents [were] making on their pictures in foreign tongues here, especially in Spanish.”30 Independents had greater flexibility and could respond more quickly to new opportunities, and this allowed them to rush into Spanish-language production before most studios. The first few films, the individuals who made them, and the strategies they employed demonstrate the new opportunities that marketing films to Spanish-speakers represented, although these opportunities were tempered initially by the disadvantages of working around the edges of Hollywood.

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In the popular culture of the period, Hollywood’s A-list films occupied much of the limelight, but such films were often just the tip of the iceberg. Their glamour helped deflect attention from the mechanisms of rational production that governed the U.S. film industry. In Bohr’s film Hollywood, ciudad de ensueño, he and Drexel are shown making a Western for the “International Studios” company. In real life, the actress Nancy Drexel’s career from 1926 to 1932 consisted almost solely of roles in low-budget Westerns made by big studio B units or by independents. Every studio turned out dozens of quicker and cheaper films that helped it supply its distributors. Although the studios had achieved vertical integration with their distribution and exhibition branches and had rationalized their mode of production into an efficient, in-house undertaking characterized by sharp divisions of labor and specialization, the industry was not entirely closed. Independent companies made an important number of low-budget films, often pitched at niche markets. Both these companies and the B film units of the majors and minors served as training grounds for new workers, and as less risky venues for innovation. Because films in Spanish were intended for only a part of the world film market, almost all were made with low budgets, by independent companies or by the B units of the bigger studios. Hollywood’s A films had to appeal to markets throughout the world to justify their large budgets, whereas B films could be used in selected markets or even just distributed domestically.31 During the 1930s, low-budget B films made up nearly 75 percent of all American film production that had to supply a voracious market accustomed to double features and frequent film turnover. B film production allowed the majors and minors to amortize fully the costs of maintaining installations such as stages and sets and of keeping workers on contract. B films meant significantly smaller budgets than A films, lesser or unknown stars, shorter shooting schedules, and slightly shorter running times. Because the big studios could not entirely supply a vast and varied exhibition market, independent producers also made B films and developed new talent, techniques, and film genres, some of which the established companies would later pick up. The seeming unimportance of the individual B film allowed both makers and spectators to escape some of the constraints of the studio system. Independents often made films for specialized audiences, such as those at small or rural theaters with low ticket prices, or ethnic audiences. The ethnic films of the 1930s—including those made by and for African Americans, Yiddish- and Chinese-language films, and some of the Spanish-language films made by U.S. Latinos—demonstrate how B film production created space for specialized filmmaking practice.32

First Features The dynamic relationship between studio and independent B film production helps explain Hollywood Spanish-language filmmaking in the 1930s. In 1929, independents rushed into Spanish-language filmmaking. Although they were

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quickly overtaken by the Hollywood studios in 1930, some of those who had produced, directed, and acted in the early independent efforts used their experience to gain employment on the Hollywood Spanish versions. Similarly, later in the decade, when most studios had ceased Spanish-language production, independents again began to produce such films using actors from the version films and taking advantage of their contacts with studios to make distribution deals. At the outset of Spanish-language production, both risk and uncertainty were high—a situation that favored ambitious innovators. Some actors moved between working for Hollywood studios and for independent productions, and the most entrepreneurial among them also produced their own projects. In 1929, none of the Spanish-speaking countries had adequate sound production facilities, and thus these constitute the earliest Spanish-language films to reach commercial screens. In many important ways, those who made these early films in Spanish entered an “empty field” of cultural production, specifically within the American film industry.33 The industry had some existing structures for recruiting foreign workers, but not for choosing appealing and capable Spanish-speaking actors, much less for developing and marketing appropriate projects. Audience preference for comprehensible sound films was high, as was intra-industry competition for foreign markets, where studios had less direct control over distribution and exhibition than they did domestically. Although the studios quickly rushed into foreign-language production, independent companies had some room to develop Spanish-language films. Given the general lack of knowledge about the incipient language market, they experimented with different strategies for appealing to audiences. Independent companies in the United States produced the first true Spanish-language features (of five reels or more). They represent a variety of strategies. The films include Sombras habaneras (Havana shadows, 1929), Sombras de gloria (Blaze o’ Glory, 1929), Sombra vengadora (Shadow of vengeance, 1929), Charros, gauchos y manolas (1930), La rosa de fuego (Rose of fire, 1930), Así es la vida (What a Man, 1930), and Alma de gaucho (Soul of a gaucho, 1930). Two, Sombras de gloria and Así es la vida, were versions of English-language films produced at roughly the same time as the Spanish versions, while the rest were original productions intended specifically for Spanish-speaking audiences. These relied on stories set in Spanish-speaking countries. All six used multinational casts: a feature overtly emphasized in Sombras de gloria by listing the nationalities of the cast next to their names in the credit sequence. The actors hailed from ten different nations.34 One, Charros, gauchos y manolas, had scenes set in Mexico, Argentina, and Spain, with actors from each of these countries in the appropriate roles. As its title suggests by referring to Mexican cowboys (charros) and Argentine horsemen (gauchos) and to “typically” Spanish women (manolas), this film overtly sought to appeal to the major markets for Spanish-language films and relied

FIGURE 5 December 1929 advertisement for what is billed as “the first film spoken in Spanish ever to be shown in the world.” While short films in Spanish had been released prior to this, Sombras habaneras (Havana shadows) was the first feature. Collection of Robert Dickson.

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heavily on the folkloric customs and music of the three countries. Alma de gaucho, set in Argentina, was made in Spanish, but its producers also made a version dubbed into Italian to which they added a written prefatory title that dedicated it to “Italians in Italy and outside.”35 Like so many Argentines, the film’s writer, composer, and star, Benjamín Ingénito Paralupi (who also worked under the names Manuel Granado and Paul Ellis), had Italian roots. Such strategies demonstrate the uncertainty of the extent and makeup of the market for films made in Spanish. With the exceptions of Sombras de gloria and Así es la vida, none of these early Spanish features seem to have succeeded at the box office. All drew criticism: reviewers described most as amateurish, unconvincing, and even painful to watch. According to film magazines of the time, they suffered from poor production values, particularly their sound, and uneven acting. In an anticipation of a complaint that would dog Spanish-language films made in the United States throughout the 1930s, one critic took Sombras habaneras to task for its awkward dialogue. “I seemed to be listening to a group of Yankee tourists who had barely learned Spanish in twenty lessons. . . . [T]he worst was that despite being the work of hispanos a dialogue full of Americanisms was used which will sound like a foreign language to our people.” The only redeeming quality of Charros, gauchos y manolas was some of its music, according to one writer. Of these films, Sombras de gloria stood out, particularly for the performance of its star, José Bohr.36 This film’s reviewer did not rate it a total success, but rather a first “serious attempt” that produced somewhat mediocre results. He put his review squarely in the context of the “new and unexplored route of talking pictures, in our language.” He recognized the difficulties that producers faced and noted that one could praise the films simply for the sake of the effort and money put into them. He insisted, however, that any thinking audience should demand films in Spanish equal in quality to those made in English.37 The comments of this perceptive reviewer aptly describe the risks of making films intended for a newly defined language market that still consisted of discriminating filmgoers who had long experience with Hollywood and international cinema. Although these early independent films did not succeed at the box office or convince observers of the industry that Spanish-language films could successfully be made in the United States, they merit attention for another reason: their personnel. The cast and crew of these feature films, along with the early experimental shorts, included quite a few of the actors who would play leading roles in numerous Spanish-language versions made by Hollywood. Several of the key figures behind the production of these films helped to shape Spanish-language filmmaking, despite the poor reception of their first sound film efforts. Brief biographical sketches of René Cardona, producer and star of Sombras habaneras, and of Arcady Boytler, star of Sombra vengadora, suggest some of the links between the transition to sound period and later developments. Like José Bohr, Cardona

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and Boytler parlayed formative experiences on these first features made in the United States into significant and influential careers in the Mexican film industry, although, like Bohr, neither was originally from Mexico. As we shall see in later chapters, their careers were also typical of those of numerous others who would use the knowledge and connections gained from the relatively brief period when Hollywood made movies in Spanish to help build substantial sound film industries elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking world.

Cosmopolitan Careers By the time of his death, René Cardona (b. 1905, Havana; d. 1988, Mexico City) had directed over 140 films, acted in and produced many others, and begun a Mexican filmmaking dynasty as his son and grandson of the same name also became prolific directors. Yet he got his start in the United States, where he would write, produce, and star in the first-ever commercially exhibited, featurelength film in the Spanish language. Cardona’s family had left Cuba during the 1920s for political reasons. Cardona found work in the U.S. film industry as a secondary actor and technical assistant for a few silent films. He appeared in a very early (1926) Spanish-language short film made by the Fox-Case Corporation before rushing to produce Sombras habaneras in 1929 at the independent Tec-Art Studio in Hollywood. It featured, in addition to Cardona in the lead, two actors who would appear in numerous Hollywood Spanish-language films: Juan Torena and Paul Ellis. Both Ellis and Torena had some experience playing bit parts in silent films in the late 1920s. However, Ellis had a leading role in an unusual silent film, Una nueva y gloriosa nación (The Charge of the Gauchos, 1927). An Argentine producer had hoped to interest a major American studio in the project (a historical drama about Argentine independence) but ultimately produced it independently.38 Ellis costarred in this film with Jacqueline Logan, who had been featured in numerous silent films of the 1920s. It is possible that Ellis may have convinced Logan to star in Cardona’s Sombras habaneras. Presumably, they hoped Logan’s fame would aid the picture, but the fact that her voice had to be dubbed into Spanish did not help the film’s reception. Cardona at first fell back on acting after his experience with Sombras habaneras and landed roles in three Hollywood Spanish-language films made by major studios. He alternated work in film with work in the theatrical touring company of Ernesto Vilches, a well-known theater star who participated in several Hollywood Spanish-version films. Cardona traveled to Mexico with this company and apparently became convinced that this was where the future of Spanish-language filmmaking lay. In his third film in Hollywood, the 1931 Carne de cabaret (Ten Cents a Dance), Cardona costarred with Ramón Pereda (a Spaniard whose family emigrated to Mexico during his childhood), Lupita Tovar, and Carmen Guerrero. Both women would later go on to make early

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sound films in Mexico, and Guerrero became a major star there. Pereda, on the other hand, continued to star in Spanish-language films throughout the 1930s even as he developed a career in the Mexican sound cinema. He had married one of Cardona’s fellow actresses in Vilches’s theatrical troupe, Adriana Lamar, who would star in the first film of many that Pereda would produce, write, and direct in Mexico.39 Cardona at first worked principally as an actor in the Mexican cinema through 1937, when he began direct his own films, with much greater success than he had with his first effort. He played a key role in pioneering the early Mexican sound cinema, in part because he could draw upon both connections and fame acquired through experience in Hollywood. Arcady Boytler Rososky (b. 1893, Moscow; d. 1965, Mexico City) took an even longer route to Mexico than did Cardona, but had no doubt that Mexico could replace Hollywood as a center for Spanish-language filmmaking. This peripatetic Russian who had fled his homeland after the 1917 Revolution had worked in the theater and silent cinema in Europe and South America before arriving in the United States in 1928. In his early comic films, made in Europe, he riffed on the internationally popular Charlie Chaplin movies.40 In Argentina, he worked as a theater director for three years. He also made a silent feature in Chile and put together a vaudeville act that he took to Peru before emigrating to the United States. Although Boytler tried to get work with Paramount and other studios in their new Spanish-language initiatives, he could not. He ultimately found work with a newly formed independent company, Empire Productions, that planned to make films for the Spanish-language market. This company, formed by businessmen from the United States and Mexico with experience in the film industry, made a series of twelve films in 1929, which were distributed in the United States, Mexico, and Argentina, before moving their operations to Mexico in 1930. They employed actors from Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, Chile, and Spain. Boytler directed and acted in several of them, including Sombra vengadora, which the company billed as the first-ever Spanish-language dramatic film.41 Spaniard Fortunio Bonanova also appeared in the Empire shorts with Boytler. Bonanova later became a staple in both Spanish-language productions of the 1930s and English-language films and television, through the early 1960s. He invariably played small parts as a “foreign” (usually Latin) character— most notably in Citizen Kane as the unhappy opera instructor of Mrs. Kane.42 Bonanova also produced and starred in the final feature-length Spanish-language film made in Hollywood in the 1930s, La inmaculada (The immaculate, 1939). Unlike Bonanova, Boytler soon moved on to Mexico, perhaps following his compatriot Sergei Eisenstein, who had left Hollywood without completing a planned studio film and would film material for ¡Que viva Mexico! in 1931 and 1932. Boytler has a small cameo in one of Eisenstein’s sequences. He then stayed on in Mexico and became a key figure in its early sound cinema.43 Boytler made just seven features in Mexico before devoting himself fully to running

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movie theaters in Mexico City. However, his career stands out for having made one of the classics of the early Mexican sound cinema, the 1933 La mujer del puerto (The Woman of the Port), and for promoting the careers of several future stars. Boytler demonstrated his prescience in understanding Mexico’s potential as a competitor for the vast Spanish-speaking film market. Boytler insisted that the success of Mexican films depended on their ability to appeal to audiences outside of Mexico. Shortly before beginning production on La mujer del puerto, Boytler affirmed in a leading Mexican film magazine that in his opinion, despite his faith in the future prospects of its film industry, “films should not be made too vernacular, so that other Spanish-speaking countries accept them and understand them.” He also argued that the best way for cinematographers and technicians to learn the necessary skills was by traveling and working in other film industries so that they could bring back new ideas.44 Boytler first discovered and featured in his films Arturo de Córdova and Jorge Negrete and gave early starring roles to Emilio Fernández and the comic team of Mario Moreno (Cantinflas) and Manuel Medel.45 As Boytler later reflected, he believed that “whoever loves the cinema must be more tolerant and make sacrifices to give people with talent an opportunity. [One must] give the ‘chance’ that they give in Hollywood and elsewhere.”46 By the 1940s, the appeal of these stars helped make Mexican cinema popular throughout the Spanishspeaking world.

Conclusion In the film Hollywood, ciudad de ensueño, José Bohr finds himself in a bilingual world. One of the complications in his would-be romance with Drexel is that neither speaks more than a few words of each other’s language, and the jealous “other woman” takes advantage of their mutual incomprehension to break them up. The rest of the film’s characters speak Spanish and English and the films they are making are in the Spanish language. The set-up seems far from realistic. Yet, from the late 1920s through the 1930s, hundreds of Spanish-speaking actors, writers, technicians, directors, and producers had such experiences. But as one of the film’s intertitles (a characteristic of the silent cinema that early sound film often retained) suggests, Hollywood proved a fickle place not just for love, but for professional success as well. Intertitle: Hollywood, ciudad de ensueño. . . . Cuántos amigos das al triunfador. . . . Pero, cuando la Gloria le vuelve la espalda, ¡entonces! [Hollywood, city of illusion. . . . How many friends you give to one who triumphs. . . . But, when fame is gone, what then?]

Much like in Bohr’s experience in both the film and real life, the decision to produce films directly in Spanish opened doors to outsiders. For many, the stay in

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Hollywood proved fleeting and often frustrating, yet fruitful. Although the experience gained and the contacts made while working in early Spanishlanguage films ultimately served these men and women well in establishing film or entertainment careers elsewhere, unknown independents had a difficult time competing with the Hollywood studio system that soon afterward began to make its own films in Spanish. Many actors, directors, and writers moved from working on the early independent films into the Spanish productions of the established studios. By early 1930, afraid of losing market share and buoyed by the profits of the successful transition to sound domestically, most studios committed to an unprecedented and large-scale experiment—translating movies by remaking them in multiple-language versions.

2 bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

Hollywood’s Spanish Versions, 1930–1931

From 1930 to 1931, when studios produced the largest number of multiplelanguage version films, the lack of major stars, low budgets, and cultural mismatches between scripts chosen for remaking and intended audiences doomed many of these films to critical—although not necessarily popular—rejection. In the case of Spanish, the market for which studios made the largest number of versions, the problem of national and regional variation within the language complicated matters yet further. International markets were crucial to Hollywood. Nevertheless, even when the transition to sound led Hollywood studios to develop new strategies for making and selling movies to international audiences, this concern did not produce a dramatic change in attitude toward the people, customs, and cultures of foreign countries, or of domestic ethnic audiences. The Spanish-version films (like other language versions) were made in the shadows of Hollywood with small budgets, streamlined production schedules, and lesser-known actors. In the United States, news of their production rarely appeared outside industry trade papers. In their intended markets, however, distributors publicized the version films as first-class products. Versions frequently paled in comparison to Hollywood’s big-budget, A-list films and bigname, glamorous stars. The contradictions between how producers made foreign versions and how they promoted them exposed the inner workings of the dream machine and left little doubt about Hollywood’s intense focus on the bottom line. In the Spanish-speaking world, suspicion that Hollywood studios saw Spanish-version films as second-rate echoed contemporary fears of U.S. domination of modern, mass-produced culture. The importance of stars to Hollywood filmmaking made the foreign-language versions particularly problematic. Stars played a key role in the studio system as they served as a means to differentiate films and to promote them in the market. Stars, through both their on- and 35

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off-screen personae, added meaning to films and created feelings of identification and attachment with audiences.1 The powerful attachment of audiences to stars helped draw attention away from the mechanics of moviemaking. Yet careless casting for Spanish-version films sometimes meant that actors who received star billing noticeably failed to live up to it. During the boom years of Hollywood’s Spanish-language film production, from late 1929 through 1931, audiences, critics, and the studios themselves watched these new films closely. Their responses suggest the possibilities and limits of methods of mass production in a culture industry that sought global domination. One writer for Cinelandia, a leading Spanish-language film magazine, had little faith in either the aims or means of the major studios that by mid-1930 were beginning to produce films in Spanish. “A furious storm of foreign language version [films] has invaded Hollywood, now that this city’s filmmakers have no other thought than for foreign markets. . . . But what is wrong with this is that Hollywood believes that such films—export commodities—can be made on the cheap, with cheap talent, makeshift directors and little outlay. We do not wish to be doomsayers, but we are sure that such shoddy goods will meet the cold reception they deserve. And then the producers will give our market its real value.”2 Most of the studios committed themselves to extensive production plans. Although each experimented with slightly different approaches, their initial assumption that versions were principally a mode of translation led most to make films that reused English-language scripts, sets, and costumes and cast actors who could be billed as stars but did not receive star salaries. The studio system had created a powerful synthesis of cost-effective methods and consumer identification with its products; version films seemed to expose too much of Hollywood’s machinery and highlight its ill-suitedness to producing culturally acceptable films. Nevertheless, at a moment when most spectators judged dubbing and subtitling methods inadequate, better-quality version films did succeed with audiences. In addition, as new faces became more familiar, some began to acquire star status for Spanish-speaking audiences. At the same time, studios that received negative criticism about their films’ lack of cultural appeal began to respond by adapting films for Spanishspeaking audiences, albeit in ways limited by their understanding of what those criticisms meant. The most iconic and well-known Spanish version, Universal’s 1931 Drácula, suggests to us some of the limitations and possibilities of the earliest phase of Hollywood’s Spanish-language film production.

Hybrid Monsters A mystique surrounds the Spanish version of Dracula and comes in part from the idea of its origins: filmed by night, in an empty studio, even the actors were spooked by the sets. The shadows are deeper, the actresses’ necklines are lower,

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blondes become brunettes, and English is replaced by Spanish. Mexican actress Lupita Tovar later recalled, “Many a time, I walked in there and I was all alone. It was really scary to see the set and everything. . . . I really felt scared of Dracula you know.”3 While Tod Browning’s Dracula, filmed by day, jump-started Universal’s string of horror hits in the 1930s, the Spanish version, made by night, lay largely forgotten for decades until discovered in a film archive in Cuba. Now commercially available and packaged together, the two versions of Dracula offer the chance for direct comparison.4 The Spanish Drácula improves on the English-language original in key respects. Although filmed from the same script, on the same sets, and at roughly the same time, the Spanish version’s director, George Melford, and producer, Paul Kohner, worked obsessively to differentiate their film from that being directed by an ailing Tod Browning. From the opening credit sequence filmed over a candle that flickers out, versus the still background of the original, to the first surprise shot of Dracula, seen from Renfield’s point of view, that includes a vertiginous traveling shot up the stairs, versus the original’s static point-of-view shot, the Spanish Drácula surpasses the English version in mise-en-scène, editing, and camera work. It also highlights the erotic subtext of the film’s story that the original version shies from due to the ever increasing pressures on Hollywood to clean up its pictures. The Spanish Dracula sweeps his cape over Lucia, his first victim, as she lies in bed, where the original cuts decorously away at his first step in her direction; and, as Lupita Tovar has frequently pointed out, her costumes left much less to the imagination than did Helen Chandler’s in the original.5 After all, versions intended exclusively for foreign-language markets were not likely to be seen by domestic pressure groups. Yet for all the improvements that Kohner and Melford managed to wring out of a film budgeted at under $70,000 (versus over $400,000 for the original), the Spanish Drácula also produces a distracting kind of estrangement that the original does not.6 In the English-language version, which opens in Transylvania and features an undead monster in human form, the portrayal of the title character resonates with Hungarian-born actor Bela Lugosi’s marked Central European accent. Lugosi’s accent is in contrast to the Anglo-American inflections of the rest of the cast and has a diegetic motivation that is lost in the Spanish version. The contrast in accents is sharper between the fiancées Eva Seward (Lupita Tovar, Mexico) and Juan Harker (Barry Norton, Argentina) than between Dracula (Carlos Villarías, Spain) and Renfield (Pablo Álvarez Rubio, Spain). Even in the opening sequence set in a Transylvanian village, the Spanish version lacks the clarity of the linguistic difference between the villagers and the newly arrived tourists descending from the coach that is sharply marked in the original. In spite of the great care Kohner and Melford took with the film, neither spoke Spanish and the result is audible. Yet the most notable difference between the two versions is the casting of the lead role. While Lugosi’s

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FIGURE 6 Lupita Tovar as Eva in Drácula (Universal, 1931). Universal Studios, Classic Monster Collection, DVD.

performance made his reputation as the preeminent star of the horror genre, Villarías would spend most of his career as a supporting actor. These two key differences between Dracula and Drácula—the incongruent mix of accents and the lack of a real star in the lead role in the Spanish version—became the two most common criticisms applied to all of Hollywood’s Spanish-language films. Both criticisms have an observable basis in Drácula and in other version films, yet they fall short of explaining the extent and persistence of Hollywood Spanishlanguage production, its change over time, or the very real influence and popularity that many of the films had in Spanish-speaking countries and diasporic communities.

Stars and Spanish-Language Versions The commercial cinema had relied on the power of well-known stars to help sell films since the early 1910s. While the making of multiple-language version films solved the problem of comprehensibility for international audiences, it usually meant the use of lesser-known actors, given the linguistic requirements. Stars had such strong and unique personae that they gave the illusion of originality to even formulaic material. Actors in versions could not always carry a film in the same way.7 During the first stage of foreign-language version film production,

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studios tried to fill the lead roles by employing established bilingual, and even monolingual, stars in versions. They had more success with this strategy than film historians have allowed. Hollywood-made Spanish-language films with major silent (and early sound) film stars such as Ramón Novarro, Antonio Moreno, and Lupe Vélez proved attractive to audiences, as did films made in Spanish by English speakers such as comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and Buster Keaton. Studios also tried to capitalize on the fame of theater actors who had toured throughout Spain and Latin America. Ernesto Vilches, Catalina Bárcena, and Virginia Fábregas were the most well known at the time, but some younger actors who came from the theater or musical stage ultimately became much more famous as a result of their work in Hollywood’s Spanish productions. Actors who worked in the popular tradition in the regional Spanishlanguage theater circuit in the Southwest and Mexico also found their way into Hollywood Spanish productions. For instance, Romualdo Tirado had acted, directed, and written plays for theaters in Mexico and Los Angeles but moved into film roles in 1930 when the Depression was making it difficult for theaters to stay open.8 Tirado became one of the most frequently featured character actors of Hollywood Spanish films, appearing in thirty-two films between 1930 and 1939. Finally, studios looked to Spanish-speaking actors who had had minor roles in silent or early English-language sound films to fill out casts. Others got into Hollywood’s Spanish productions by way of talent or beauty contests or through personal connections. The most successful of these actors achieved a measure of stardom that in most cases did not gain them lead roles in major, English-language Hollywood roles. The use of this criterion as a measure of true “star” status obscures the stardom of these actors within the Spanish-speaking cinema, first in Hollywood productions and later in those of other national industries. The Hollywood star system could guarantee an actor a lucrative contract, but this usually meant making an exclusive deal with a studio for an extended period of time. This limited the star’s control over choice of projects and, ultimately, over his or her image. While the minor stardom that some gained from Spanish versions of the early 1930s certainly meant less money, security, and exposure for actors, they did have greater flexibility. Many took advantage of their fame with Spanishspeaking audiences by working in various Hispanic film industries from the mid-1930s on. It took time, however, for studios to develop actors into stars in Spanish versions. Thus, in the beginning, film producers had to improvise. During the chaotic period when demand for multiple-language versions first began, one independent producer found a unique solution: making monolingual, Englishspeaking stars speak their lines in foreign languages. The producer was Hal Roach, and his first language students were Laurel and Hardy. While this solution proved wildly successful, it was not easily applicable to other types of films.

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Hal Roach had produced comedic shorts since the mid-1910s. He worked with Harold Lloyd throughout the silent period and by the time sound came in had begun producing the films of Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Harry Langdon, and Charley Chase. Roach quickly latched onto the idea of multiple-language version films and understood the comic potential of his physical, slapstick-style comedians adding vocal humor by mangling other languages. Of these, the Laurel and Hardy versions in Spanish did exceptionally well. Neither Laurel nor Hardy knew a word of the language (nor of French, German, or Italian—other languages in which they also made versions). Roach employed language tutors for them, but given the demands of multiple-language filming, they often read their lines from off-stage cue cards.9 The Roach Studios had a distribution contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), to whom they supplied short films. This connection to a major studio gave Roach Studio films an important advantage in gaining access to a wellestablished international distribution network. MGM used these films to help solve its problem of supplying its international markets with linguistically comprehensible films at a time when most audiences disliked the available methods of dubbing and titling. Although most Laurel and Hardy films were shorts, the Roach Studio filled out the foreign versions with extra material to make them closer to feature-length films.10 In Spain, the huge box-office success of the first of these, Ladrones (Night Owls) convinced MGM to proceed with such pictures. The film was making more money than actual features. This success also led, according to Variety, to the decision to have Buster Keaton star in a Spanish version.11 Although Keaton’s two films in Spanish (Estrellados, a version of Free and Easy; and ¡De frente . . . marchen!, a version of Doughboys) did not succeed quite as wildly, all of the films made by Roach and MGM starring well-known comedians of the silent era traded on “the frank hokum of the travestied language.” In Spain, movie theaters routinely announced the version films from the period as “spoken in Spanish”—but the listing for Laurel and Hardy’s Noche de duendes (The Laurel and Hardy Murder Case) noted instead that it was “spoken in broken Spanish” (“chapurreada en español”).12 Rather than ignoring the awkward artificiality of using Spanish-speaking actors to re-create English-language films, these comedic shorts and features made their origins audible and a source of laughter by foregrounding their leads’ inability to speak Spanish correctly. When MGM decided, along with most of the other major studios, that it could not avoid making foreign-language features, it chose Hal Roach to direct its first version film. MGM undoubtedly hoped to profit from his experience in managing the chaos of shooting a film in multiple languages. Roach made the English original Men of the North at the same time as Spanish, French, Italian, and German versions. The female lead, Barbara Leonard, played the same part in all but the Spanish version, and several supporting cast members also repeated their parts. Gilbert Roland starred in both the English and Spanish

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FIGURE 7 Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in a scene from Politiquerías, the Spanish version of Chickens Come Home (MGM, 1931). The sign on their door reads, “Dealers in Manure and Fertilizer.” Laurel and Hardy Classic Shorts, DVD.

versions. Variety described Roach’s attempt to make five versions of Men of the North at once as an “experiment” that might make the production of versions more economical.13 This resulted, however, in more confusion than efficiency, and the production time for the various versions took more than three months.14 Ultimately, most versions were made with separate directors for each, and only a limited number were actually shot simultaneously with the original or other versions. Experimentation characterized the early years of sound film production. When studios sought to make versions only as a means of translation, they looked principally for ways to make the process efficient and to use techniques and professionals already at hand to the extent possible. Men of the North’s star, Gilbert Roland, born in Mexico to Spanish parents and originally named Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso, had started as an extra in the mid-1920s but by the end of the decade had risen to lead roles. He played opposite both Mary Astor and Norma Talmadge (with whom he would later have a notorious affair that led to her divorce from Joseph Schenk, chief executive of United Artists). During the transition to sound, he also made a series of films in which he starred with well-known actresses such as Clara Bow and Mae West. At the same time, he was offered lead roles in several of the more prestigious Spanish-language films of various companies.

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FIGURE 8 Gilbert Roland and Rosita Ballesteros in a scene from Monsieur le fox, the Spanish version of MGM’s Men of the North (1930). Roland starred in both the Spanish and English versions, while other actors played the lead in the French, Italian, and German versions. Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Given that Roland was bilingual and famous on several accounts (his films, his affair with Talmadge and other leading ladies, and, in the Hispanic world, as the son of a well-known bullfighter), he was an obvious choice. Like his compatriots Lupe Vélez and Ramón Novarro, both of whom made a few Spanish-language films, Roland offered both name recognition and linguistic competence. Perhaps because of his markedly European looks and Anglicized stage name, Roland was one of the very few Latino actors in Hollywood who regularly played Euro-American lead roles in English-language films. Yet by the mid-1930s his roles, too, began to drift toward secondary parts as a foreign or ethnically typecast character, much as had happened to Dolores del Río. Del Río, alone among major Mexican actors in Hollywood, successfully avoided working in Spanish-language films because she and her managers understood that they were B films and believed they would damage her career. Still, by the later 1930s, del Río, too, began to find her choice of roles restricted to secondary ethnic characters. She reinvented her career by going to work for the Mexican film industry. Roland, on the other hand, stayed on to have a long career in Hollywood films

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and later television. He did so by moving into Westerns and recaptured his place as a lead by taking on the Cisco Kid character for a number of years. From the 1940s on he regularly played Hispanic parts.15 Roland probably owed part of his ability to continue to work in Englishlanguage films to timing, as he had achieved stardom just as the transition to sound began. Other silent stars, such as Novarro or Antonio Moreno, had already had long runs at the top as sound came in, and their decline as stars owed to their age as well as to the foregrounding of ethnic identity following the transition to sound. While both had frequently been typecast as “Latin lovers” during the silent era, each had also played roles as Euro-American characters. Once sound came in and made both men’s non-native accents audible, they were consistently cast in English-language films as foreign or ethnic characters.16 Other photogenic young Spanish-speaking actors who had begun to appear in small roles during the late silent period (such as José Crespo, Juan Torena, Barry Norton, or Lupita Tovar) had less time to become established values before being recruited for regular work as leads in Spanish-language films. For the most part, these and other actors who played lead roles in Spanish-version films would only find work in English-language films in minor roles as exotic foreigners, if they chose to stay in Hollywood. This marginalization stemmed in part from the lack of publicity these actors received outside the target markets for Spanish films. Yet for a brief period from 1930 to 1931, the possibility that Hollywood studios might make Spanish-language production a permanent fixture of the industry seemed tantalizingly real.

Hollywood Feature Films in Spanish: 1930 American studios did not immediately (or, one could argue, ever) hit upon a single and consistently effective way to make multiple-language versions. Most of the major studios eased into foreign-language film production by making short musical films. Once market conditions—such as fears of losing screen time to local competition and punitive anti-English sound film legislation—pushed studio heads to commit to foreign-language features, they faced the vexing question of how to go about it. They had to find casts and writers, decide on production techniques, and choose the best production centers for different versions, all for a vast and varied audience of whose language and cultures most American film executives had little to no knowledge. Unlike French and German versions, for which the primary audience was European, Spanish versions had a large audience in the Americas, as well as in Europe. This, added to the presence of large communities of Spanish-speakers in Los Angeles and New York, led most studios to conclude that it made sense to produce Spanish-language films in the United States. Only Paramount made some of its Spanish versions in its European studios at Joinville, France.

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Some general characteristics unite the Spanish productions of the major studios in 1930 and 1931. Most made versions of English-language films rather than original productions, and these versions had streamlined production schedules and budgets that usually ran well under $100,000. Few studios offered actors or writers long-term contracts, opting instead for single-project contracts that granted the studio the option to renew. Thus quite a few actors and some writers ultimately worked for multiple studios. Paramount, Fox, Universal, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia, and Warner Brothers made a significant number of Spanish-language films. Only United Artists and R.K.O. decided not to make foreign-version films, opting instead for a combined strategy of dubbing, titling, and distribution deals with independent producers. Much as each studio had its own “house style,” some differences can also be discerned among their Spanish-language productions, from Paramount’s assembly-line methods to MGM’s higher-profile versions, to Universal’s use of the horror genre, to Fox’s emphasis on original productions. Nevertheless, all of these studios maintained a commitment to keeping costs down. The use of lesser-known actors was one of the most significant savings. Paramount made the largest and most visible commitment to the production of films in foreign languages. In 1930, the studio made films in up to ten different languages at its studios in Los Angeles, New York, London, and Joinville (France). Executives hoped to beat their American and foreign competitors and take the lead in all significant language markets.17 Their earliest feature film in Spanish, El cuerpo del delito (The Benson Murder Case, 1930), was made in New York. It starred Antonio Moreno, along with Ramón Pereda as detective Philo Vance and María Alba as the female lead. The biggest name in the cast belonged to Moreno, who had a long career as a star of the silent cinema. In the late 1920s, Moreno had costarred with actresses such as Marion Davies and Greta Garbo. Four studios chose Moreno to star in their initial productions in Spanish, hoping to capitalize on the power of his name to launch their new ventures.18 For El cuerpo del delito, Moreno received $6,000 for less than two weeks of work, a sum that far exceeded the $300 a week that his costars Pereda and Alba each made.19 Similarly, for El hombre malo (The Bad Man), shot not long after El cuerpo del delito, Moreno made $2,000 a week for four weeks, while the next-best-paid actor received $650 a week. Moreno earned the salary of a minor Hollywood star, while the others made what no-name contract players in English-language films were paid. Typically, in Spanish-version films, even the best-known lead actors made less than $1,500 a week, and usually about half that, with few exceptions (these included José Mojica, Gilbert Roland, Carlos Gardel, Catalina Bárcena, and Ernesto Vilches).20 Even Moreno, who by 1930 was in his forties, could not continue to command salaries as high as he had previously. Because of his age and, most likely, his transition from silent film star to Spanishlanguage film star, Moreno’s earning power sharply declined. By the mid-1930s, his weekly salary for Spanish-language films at Fox was well under $1,000.21

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The films that studios chose to remake as versions span a range of genres, but films that could mostly be shot in interiors on sets already used for the English originals had an advantage in terms of cost savings. In some version films, outdoor sequences were simply eliminated from the script, or footage was reused from the original film with only the close-ups of actors substituted. Studios also favored remaking “walk and talk” movies that relied on dialogue to carry the story rather than action because these fared very poorly among nonEnglish speaking audiences throughout the 1930s, even after titling and dubbing had become accepted methods of translation.22 Examples of films that rely heavily on dialogue and were made as Spanish versions include MGM’s El proceso de Mary Dugan (The Trial of Mary Dugan, 1931) and La mujer X (Madame X, 1931) and Fox Film’s Del mismo barro (Common Clay, 1930), all of which include long courtroom sequences. Mary Dugan had the added appeal of being a proven success among Spanish audiences as a stage play.23 Such considerations probably influenced Paramount’s choice of the detective film The Benson Murder Case for remaking as El cuerpo del delito. The plot starts with the murder of a Wall Street banker and includes a great deal of talking and questioning suspects. The story has no obvious attraction for a Spanishspeaking audience, although the novel (one of a series about detective Philo Vance) on which the film was based had been published in Spanish a year prior to its filming.24 Indeed, the story, which involves a Wall Street swindle and a cover-up murder, was set in such a markedly American situation that the script writers who adapted the Spanish version added a brief dialogue exchange not found in the original. In it, an American journalist explains Wall Street to a journalist from Spain by comparing the stock exchange to the national lottery in his counterpart’s country—an apt comparison for a film made not long after the great crash of late 1929.25 Paramount only made a Spanish version of The Benson Murder Case, but once the studio had its hugely ambitious plans for producing versions at its studios in Joinville, France, under way, Spanish was just one of the many languages in which versions were made. Paramount chose to set up a new production facility in France in part because French law required the company to spend some of its profits realized in France within the country. Furthermore, as other studios had also realized, producing foreign-language films in Europe meant a considerable savings on the importation of actors. Robert T. Kane, a film industry veteran, headed these studios.26 Kane began a hiring campaign of some of the most talented writers, directors, and actors from France and other European countries to work on short films, versions of Paramount hits, and also original productions. Making the most concentrated and visible effort by an American studio to engage in direct foreign-language production, Paramount’s studios in Joinville attracted negative attention from European critics, who decried the theft of local talent and the

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assembly-line methods of cultural production.27 (Indeed, MGM reportedly chose to make its own foreign versions in Hollywood precisely because it recognized that Europeans were more likely to be critical of films made at American studios’ French, German, and British facilities.)28 At the outset, in 1930, different language casts each took their shift in turn, around the clock, on sound stages where each cast could use the same sets and camera set-ups to work on its version of the same film. An inherited critical bias against Paramount’s Joinville films, exacerbated by the scarcity of films made there that are available for viewing, has contributed to a lack of academic attention to the history of the studio, which produced some three hundred films from 1930 to 1932. In contrast to the received view, quite a few of Joinville’s foreign-language films were originals or films made in a limited number of versions from original scripts rather than from previously made English-language films.29 Certainly, the first methods of making versions employed at Joinville (similar in intent to Hal Roach’s five simultaneous versions of Men of the North) were intended to save the studio money on the cost of making a film for a limited audience. In 1930, Geoffrey Shurlock, Paramount’s foreign production supervisor in Los Angeles, estimated that the rationalization of making versions, and especially the use of the same sets and script along with a shorter shooting schedule, amounted to a 33 percent savings on the original.30 Shurlock does not mention another significant source of savings—that from not having to pay a major star. Although information on production costs is scarce, extant budget sheets for Paramount films made in its Hollywood studios demonstrate this point, although they also reveal that in some cases Shurlock’s estimate of savings was, if anything, conservative. One Spanish version by Paramount, El príncipe gondolero, was a remake of a 1927 silent film, Honeymoon Hate. That film starred Florence Vidor in the role of Gail and had an original budget estimate of $134,000. Of that, Vidor received $25,000. Rosita Moreno, who played Gail in the Spanish version, received a total of $4,000 for the role, as part of the film’s total budget of $83,000.31 Given that the original was a silent and the version a more costly sound picture, the differences in total budget are even more significant. One major source of savings was the shorter shooting schedule for the Spanish version, made in twelve days, versus the original’s twenty-one-day schedule. Fewer days meant lower salary costs across the board. Other versions that remade English-language sound films show even greater differences. The Spanish El cuerpo del delito, shot in just ten days, came in at $81,000, while the original Benson Murder Case was budgeted at $275,000 and was shot in fifteen days. The biggest difference came in the amounts for actors. William Powell received a total of $23,550 for playing detective Philo Vance while, as mentioned above, the best-paid actor in the Spanish version made only $6,000. Similarly, for the 1930 The Sea God, total costs for all actors in the film amounted to just under $35,000 out of a $375,000 budget,

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while in the Spanish El díos del mar the total for all actors was under $6,000, from a miniscule $71,000 budget.32 These striking differences in costs and notably reduced production schedules clearly mark these early versions as B films. For such reasons, one historian comments on the early years of Spanish versions that many talented professionals who might have worked in early sound films in Spain were instead “underused and wasted in low-quality products” that actually encouraged viewers to reject Spanish versions in favor of dubbed or titled originals.33 This echoes commentary of the 1930s from Spanish film critics who accused Hollywood of stealing the best writers, directors, and actors that Spain had to offer.34 At Paramount’s studios in Joinville, much as at other American studios, the executives made no secret of their intentions.35 Their talent “raids,” as Variety described them, can be seen in the cast and crew of the first feature-length Spanish version made in Joinville: Un hombre de suerte (A lucky man, 1930; version of a French original film made by Paramount in Joinville, Un trou dans le mur). Its director, Benito Perojo, the dialogue adapter, Pedro Muñoz Seca, and stars, Roberto Rey and María Luz Callejo, all had gained fame in the theater or silent cinema in Spain. Perojo, after gaining experience working in film production companies in France, had made three of the biggest box-office successes of Spanish silent film in the late 1920s. Perojo also made a Spanish-language film for the German company UFA in 1930. The film’s star, Roberto Rey (born Roberto Colás Iglesias in Chile), had appeared in a single film in Spain in 1924 but had toured Spain, South America, England, and France in musical theater. María Luz Callejo, Rey’s costar, had made a name for herself in Spain’s silent cinema, in particular, as the female lead in the 1924 La casa de la Troya (The house of Troya), based on a famous Spanish novel.36 The actresses in supporting roles were also of note, particularly Rosario Pino, one of the major figures of the Spanish stage. Dialogue adapter Muñoz Seca, one of Spain’s leading playwrights of the 1910s and 1920s, had scripted Spain’s first feature-length sound film, La canción del día (Song of the day, 1930). He worked on two more films at Joinville before returning to his career in the theater. The casts and crew of other films made in Joinville by Paramount were no less illustrious, and many had backgrounds in the theater. In the United States, producers had also relied on stage actors from Broadway to make early sound films. The use of stage performers was a conservative tactic that critics regularly attacked, often advocating a unique performance style for film that did not impose the inherent limitations of the stage on the film form.37 Hollywood also had all the stars of the silent screen from which to draw, including some Spanish speakers, but the film industries in Latin America and Spain had practically no internationally known screen stars. Thus, when trying to hire professionals of name and ability from an unfamiliar cultural milieu, American film producers frequently turned to the stage, but with often unpredictable results,

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nowhere more so than in the case of the internationally famous theater star Ernesto Vilches. By 1930, Vilches had regularly appeared in Madrid’s most prestigious theaters and toured the Americas for twenty years. His impressive ability to create a dramatic range of characters through his performance and skilled use of makeup and costuming led studios to cast him in roles originally played by Lon Chaney. He signed a contract with Paramount Pictures early in 1930 when he was in New York between tours of Latin American theaters.38 Perhaps because of his impersonations, studio executives at Paramount first featured Vilches performing brief bits of some of his well-known roles in Galas de la Paramount, a Spanish “version” that added a few musical numbers and sketches in Spanish to the original Paramount on Parade (1930). Galas, like other review films of the early sound period, served as both an easy solution to the lack of suitable sound film materials for foreign audiences and a way to introduce actors and to judge their potential popularity. Vilches’s sequences reportedly went over well with audiences.39 Vilches made his following film, Cascarrabias (Grumpy, 1930), for Paramount under protest and moved to MGM immediately afterward. More publicly than any of the other actors or writers who worked in Hollywood Spanish versions, Vilches objected to the mode of filmmaking used by the studios, especially on version films. Accustomed to his star status and high degree of control over his performances and choice of projects, he was repulsed when he was required to use the same costume for one of his Paramount roles that the actor of the English version had worn—“even the wig!” He objected to the mix of national and regional accents used by his costars and adopted the tactic of interjecting an obscenity into every scene that he felt violated the “purity of our language.” He left Paramount when they refused to allow him to take over the artistic direction of his films. Vilches claimed to have been the highest-paid actor in Hollywood on Spanish versions, receiving from $8,000 to $18,000 a picture, by his account.40 He was able to secure such large sums because of his international fame and the competition between studios to sign him.41 This did not, however, entitle him to artistic control, at either Paramount or MGM. He had hoped to re-create one of his most noted stage performances as a Chinese character in Wu-Li-Chang (1930) in the Spanish version of the Lon Chaney film Mr. Wu but described the result as hopelessly theatrical. Vilches attributed his experiences to the cheap standardization of Hollywood films that precluded true artistry and to the analogous incomprehension of Anglo-Americans for Spanish sensibilities. “Those of us who have made a religion of art,” he concluded, “should reject [American cinema] almost in its entirety.”42 Not all of Vilches’s contemporaries agreed with his analysis of the problems he faced in Hollywood. Several who worked with him described him as difficult, arrogant, and overbearing. At the Los Angeles premier of Wu-Li-Chang, Vilches

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personally presented the film and in his opening remarks blamed the studio for its inadequacies: the audience, mostly journalists, hissed.43 Certainly his disdain for Latin American actors who played their parts with their native accents won him few friends. One contemporary, Spaniard Josep Carner Ribalta, who admired Vilches and recognized the limitations of Hollywood filmmaking, nevertheless concluded after working on a scene with him that Vilches simply did not understand the crucial differences between theater and film. After three films for MGM, Vilches made one more Spanish version in Hollywood for an independent producer, which he co-directed, but this film, El comediante (The actor, 1931), failed at the box office.44 While Vilches and Hollywood proved a poor mix, both Paramount and MGM’s eagerness to hire him (and at a relatively high salary) indicated not only a wish to cash in on fame but also a certain commitment to quality, especially at MGM. This studio’s films were known for their high production values and bevy of stars. MGM also spent somewhat more than other studios did on version films, with costs reportedly ranging from $80,000 to $125,000.45 When MGM began to make foreign-version features, the studio executives chose to remake high-profile projects such as two of their biggest hits of 1930–1931: The Big House and Min and Bill. MGM also made efforts to cultivate actors who “matched” English-language stars. Thus, one finds Vilches in Lon Chaney roles as both actors had enormous talent for disguising themselves.46 Spanish actor Juan de Landa played the part of Wallace Beery in three films: El presidio (The Big House, 1930); En cada puerto un amor (Way for a Sailor, 1930); and La fruta amarga (Min and Bill, 1931). MGM had found an unlikely star with Marie Dressler, who won an Oscar for her performance in Min and Bill. Dressler had a long stage career before becoming a major film star. For the Spanish version, La fruta amarga, MGM cast Virginia Fábregas, an eminent Mexican theater star who had her own traveling company. The studio chose Spaniard José Crespo as a leading man for a series of films; in two, Olimpia (His Glorious Night) and En cada puerto un amor, he reprised the roles played by John Gilbert, whom studio executives believed he resembled. Crespo and Gilbert had adjacent dressing rooms and became great friends.47 MGM did quite well with several of these films. The two courtroom dramas, La mujer X and El proceso de Mary Dugan, in which Crespo starred as a lawyer, were among its biggest successes in Spanish-speaking markets. While MGM was known for prestige films, Universal had made its reputation on a conservative strategy of turning out low-budget features and shorts. In the late 1920s, the studio had begun to move into competing for the first-run market with a few special features, but the onset of the Depression forced it back to its earlier specialty. Universal also began to rely on the regular production of genre films and specialized in horror movies. Part of the studio’s interest in this genre stemmed from having hired German film professionals who had experience working in the gothic horror genre as well as Expressionist styles of filmmaking.48 Paul Kohner,

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a Czech who had been educated in Austria and who had worked his way up the Universal hierarchy to become a production supervisor, frequently worked with some of the studio’s German imports. When sound came in, Kohner carved out a new position for himself by suggesting to studio head Carl Laemmle that they could keep their foreign markets with version films that could be shot at night on the same sets as the daytime English-language films. Universal had tested the waters much like the other studios by making a musical revue film in various foreign versions.49 The success of the Spanish version of Universal’s revue The King of Jazz, presented by Mexican actress Lupita Tovar, apparently convinced the studio to focus on that language. Universal’s first foreign-version feature was La voluntad del muerto (The Cat Creeps, 1930, a sound remake of German director Paul Leni’s 1927 mystery film The Cat and the Canary). Kohner was ambitious, hardworking, and talented. He used his opportunity on both La voluntad del muerto and his subsequent Spanish project, Drácula, to prove that he could outdo the crew of the English-language originals. Laemmle apparently found Kohner’s work on the first film so impressive that he had Kohner supervise the reshooting of some scenes in the English version. His work on Drácula was similarly remarkable, although the Spanish version lacked the outsized talent of Bela Lugosi in the lead role. Kohner had, however, made a star out of the young Lupita Tovar, who played leads in both films and later became his wife.50 Tovar was not Universal’s only female star for the Spanish market. Lupe Vélez was also recruited to do double duty, playing leads in both English and Spanish versions of two films, Oriente y occidente (East Is West, 1930) and Resurreción (Resurrection, 1931). Universal’s Spanish Department, headed by Kohner, also worked to produce inexpensive shorts that were part of the studio’s stock in trade. Emulating the successes of Hal Roach with his Anglophone comedians acting in Spanish, Universal made a successful and economical series of shorts featuring Slim Summerville in dual English and Spanish versions: these two-reelers in Spanish came in at $7,000 or less. They were popular enough that Universal combined two shorts and shot extra material to make a Summerville feature, El tenorio del Harem (Arabian Knights, 1931), in which Tovar costarred.51 Kohner had worked hard to prove that versions of what were B films to begin with could be made for little money and with good results. While studios executives could judge the output of their new foreign departments by watching films and keeping an eye on budgets, it took time to find out how these novel products would go over with audiences.

First Responses: Reviews, Letters, Editorials, Articles Film studio executives were primarily concerned with the films’ box-office take and, more generally, with the usefulness of such films for marketing studios’ other productions abroad. For their intended audiences, Hollywood’s Spanish-language

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productions made the power of the United States to mediate international popular culture even more apparent. The Spanish-version films often reinforced the impression that Hollywood saw Hispanics as inferiors, especially in light of the often stereotyped or simplistic ways in which Spanish-language films tried to appeal to audiences. Also, although journalists, critics, and fans expressed a certain pride in the fact that Hollywood had recognized the size and significance of the Hispanic world, some felt threatened by the possibility that Hollywood could take over Spanish-language film production. Similarly, the thought of producing films for all Spanish-speakers raised the issues of both national and pan-Hispanic identities. In fan letters, reviews, editorials, and articles about Hollywood’s Spanishlanguage films, one finds continuous attempts to define these films in relation to notions of identity by contrasting Hispanidad to Anglo-America. Some hoped to push Hollywood in the direction of making films more representative of and appealing to Hispanics, while others used criticism of such films to call for and define national cinemas or, in clear response to Hollywood’s initiative, a Spanish-language cinema made in Latin America or Spain. Although written commentary on the films could be quite negative, some independent writing (as distinct from obviously paid studio publicity pieces) did praise the films; and other indicators, such as reports of box-office profits or opening-night receptions, also indicated that some films found appreciative audiences. Producers made the Spanish versions and originals of 1930 in very quick succession, but it took some time for the films to arrive at commercial cinemas throughout the Spanish-speaking countries. Many countries had only just begun to wire their theaters, and even where theaters were wired, distribution still took time. Contracts had to be negotiated, and prints shipped. Thus, apart from local showings at theaters in Spanish-speaking areas of Los Angeles or New York, many of the films produced by early 1930 did not open commercially until the fall of that year.52 Studios paid close attention to advance notices about a film’s production and also solicited the opinions of numerous “experts” to try to gauge the eventual success of a film. Still, as has always been the case in the movie business, what really counted was how well the film did at the box office and how much positive publicity it attracted for its production company. Reliable profit information for films of the 1930s is limited and especially scarce for foreign-version films.53 The industry trade magazine Variety did run items on the successes and failures (in terms of audience) of various version films, as did Spanish-language film magazines. In a few cases, profit information from archival sources augments these reports. The United Artists Company (UAC), which boasted one of the strongest distribution networks in Latin America, asked its representatives there and in Spain to keep a close eye on the box-office performance of competitors’ films. These reports suggest that Spanish versions often not only held their own, but in some cases surpassed

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dubbed or titled English-language fare in local markets. Indeed, the UAC reports offer striking, though fragmentary, evidence of the popularity of Spanishversion films. In a report from 1938 on competitors, which listed MGM boxoffice grosses to date for Venezuela (the list of films had release dates from 1930 on), two of MGM’s Spanish versions topped the list. Mujer X grossed more than double every other film on the list, with the exception of Sevilla de mis amores (Call of the Flesh, 1930), which came in second. The top-grossing Englishlanguage film was the Lupe Vélez vehicle, Cuban Love Song. The Spanish versions Mary Dugan and Presidio came in fourth and sixth, respectively. All did better than the Greta Garbo films Mata Hari and Camille, despite the fact that studios recognized Garbo as one of the most consistently popular stars with foreign audiences. A United Artists’ report from Spain dated in 1935 on MGM confirmed the box-office success of the same four films; the report stated that these were “the maximum grosses that MGM ever made in Spain.” A similar United Artists (UA) report on competitors from Cuba in 1934 showed that grosses from two Warner Brothers’ versions, Los que danzan (Those Who Dance, 1930) and La llama sagrada (Sacred Flame, 1931), topped the list of Warner Brothers productions by a wide margin, with La dama atrevida (The Lady Who Dares, 1931) coming in sixth. Sources consistently mention a core group of films released in 1930 and 1931 as having done exceptionally well at the box office. In addition to the Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton Spanish films, these include Paramount’s El cuerpo del delito, Cascarrabias, and Su noche de bodas (Her Wedding Night, 1930); MGM’s El presidio, En cada puerto un amor, La mujer X, El proceso de Mary Dugan, and Sevilla de mis amores (Call of the Flesh); Fox’s El precio de un beso (One Mad Kiss, 1930) and Del mismo barro; and Columbia’s El código penal (The Criminal Code, 1931).54 The few extant Spanish-version films offer contradictory evidence as to the quality of their filmmaking. Some suffer by comparison to the English-language originals upon which they were based. For instance, of the above films reported to have done well at the box office, the Spanish version of Common Clay (Del mismo barro) copies the original scene for scene and line for line, but the performances are notably more wooden and the camera work and editing much sloppier. The Spanish-speaking lead, Mona Maris, speaks with a noticeably Argentine accent while surrounded by a cast of Spaniards. Yet the final courtroom scene where the defense attorney (Carlos Villarías) realizes that the young woman who is suing his client is actually his own daughter remains dramatically effective.55 Other extant version films, such as the Spanish Mary Dugan and Presidio, compare well with their original versions and are frankly entertaining.56 It is important to note that most audiences and critics of the time period (with the exception of those living in U.S. cities with theaters that featured Spanish-language films) never had a chance to make such comparisons. Studios generally distributed only the Spanish version in Spain and Latin America.

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FIGURE 9 José Crespo stealing the keys during a prison uprising in MGM’s

El presidio, the Spanish version of The Big House (1930). Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Carlos Borcosque (who had also worked on some Spanish-version films) wrote retrospectively that the 1929–1931 “production in Spanish has been modestly successful and the studios have made money.” He also pointed out that critics and popular audiences rarely coincided in their tastes, noting that some of the most criticized films were among the most successful.57 Yet studios and film critics wanted to judge the immediate success of the first wave of version films. This was complicated by the time it took to get the films distributed and by the slow rate of wiring in Latin American countries. Ultimately, Spanishlanguage version films tended to have a distribution life of close to three years. Even within major cities, Spanish versions often ran for months or years at neighborhood theaters. Drácula, for instance, after a month at a first-run theater in Madrid in March of 1931, made the rounds of second-run theaters for

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most of the rest of the year and reappeared occasionally in 1932, 1933, and 1935.58 Audiences outside of the first-run theaters of major cities tended to be more receptive to Hollywood’s Spanish versions. Thus, in late 1930 and early 1931, when producers began to receive reports of their films’ fortunes, only a few films had become major hits and many had received withering criticism in the Spanish-language press upon their first release. For instance, reviewers in Mexico confirmed that Paramount’s El cuerpo del delito was very popular, but opined that most of the cast mangled the Spanish language and overacted. Lead actor Antonio Moreno was singled out for his clearly English-inflected accent in Spanish, a result of having lived in the United States since adolescence.59 Apparently, reports such as these did filter back to Hollywood; but, as would so often be the case with Anglo-American producers, the true nature of the complaint did not come across. Variety concluded that Moreno had offended by speaking Castilian Spanish.60 Variety also attributed some of the problems with foreign versions to the lowly sound recorders on the set. “Mixers who don’t understand the language can’t know how dialog is recording. Their usual reaction to Spanish is to tell players to slow up their speech. Mixer [sic] cannot follow them, but a Spanish audience picks up the words easily.”61 Writers in the Spanish press did not hesitate to point a little higher when placing responsibility. One agreed that the actors’ voices in El cuerpo del delito were not well recorded, but suggested that this was the fault of the English-speaking director, who did not understand the actors, and, more importantly, the outcome of making films in Spanish with the exclusive goal of maintaining a hold on the market.62 One of the dialogue writers for El cuerpo del delito, writer Josep Carner Ribalta, published a piece in Cinelandia in 1931 that offered another perspective. He noted that the rhythm of films made in Hollywood corresponded to the rhythms of the English language (particularly its American expression), which were much quicker and pithier than a corresponding Spanish translation.63 Letters to the editor from film fans in Cinelandia sometimes concurred with harsh critical reviews but also reflected a higher degree of tolerance. One writer, although she cautioned that Hollywood’s efforts at making films set in Spanishspeaking countries would have to be much better done than in the past to succeed, stated simply that she had enjoyed El cuerpo del delito, as had others in Buenos Aires. A writer from Brazil preferred El cuerpo to other films he had seen in Spanish where the actors did not really speak the language—apparently a reference to the comedies of Laurel and Hardy and Keaton. From Chile, a letter writer mentioned that he found it odd that the dialogue of El cuerpo did not translate the English “mister” into the Spanish “señor” or “Don” and also noted Moreno’s “Yankee” accent, but he called these “details” that, once fixed, would result in wonderful films.64 Writers in the Spanish-language press were often impatient with the successes of some of Hollywood’s Spanish versions and the tolerance of popular

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audiences. One of the most severe critics attributed this to the “brutification of the masses,” although adding at a later date that the poor quality of national films made the popularity of some versions understandable.65 More moderate writers in Spanish-language film magazines used their editorials to call for higher-quality films. And one piece published in Spain pointed out as early as the fall of 1930 that it was unlikely that the world’s leading film industry would prove unable to refine its products if that was what maintaining its position required. “There are some who suppose that Spanish talkies made in Hollywood are only being not just well, but even enthusiastically received at the start, but will end up being rejected by the public. Once the public carefully analyzes them and discovers their faults—of diction, for the use of Hispanoamerican actors, for literariness, etc.—they will necessarily fail. This way of thinking demonstrates very little knowledge of the spirit, temperament and tenacity of the Yankees.”66 The studios did indeed take note of some of the problems, along with the successes, of their first Spanish-language films, although their responses indicated that some criticisms were well founded.

Refining Strategies Hollywood film studios during the 1920s and 1930s tended to be careful about setting films in particular countries precisely because they had received so many complaints from foreign governments about the inaccuracy or offensiveness of their representations. While they often used “foreign” or “exotic” settings, many Hollywood films avoided specifying a real country by using a made-up name.67 Techniques such as these were also applied to version films. Variety noted in late 1930 that a “Spanish version of a story laid in South America was changed to China. Another set in Madrid was moved to lower California.” Such adjustments were necessary given that “foreign audiences take everything in deadly earnest. Errors in minor details are enough to bring in crucifying editorials.” The article concluded that changing locales was preferable to trying to get all the details right, since errors were practically inevitable.68 Of course, to Spanish-speaking audiences, “minor details” often seemed like evidence of wholesale disregard for their countries, cultures, and customs—and with reason. Hollywood’s long history of stereotyping and incoherently mixing and matching bits of Latin American and Spanish culture had already sensitized these audiences to further missteps. With Spanish versions, studios had to work with Hispanic actors, writers, technical advisors, and sometimes directors. Often, neither studio executives nor personnel wanted much input from these new employees beyond how to translate the essentials of the movie into Spanish. This attitude stemmed from the conviction that they knew how to make movies that would sell in markets throughout the world, but such arrogance often irritated both those who worked on versions and their intended audiences. Furthermore,

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as continual complaints about the poor quality of the language (among other matters) used in Spanish-version films showed, the original assumption that making versions was simply a matter of literal translation proved false. By late 1930, some studios at least had begun to take note. The concerns of both audiences and film workers, along with industry awareness that movies set in specific foreign locations had to be handled with care, influenced the making of the Spanish version of the 1930 Call of the Flesh (MGM).69 Set in Seville, the film starred Ramón Novarro. MGM had announced early in 1930 that Novarro would star in a Spanish version of another film set in Spain, La casa de la Troya, based on the novel of the same name. This did not come to pass, although the English-language version, In Gay Madrid, caused the studio enough problems with Spain that it was perhaps more willing to make accommodations for Sevilla de mis amores (the Spanish title of Call of the Flesh). Novarro, still a major star in 1930, took over the direction of the Spanish version (as well as the French version, in which he also starred), rewrote the lyrics of the songs, and had his uncle rewrite the script.70 The result was one of the most successful of all the early Spanish-version films, although it may have been Novarro’s singing and dancing in the lead more than cultural accuracy or the story’s intrinsic interest that pleased audiences.71 When studios set about adapting foreign versions, they also quickly realized that this gave them an opening to evade the pressures of domestic censorship. While the forces that would ultimately result in adoption of an industry-wide mandatory code that regulated film content in 1934 were already weighing heavily on studios in 1930, the thought that foreign-language releases would not come to the attention of domestic pressure groups led them to put in more racy material. These “sexy versions” came about in part, one article claimed, because of the early Hal Roach versions. When he made what had been English-language shorts into foreign-language feature-length films for export, he did so by adding sequences that could not be shown in the United States. The Variety article crowed that producers were putting “raw stuff” into versions including “nudes and bedroom sets.”72 Another Variety article on the topic argued that this practice represented an advance: “American standards of censorship, inflicted upon the rest of the world in the old silent days, are now missing from American-made pictures reaching Europe in the native language versions. . . . [I]t is believed by many American producers the foreign versions are actually superior to the English language American original. Particularly where plots brush against Anglo-Saxon taboos and prejudices is the foreign version sure to follow the original story with greater fidelity. From a standpoint of honest, plausible and intelligent production this is a distinct advantage.”73 Audiences apparently agreed: some of Paramount’s Joinville films fared better with stories that reflected continental mores rather than American ones.74 This seems to have translated into accepted practice within the industry. When Universal made the Spanish version

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of the film The Boudoir Diplomat, the industry trade group advised the studio, “You can be more sophisticated in your foreign versions.”75 In 1931, when Paramount made Gente alegre (adapted from Pointed Heels, 1929), they took full advantage of this greater level of permissiveness. Changes to the script attempted to respond to what the film’s producers understood to be “Latin” tastes. The film’s stars, Roberto Rey and Rosita Moreno, had distinguished themselves in earlier light comedies for Paramount and both were talented singers. The working title for Gente alegre was simply “Spanish Musical,” which suggests that Paramount was well aware that musicals were attractive in Spanish-speaking markets. The story, in both original and version, belongs to the “backstage” genre. It features a showgirl as the main character and thus provides a logical plot motivation for musical numbers. The female lead is married to another performer but, during a period of marital troubles, considers having an affair with a wealthy cad (played by Ramón Pereda in the version). The script for the Spanish version went through many drafts. One of the earliest had a note explaining that the amount of dialogue had been reduced to better feature the musical scenes. This change was intended to take full advantage of Moreno’s talent as a dancer. The plot was also modified, particularly insofar as how the cad acts. Pereda’s character “is made a little more of a Don Juan, to suit the Latin taste in such matters.” This is shown in the Spanish version by changing a scene where the cad is about to seduce the very drunk Moreno character but is prevented from doing so by the appearance of another character. In the original, it is his conscience that stops him. Much as Lupita Tovar recalls that the Spanish version of Dracula used sexier costumes for the women than did the original (and a comparison of the two films amply confirms this), Moreno also appears to have been outfitted with an impressively low neckline.76 The film’s total cost, at over $127,000, in addition to the adaptations of the script, indicates the care which went into the film. The film also illustrates the ways in which the producers were willing to accommodate their audience. However stereotyped the assumptions that “Latins” were more sensual and musical than Anglo-Americans, the script notations on these changes suggest these are simply cultural differences. This is not so with the other major change noted by the script adapters: the addition of a new character “to take advantage of the grotesque comedy of a certain little Mexican comedian who is very popular hereabouts.”77 This was in reference to the role played in the film by Chevo Pirrín (better known by the stage name Don Catarino). This very short actor, who was indeed a popular figure from Mexican vaudeville (the troupes also traveled in the U.S. Southwest), would later be featured as a sidekick in several Cantinflas films. As studios began to revise their strategies for making Spanish versions, critics in the Spanish-language press took note. MGM gave Chilean journalist Carlos Borcosque the chance to direct (including the hit La mujer X); Fox employed

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Peruvian Richard Harlan; and several other noted directors, including Luis Buñuel, who drew a salary for a while but never actually worked on any film except in a brief scene as an extra in the 1930 La fruta amarga, were at least put on contract. Some welcomed such news as a hopeful sign that the films would be better adapted to Hispanic tastes.78 Others found it a cynical half measure that would not resolve the real problem: the films continued to be about “Yankee themes, made by and for Yankee mentalities and in agreement with Yankee prejudices, customs and antecedents.”79 While evidence suggests that some of those who were supposedly employed to ensure that films were appropriately “Hispanic” were either not capable or not given the means to do so, conditions within studio foreign departments varied. Ultimately, two of the most successful Spanish films of 1931 were Su noche de bodas and Las luces de Buenos Aires (Lights of Buenos Aires). These two films starred, respectively, Imperio Argentina and Carlos Gardel. Both were already famous (Gardel as a tango singer and Argentina as a performer on the musical stage in addition to a few roles in the Spanish silent cinema) before they were offered contracts by Paramount, but these films launched their careers as international film stars. Later in the decade each would star in some of the highest-grossing films of the 1930s in the Spanish market. A good part of the success of the Spanish-version Su noche de bodas came from the intervention of Florián Rey, who was credited as the film’s dialogue director. This was a lowly title for a director who had made several important silent films in Spain during the late 1920s. Rey had already worked with Argentina, and soon after their time in Joinville they married. Rey adapted the dialogue for Su noche and added musical numbers the original did not have in order to feature Argentina’s tremendous talent. The Gardel film made at Joinville was based on a screenplay written by Gardel’s lyricist, Alfredo Le Pera, and two other Argentines who would later become important film directors in Argentina, Manuel Romero and Luis Bayón Herrera.80 Some Spanish-version films of 1930–1931 proved that Hollywood could make popular films that elevated their leads to stardom. Carlos Gardel, Imperio Argentina, José Crespo, Lupita Tovar, and others emerged as popular film stars in Spanish-speaking countries. Still, Hollywood studios’ insistence on remaking versions of English-language originals and on maximizing available resources and minimizing their expenditures for actors and other professionals in order to retain economies of scale made it apparent to critics that Hollywood Spanishlanguage films were second-class productions. By 1931, such tensions between version films’ streamlined mode of production and their presentation as first-class features in their intended markets made it increasingly apparent that making appealing Spanish-language films involved more than literal translation. Cinelandia’s Galo Pando predicted correctly that Spanish versions made on the cheap would eventually show Hollywood the real value of the Spanish-speaking market. While audiences

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received some version films, even very low-budget productions, quite well, overall they were not profitable enough to justify their large-scale production once studios began to suffer the effects of the economic depression. Furthermore, some in Hollywood slowly began to perceive that in the Spanish-speaking world these films had become fodder for ongoing debates about cultural identities, particularly in the context of postcolonial relations between Spain and Latin American nations as well as inter-American relations, both North and South. The sharpest conflict became the great debate of the early Spanish versions: the war of the accents.

3 bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

Language Controversies, 1930–1931

In the 1930s, when market research was still incipient, studios had to rely on limited and often highly partisan sources of information about the likes, dislikes, needs, and desires of the audiences for whom they were making films. Early in 1930, studios faced a pressing problem: the question of the appropriate modality of the Spanish language to use in films intended for export throughout the Spanish-speaking world. This conflict became known as “the war of the accents.” From the American film industry’s point of view, language usage was primarily a question of marketing; for the intended audiences, it was fundamental to how they understood the world. For those most directly involved in making version films, getting it right affected their livelihood. In 1932, the influential Spanish film critic Juan Piqueras described how these conflicts over accent and idiom had created headaches for Hollywood during the boom years of Spanish-version production: “[The] makers of versions, in reality, did not know upon whom to rely. When a Spaniard speaks pure Castilian, he’ll say that our market is the most important and will treat the Republics of Spanish America with a certain disdain. A Chilean will object that films in Spanish, without the theaters of Chile, will not amortize their costs. . . . And a Mexican, Cuban or South American filmmaker will not justify the making of films in our language without including people from their Republics.” Piqueras dismissed these conflicts as little more than self-interest. “Their opinions [are not] based on anything authentic or concrete. . . . [T]hey do it thinking only about the next job that they might get from saying it.”1 Piqueras seriously undervalues the significant cultural debate that Hollywood’s Spanish-language films provoked, but his observations remind us that contention over accents and language usage took place primarily in the press and between film professionals who were competing for influence within the industry. Although early trade press reports note that audiences new to sound films were often taken 60

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aback by the sound of unfamiliar accents and idioms in Spanish-language films, many versions with multinational casts ultimately fared well at the box office— particularly as the quality of the films improved. As we have seen, it took time for these longer-term successes to become apparent. Thus, the debate over language and concomitant cultural issues that flared from the very beginning of Spanish-language film production would have significant effects on Hollywood practice. Industry executives had a hard time distinguishing between opportunism and real cultural concerns, often to the detriment of achieving their goals in foreign markets. Spanish-version films frequently provoked sharp reactions in the press from critics who mistrusted Hollywood’s foray into Spanish-language cinema. After cementing its place as the dominant power in the global film industry in the late 1910s, Hollywood had developed mechanisms for dealing with complaints about its representations of foreign peoples and cultures.2 Sound meant new complications. Language became a battleground for contesting Hollywood portrayals of Latin Americans, Spaniards, and Latinos because native speakers could employ claims of expert knowledge to insist on appropriate and respectful usage. Furthermore, because regional dialects of Spanish were closely linked to particular nations, advocating for or against a national variant became a way to champion national culture and to insist on the employment of national actors. This struggle over language sometimes divided Spanish-speaking film professionals competing for a place in the seemingly lucrative new field of foreign-language films made in Hollywood.3 Film studios and trade organizations responded by attempting to standardize language practices for films in Spanish as they had in response to other cultural controversies. These attempts demonstrated the limits of industry practice for responding to demands of cultural authenticity. A study of a committee on foreign-language film production organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences shows how the strategies developed to resolve the language “problem” in foreign versions largely failed because of deeply held prejudices and assumptions about the “excessive” sensitivity of Hispanics toward film representations of their cultures. Similarly, the case of Warner Brothers’ first Spanish-language film, El hombre malo (The Bad Man, 1930), amply illustrates just how poorly producers understood the market to which they hoped to appeal. Those involved had simplistic ideas of how to avoid offending cultural sensitivities and, furthermore, believed that they knew better than any self-appointed cultural insider what audiences really found entertaining. During the making of the film, the studio repeatedly discounted criticisms and complaints about the film’s setting, characters, and language usage from Hispanics on the grounds that these individuals were overly “sensitive” about Hollywood’s portrayals of their countries and cultures. Such dismissive attitudes enabled the making of representations that Hispanics often found insulting. Yet it also shows that these critics had indeed become “sensitive”

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readers of Hollywood films who understood the evasive tactics film studios had adopted to avoid obvious causes of offense and yet retain story lines, characters, and settings from a highly developed repertoire of films with Hispanic themes.

Sound and Noticeable Accents American film studios had first faced the question of appropriate speech in early sound films made in English, and some assumptions about Spanish versions grew out of these earlier experiences. English was the largest and most profitable of Hollywood’s language-defined export markets and, of course, the majority language of the United States and the industry itself. Sound initially made audiences hyperaware of the qualities of actors’ voices and the kinds of words and phrasings used in films. At the beginning of the transition to sound in the United States, many critics and film producers advocated using English as spoken on the New York stage, which, in turn, was modeled on the language of London’s theaters. This raised fears, however, that most film actors did not have adequate training to speak in such a refined manner. As a result, studios began hiring elocution teachers and dialogue coaches to work with actors. By 1930, as dialogue became an increasingly accepted part of feature film narrative, critics began to advocate a “natural” style of performance in which qualities of voice should be subordinated to “believable” characterizations. Although the earlier emphasis on training and modulating the voice was retained, awareness of appropriate language usage for specific characters became as important as choosing, for example, background music or sound effects to create aural coherence.4 This meant, in practice, that many sound films featured American actors in American settings who used American accents and vocabulary. Non-American actors, particularly those with marked accents (whether from other areas of the English-speaking world or non-native speakers), often played roles as foreigners or immigrants in which their accents were justified by the character’s identity. Accent usage for stories set in locales where characters would not naturally speak English was a dilemma. Filmmakers chose to follow the stage convention that mandated that characters who would presumably speak in a foreign language speak instead in English. Reviewers often complained that the voices used by characters in supposedly foreign settings undermined the picture’s “realism.”5 The contradiction has no solution if the criteria of realism is applied, but is rather a question of audiences becoming accustomed to such conventions. Producers frequently chose to have characters speak in some form of “standard” (i.e., native-born) English, but some elected to have actors use a foreign-accented English either by casting actors with that accent or by having them learn to speak in the desired manner. Critics also found this unnatural, as one sees in a review of the 1935 film Under the Pampas Moon. The reviewer

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complained that most of the cast used a Spanish accent even though “they are supposedly speaking Spanish,” and thus “it would be reasonable to assume they are speaking without accent.”6 While this review reasserts the constructed nature of dramatic realism, it rests on another fallacy that pervaded discussions of language usage in films: the assumption that accent-free speech existed. Claims for the “neutrality” of a particular accent usually coincide with the power of a particular group to assert its cultural dominance.7 The turn toward “natural” or “realistic” uses of English provoked tension over just such issues when Hollywood began exporting sound films to the British market. While many groups in foreign countries complained that Englishlanguage sound films threatened their cultures’ linguistic integrity, members of the British elite feared the invasion of the American accent.8 The possibility that British youth might lose their own native accent through imitating what they heard in the movie theaters seemed to suggest that where language went so might national values. British working-class audiences strongly rejected British films that used the conventional language of the British stage (a distinctly upper-class English) and tended to prefer the apparently class-free language of American movies. Sound “brought accents into play as unavoidable signifiers of social class” in all European cinemas.9 Spoken language also made other kinds of social hierarchies audible as well.10 Another set of conventions that developed early in the history of sound films also came out of precedents from the stage and from silent film intertitles: the use of foreign accents as a source of comedy. The press book of the Englishlanguage film The Bad Man (1930) makes a point of its protagonist’s linguistic inability in print ads. A line drawing of a man with a large mustache who wears a sombrero is accompanied by the caption, “If Pancho Lopez want woman, he take her dam queek.” Underneath, the tag line claims, “He’s the perfect lover with a broken accent to mend broken hearts.”11 Not only were actors of Latino origin often expected to speak in this manner (Leo Carrillo and Lupe Vélez made careers out of their comedic styles of broken English), so too were Anglophone actors playing Latinos. Some critics took actors to task if they faltered in their use of a pseudo-accent, which was typically employed as a comic device. Indeed, actors whose native language was Spanish were sometimes criticized for being incomprehensible because of their accents, while Anglophone actors using a mock-Spanish accent were praised for their clarity.12 Examples of such stereotyping are legion and include many cycles of Westerns, films set on the U.S.-Mexico border, and Latin-themed musicals.13 The use of broken English demeaned Latin American, Spanish, and Latino characters in Hollywood films and established hierarchical relationships between characters of different ethnicities. Contemporary observers also objected to the fact that all Hispanic characters in English-language films tended to speak in the same way, much as Hollywood films had long mixed and

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matched different national costumes with little regard for authenticity. Already in early 1930, the Chilean consul made an official complaint to Will Hays, head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association, about the frequency of the villainous character who was “so often . . . a South American or one who speaks broken English with a Spanish accent.”14 In films made in Spanish, one might have expected this problem to disappear. However, in the Hispanic world, questions of pronunciation and idiom were strongly perceived to have hierarchical connotations between countries, particularly as to whether Castilian Spanish should be used as a standard of correctness. Studios quickly learned that accent and regional variation mattered in the nascent Spanish-language market. An Argentine audience “booed the accent of the actors” in one of Universal’s early attempts at dubbing. The experience with this film actually helped push the studio into making Spanish-version films in the hope that remade films with native-speaker casts would prove more acceptable than poorly dubbed Spanish.15 The English-language trade press kept a close eye on film reception in different countries. Articles included information and advice from local commentators on the diversity of language usage among Spanish-speaking nations. In late 1929, one writer warned, “[If] the coast producers are thinking of making Spanish talkers, they must be aware of certain pitfalls with the language as applied to Argentina.” The author noted the most notorious example of different meanings of a verb (coger) that means “to take” in some countries and “something quite different” in others.16 Another author summarized the situation simply: “Producers . . . are stumped with the problem of striking a general accent which will meet with the approval of the average theatre-goer in Spain, Mexico, Central and South American countries. Actors having Castilian accent are satisfying just a small portion of the Spanish speaking countries. . . . All speak Spanish understandable to each other, but Hollywood is worrying about how to get away from the Castilian accent monopoly.”17 While some studios actually seemed more interested in finding ways to make the standardization of Castilian acceptable to Latin American audiences, this was a basic sticking point for many reviewers of Hollywood’s Spanishlanguage films. A Variety writer reporting from Madrid summed up the local attitude by stating that “the doggerel Spanish of Latin American artists is difficult to understand here.”18 Universal Studios quickly became frustrated by its inability to solve the problems of the myriad accents and regionalisms of the Spanish language and considered ceasing Spanish-language production once it discovered that “the Mexicans in Tia Juana have less use for Castillian fluency than bona fide Southerners have for the average Yank drawl.”19 Even within Latin America, films featuring Mexican actors led reviewers elsewhere to remark on how laughable to local audiences films spoken in “pure Mexican” were.20 Although the suitability of one dialect over another caused complaint, another problem common to early Spanish films was the mixture within a single

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film of actors from various countries speaking lines in a mix of accents. Early in 1930, Cinelandia satirized this tendency in a facetious letter to the editor. The letter writer gave an account of a supposed visit to a cinema where he saw a film called Sombras Charlatanas (Charlatan shadows), a clear reference to the titles of two of the first feature-length films made in Spanish: Sombras habaneras (Havana Shadows, 1929) and Sombras de gloria (Blaze O’ Glory, 1930). Much of the letter recounts spectators’ difficulties in understanding what the actors are saying. The audience purportedly held whispered debates about the meanings and national origins of different phrases and the actors who spoke them. These debates quickly became louder and then violent, as the multinational theater crowd began to take offense at certain comments. Finally, fights broke out between Colombians, Cubans, Spaniards, Guatemalans, and Argentines, each defending the honor of their country’s language. The author mocked not only the film’s language, but also its mixing of different genres and national costumes. He cannot make out if the film is a “Cuban comedy . . . a two-hankie Spanish drama . . . or a revue from the so-called ‘popular stage.’” Similarly, the lead actress wore a Spanish mantilla as well as the dress of a china poblana (the typical costume of the state of Jalisco, Mexico), while the male lead, who brandished a sword “from the time of the Crusades,” wore the outfit of a picador.21 As this early response to these first features suggests, appealing to the diversity of the Spanish-language market would prove difficult. Such criticism also responded to the U.S. American cinema’s long history of offending Hispanic cultural sensibilities and to the new phenomenon of Hollywood Spanish-language filmmaking. Many individuals came forth to offer advice on how to improve these films. Although studios involved in making Spanish-language films badly needed assistance on matters of language and culture, the advice offered was rarely disinterested. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the industry attempted to filter it through protective associations already developed to deal with destabilizing events or outside attempts to influence industry practices.

The Academy Committee on Foreign Production: Linguistic Policy In the initial rush to capture foreign markets by being the first company to deliver sound films in local languages, each studio developed its plans for foreign productions individually and competed with each other, with foreign film companies and with independent producers. Hollywood studios had the advantage of having formed trade organizations during the silent period that later helped them coordinate their efforts during the transition to sound. Numerous producer, distributor, and government trade organizations existed or were created to serve these purposes for the film industry. Sound, and the industrial

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disorganization it provoked, led some to look to such organizations to promote industry-wide solutions. The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) wielded the most power in shaping industry policy and lobbying for its members. Since its formation in 1922, it had mediated between the industry and foreign governments in trade and censorship matters. By the late 1920s, the MPPDA had begun to formalize methods of ensuring studios’ compliance with its policies. This would culminate with the establishment of the Production Code in 1930 that codified a set of standards to which member studios were supposed to conform. After 1934, compliance became mandatory and the Production Code Administration enforced the Code by granting certificates of approval and imposing heavy fines on studios that distributed films without a Code certificate. Although most often thought of as a set of moralisms aimed at sex and crime, the Code also regulated portrayals of professions, religions, ethnicities, and national customs. The American film industry depended on profits from its foreign markets and could not risk making films that would offend foreign audiences or, more importantly, foreign governments. Thus, studios frequently checked with the MPPDA’s Studio Relations Committee (and later with its Production Code Administration) prior to pursuing a project.22 Those in charge of overseeing compliance with the Code often took as much care with vetting scripts for foreign version films as they did for Englishlanguage originals. The industry had long encountered difficulties with foreign governments due to its frequent use of stereotyped and disparaging depictions of other countries’ people, history, and customs. The threat of film bans had led the MPPDA to adopt a policy of consulting with diplomatic representatives on potentially problematic scripts.23 By the late 1920s, Jason Joy, head of the MPPDA’s Studio Relations Committee (SRC), had begun to look for specific individuals who could essentially “pre-approve” scripts for studios so that they would not run the risk of having either individual films, or worse, all American films banned in countries offended by their content. The most successful of these cultural intermediaries was Baron Valentin Mandelstamm, who represented the lucrative and diplomatically sensitive French market. His influence on the French government was such that he was able to insinuate himself into the script development process on several films of the early 1930s, despite studios’ resistance.24 With the coming of sound and foreign versions intended primarily for export, the pressure on studios to make culturally acceptable films grew. Mandelstamm had his equivalents for the Spanish-language markets. Carlos Borcosque, a Chilean vice-consul in the late 1920s, was chosen by the SRC as a consultant for South American matters.25 Others hoped to gain such official recognition. Spaniard Francisco de la Riva, the Marqués de Villa de Alcázar,

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had more success than most. In 1929, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) began production on In Gay Madrid (1930), Jason Joy from the SRC suggested to Paul Bern (an MGM executive) that he consult with de la Riva in addition to direct consultations already under way with the Spanish Embassy. Joy told Bern that de la Riva was “not only the dean of the Spanish colony here socially but also . . . an intimate friend of the Ambassador at Washington and [he] keeps up a personal contact with the people of affairs in Spain.”26 Joy later arranged a special screening of the film for de la Riva and the Spanish vice-consul prior to giving MGM the go-ahead.27 De la Riva clearly had credibility as a cultural authority in the eyes of some members of the industry who had to deal with foreign distribution problems. In January of 1930, he had a lunch meeting with Paul Kohner, head of Universal Studio’s Foreign Production Department, and Lester Cowan, the assistant secretary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. De la Riva sought an opportunity to set up a business that would offer consulting services on Spanish-version films.28 Although nothing seems to have come of de la Riva’s hope to establish his position as an arbiter of linguistic and cultural matters for Spanish versions, Kohner took the initiative to suggest setting up a committee on foreign production under the auspices of the Academy, where studios could work together to find solutions for problems posed by foreign-language version films. Cowan sent letters to all the heads of Foreign Production Departments to invite their attendance at an organizational meeting. In it, he wrote that the problem of foreign languages was one of the most serious that the industry faced and suggested that studios could benefit from collaborating on solutions.29 A subsequent letter to heads of major studios to let them know about the committee reinforces the suggestion that the studios sought to employ the strategy of voluntary association that had long served the industry well in response to difficulty from outside pressure groups. Cowan emphasized that the industry needed some common policies for its foreign-language production because missteps by one studio could negatively affect all of the American film industry.30 The committee planned to do this by writing and circulating informational bulletins among the studios about the foreign situation. The committee would also work to collect information on applicants who sought work on foreign-language films in terms of their linguistic and professional expertise. Finally, it hoped to draft a policy specifically about Spanish-language production.31 The first press release the Academy sent out on the creation of the Foreign Production Committee (FPC) stated that the languages covered included Spanish, French, German, Czech, Polish, Hungarian, and Italian.32 In practice, Spanish-language issues took up most of the committee’s time. The committee only met as part of the Academy a few times in early 1930, until its members

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decided that the committee’s activities should more appropriately be coordinated by the Association of Motion Picture Producers, which had been represented at the meetings by John Wilson.33 During this brief period, the committee took two specific actions beyond general discussions of foreign-language production. It made a decision about the use of Spanish in films and organized two registration sessions for Spanish-speaking actors. Both represented the committee’s efforts to take control of the often chaotic jockeying for position and influence by various would-be film stars, directors, writers, or technical consultants for the newly created Hollywood Spanish-language cinema. Spanish was spoken in Europe and throughout the Americas, as well as by the large Latino community in Los Angeles. These factors meant that the potential pool of talent was large, varied, and possibly already present in the vicinity of the Hollywood studios. The use of local talent saved studios transportation expenses and the need to give long-term contracts of at least six months that would make it worth it for someone to travel from Europe or Latin America to the United States. Yet the mere ability to speak Spanish did not guarantee talent any more than it did to speak in another language. Carelessness in casting, dialogue direction, and choice of material had led to some films reportedly being laughed or booed off the screen. One of the major Spanishlanguage film magazines, Cinelandia (published in Hollywood and distributed throughout the Spanish-speaking world), made much of the lack of “quality” actors, writers, and technical advisers being employed for the first Spanishlanguage films. The magazine’s columnists sometimes mocked the legions of Hollywood hopefuls and hangers-on who hoped to take part in the Spanish-version bonanza, calling them the “flag bearers of the farce of movieland,” who mistakenly believed themselves “the representatives of Hispanic culture in Hollywood.” At the same time, an author accused those Hispanics who had gained important positions in the industry of failing to improve representations of Hispanic culture in films. This, however, he attributed to a logical reaction to the denigration of Hispanics common in Hollywood.34 The magazine’s editor likened the desperation of Hispanics to profit from the making of films in Spanish to the California Gold Rush of 1849. Haste and greed resulted, in his opinion, in poor quality films that did the cause of Spanish-language filmmaking little good.35 Hollywood studios also became frustrated by the poor reception of early efforts. To judge from the actions of the FPC, those involved in Spanish-language production found their lack of familiarity with the language and the large numbers of actors soliciting work to be serious impediments. One common solution was to rely on actors with stage experience.36 Although studios had already learned in the first several years of sound film that stage actors did not necessarily make good screen actors, the constant criticisms of acting and linguistic abilities of the casts in Spanish-language films, and the inability of non-Spanish

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speaking production managers to accurately judge performances, pushed some studios into advocating this solution as well. Thus, one of the first measures carried out by the Committee on Foreign Production was to arrange for “Spanishspeaking actors who have had experience on the Spanish-speaking stage . . . to register at a special bureau of the Association of Motion Picture Producers which will be in session every Saturday afternoon, starting next Saturday, February 15th.” Those who had already worked on films would be invited to register, while others who had only stage experience could request an appointment to do so. This press release went on to explain that the “object of this enterprise is to preserve the cultural integrity of all Spanish-language countries in Spanishspoken pictures made in Hollywood.”37 The committee seems to have hoped that relying on stage actors and stage practices would solve the problems of accents and performance quality. Although sound films in Spanish may have been new, troupes of Spanish-speaking actors frequently toured South America and Spain and put on plays set in nations other than their own. Thus, conventions of linguistic “realism” presumably already existed for the Spanish stage as they did for the English-speaking stage. The committee felt it necessary to make such public statements of policy in part because it also faced organized opposition to its initial efforts from interest groups such as the Spanish American Cultural Association and the Friends of Latin America. Both of these protested what they saw as the preference given to Spaniards and to Castilian Spanish in Hollywood’s Spanish films. Although members of the FPC had a poor understanding of cultural debates over the unity of the Spanish language, they knew that this kind of negative publicity could hurt the reception of their studios’ films, especially if Latin American governments took serious interest in the matter. Thus, as the committee’s meeting minutes make clear, the immediate threat of several calls from the Spanish American Cultural Association in regards to the use of Castilian Spanish in films led the FPC to issue a press release stating that industry policy would be “to use in Spanish-talking pictures the Spanish of the stage, following the best practices of the Spanish-speaking theatre in all the countries of the world. . . . Also it is understood that if the locale is definitely confined to one particular country the inflection and diction peculiar to that country will be used. In other words, a character definitely portrayed in a story as one from the Argentine or from Mexico will speak with the inflection of that country, just as in an English talking picture, an Irish character will talk with an Irish inflection when required. Close attention, too, will be paid to technical details such as costumes, customs, atmosphere and locale.”38 Such a policy followed the actual practice in American-made, English-language cinema, to which the press release makes reference. These two statements of policy—that the industry should use actors from and linguistic conventions of the Spanish-speaking stage—pleased the head of

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the Cultural Association but did not dissuade the Friends of Latin America from starting up a press campaign.39 This is hardly surprising given that using the “Spanish of the stage” was a thinly veiled subterfuge for stating that Castilian would, in fact, be used as the standard language for films not set in a definite Spanish-speaking country (and only a small number of Hollywood’s Spanishlanguage films ever were). This, in turn, reflected the committee’s conclusion that most studios were already using Castilian Spanish. A member of the FPC suggested stating the policy by referring to stage usage because it would reduce the potential for a hostile response. The committee realized how sensitive this issue was—this discussion appears only in the original transcript of the meeting’s events, but not in the official minutes.40 The Friends of Latin America consisted mainly of professors and members of the Latin American diplomatic corps present in Los Angeles, but also included cultural figures from within Latin America, the most noted of whom was the Mexican intellectual and politician José Vasconcelos. In a letter of March 1930 sent directly to studios, the authors voiced their dissatisfaction with the alleged practice of favoring Castilian over Latin American Spanish and suggested that this stemmed from condescending and negative attitudes toward Latin America.41 The letter continued with a history of the linguistic differences between Spain and its former colonies and stated that Latin American Spanish was in no way inferior to the peninsular variety. A postscript to the letter noted that they were also sending copies to newspapers and governments throughout Spanish-speaking America. They took their campaign to English-language newspapers such as the New York Times, which printed a more vehement denunciation from the group of a conspiracy by Spaniards “to assume the intellectual management and the moral tutelage of the Hispano American countries” through the medium of Hollywood’s Spanish-language cinema.42 Nevertheless, the Friends’ letter did not suggest a definite solution to the question of which modality of Spanish should be used in films. The concluding paragraph stated only that the language used should be “clear and correct . . . in accordance with the models and rules that we all adhere to, whether Castillians [sic] or Spanish-Americans.”43 This kind of appeal to “correctness” also appeared in Spanish-language film magazines that criticized the use of noticeably regional idioms.44 The New York Times article about the Friends’ linguistic campaign mentioned that the group approved of the plan to use Spanish appropriate to the locale of the action and noted that this was done on the Spanish stage, without mentioning the appropriate language for films not set in Spanishspeaking countries.45 All of these ideas tended to suggest that a neutral language could be found that did not obviously mark the speaker or the words spoken as belonging to a particular country. Members of the Academy’s FPC understood the conflict over language more as a contest over influence than as a matter of national identity or cultural

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authority. Undoubtedly, their experiences in an industry known for being both glamorous and cut-throat had accustomed them to fending off schemers and dealing with pressures from interest groups that hoped to affect industry practices. When FPC members first discussed the phone calls from the Spanish American Cultural Association, they agreed that, although they could not ignore the threat, the foreign consuls in the group had probably been put up to it by individuals who had not gotten jobs on Spanish-language films.46 Their public response was to issue the above-described statement of industry policy on the use of Spanish in films. At a later meeting, the FPC decided to use the political connections of the MPPDA to make these interest groups back off. The FPC proposed that John Wilson of the Association of Motion Picture Producers get in touch with Will Hays, the president of the MPPDA, so that he could go to the relevant ambassadors and inform them that local consuls in Los Angeles were abusing their political positions in an attempt to get outside work as advisors for film studios.47 Wilson did not doubt that the language issue was a red herring. He wrote to Cowan (of the Academy) during the summer of 1930 in reference to a proposed business that promised to train actors for work in Spanish-language films that it seemed to him to have purely commercial motives and would do little to solve studios’ problems with critics. He concluded that the controversy was more about employment prospects than about language.48 At this point, the FPC decided to stop meeting as a committee and hand the matter over to the Association of Motion Picture Producers and to Hays to deal with through other channels. As the FPC had learned, official statements of linguistic policy only fed fuel to the fire. Wilson and the FPC as a whole oversimplified the matter when they concluded that the struggle over language had to do primarily with economic advantage for interested individuals. Studios would continue to have problems over dialects of Spanish not just in regards to films made in Spanish, but also when they tried dubbing them in Hollywood for the entire Spanish-speaking market. After all, films made in Spanish-speaking countries also sometimes provoked argument over the appropriateness of using markedly regional language.49 The committee believed itself justified because it had sought out and listened to individuals who could offer informed opinions. However, it did not take into account that these were also interested parties who had every reason to wish to retain the confidence of the committee’s members.50 Furthermore, criticism that required fundamental change was ignored. During the early phase of Spanish-language production, the FPC and many studio workers continued to believe that selling films in Spanish was a question of good publicity, not of developing new filmmaking practices designed to appeal to the Spanish-speaking market’s tastes. Warner Brothers would learn the hard way that conflicts over language and culture could not be solved through good public relations.

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The Case of El hombre malo Henry Blanke, head of Warner Brothers’ Foreign Department and a member of the Academy’s Committee on Foreign Production, mused late in 1930 that “in making these foreign versions here in Hollywood, you run into a dead spot from where nothing can help you out.”51 Warner Brothers, which had recently merged with First National and effectively controlled it, chose The Bad Man (a property that belonged to First National) as the first of six projected Spanish-version films for the 1930–1931 season.52 Despite high hopes and an auspicious opening in Los Angeles, El hombre malo not only failed to make back its negative cost during its opening run, but also provoked a backlash in the Spanish-speaking press in Los Angeles as well as in Mexico for its perceived negative portrayal of Mexicans. Significantly, this backlash began before filming even started, revealing the deep mistrust that earlier Hollywood film portrayals of Mexicans had caused. The difficulties the studio experienced in making and selling the film ultimately led to the decision to suspend Spanish-language production after only four version films. The making of El hombre malo demonstrates that executives at Warner Brothers not only lacked information about Hispanic countries and cultures that would have allowed them to foresee objections to the film, but also consistently resisted addressing the fundamental criticisms made about it. The major studios hastily created foreign departments in 1930 to coordinate the production of sound films for their international markets. Warner Brothers chose Henry (Heinz) Blanke, a German who first came to the studio along with director Ernst Lubitsch, to head its new department. H. A. Bandy, Warner Brothers’ manager of Foreign Distribution (the division that arranged the sales and rentals of films to all countries outside the United States), emphasized to Blanke the importance of his new assignment and described it as a rare opportunity within the industry.53 Blanke’s responsibilities included not only supervising the foreign-version films but also adapting English-language films for export to markets with widely divergent needs.54 In the early, chaotic years that followed the introduction of sound in 1926, this meant taking an original English-language sound film and creating a silent version with intertitles, a version that retained only the original musical and effects score and had dialogue intertitles, and a version that retained some of the original English dialogue and had a new score designed to cover the parts of the dialogue track excised to make space for explanatory intertitles.55 Later, Blanke’s unit would supervise dubbing. The department was also responsible for making versions that included censors’ cuts for English-speaking markets like Canada and the British Empire countries. Blanke certainly had his hands full with the direct supervision of productions in three different languages and oversight of the complicated process of creating a multitude of new versions of English-language originals. Nevertheless,

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Blanke, his colleagues in the Foreign Distribution Department, and Jack Warner (the general head of production) paid a great deal of attention throughout 1930 to El hombre malo. They had agreed, when the new department with Blanke as its head was established, to make decisions about the production of foreignlanguage versions based upon the success of the first few produced.56 From the beginning, the studio executives knew that the margin of profit on foreign dialogue films was likely to be very slim, given the reduced size of the markets for which they were intended. They decided, based on estimates from the Foreign Distribution Department, to try to keep negative costs (i.e., the total cost of producing a film, but not including the costs of printing positive copies, promotion, and distribution) to just $50,000.57 Studios rarely budgeted so little for English-language features in the early 1930s, with costs typically ranging from $100,000 to $500,000.58 Warner Brothers had to start cutting costs with the onset of the Great Depression and after its expansion in the late 1920s.59 Still, the fear of losing foreign market share to other studios like Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and Universal, which were committing to significant programs of foreign-language films, led Warner Brothers to follow suit.60 Thus, executives at Warner Brothers placed a great deal of importance on the first products of their new Foreign Department. This context makes it surprising that they chose to make a Spanish version of The Bad Man as their first feature intended for Spain and Latin America.61 The story had its source in a popular stage play of the same name and had already been made as a silent film (1923, First National). The 1923 Bad Man had the distinction of exacerbating a conflict between Mexico and the Hollywood film studios over portrayals of Mexicans to which the Mexican government objected.62 Not long after Will H. Hays became head of the new industry trade group, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, in early 1922, he had to take action on a ban that the Mexican government had imposed on films from American studios that defamed Mexico or Mexicans. Mexicans and Mexican Americans had long been standard villains in American films, most often portrayed as a type known as the “‘greaser’: thievish, underhanded, cowardly, and all too ready to resort to violence when driven by jealousy or vengefulness.”63 The MPPDA sent a negotiator to deal directly with the Mexican government and committed itself to a policy of self-regulation as well as agreeing to allow Mexico to censor films that featured that country or its nationals.64 The MPPDA had yet to establish full regulatory power over its member studios, and the 1923 release of First National’s The Bad Man (whose title character was a buffoonish Mexican villain) got all of that studio’s products banned in Mexico.65 In late 1929, several studios showed interest in remaking the story.66 By this time, however, the MPPDA had begun to institute controls over member studios’ projects that had the potential to cause problems for international distribution. An internal MPPDA memo of October 1929 brings up the history of the

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1923 Bad Man and notes that only after lengthy negotiations with the Mexican government could the film be released in that country. The author also observes that, subsequently, “Mexico has become more and more sensitive on the subject of the alleged misrepresentations of Mexican types.” He ends with the suggestion that great care should be taken to avoid giving Mexico “any further excuse for expressing dissatisfaction.”67 Although Warner Brothers was primarily concerned about making profitable films, the studio still had to act in a context in which any studio’s missteps in the foreign market could potentially affect the entire Hollywood film industry. Clearly, Jack Warner and Sam Morris, the Warner Brothers executives who apparently chose the story, were well aware of its potential for causing trouble with Mexico. Warner believed that modifications to the script would eliminate any cause for offense.68 In the 1930 El hombre malo, an American family that owns a ranch located near the Mexican border stands to lose it to some unscrupulous local businessmen. At a crucial moment, feared bandit Pancho López appears on the scene. Rather than rob and murder them all, López turns out to be a man of honor who recognizes that justice must be done and saves the family’s ranch. Production supervisor Blanke assured a colleague in the Distribution Department that the new version would pass muster for its intended audiences in the Spanish-speaking world. The revised script would make the “Bad Man” of the title less like a bandit and more like Robin Hood.69 Still, despite assurances that the film contained nothing offensive to Mexico, Blanke suggested in a subsequent letter written once production was under way that the film be released in other Spanish-speaking territories prior to Mexico.70 Blanke’s apprehensions about the Mexican reaction to the film were well founded and probably based on his dealings with the Mexican consul in Los Angeles. An article in a Los Angeles Spanish-language newspaper appeared on May 18 denouncing the film and threatening a petition to have the government ban it, even though shooting had started only on May 7 and would not finish until May 27. This article accused the studio of having ignored the advice of an advisor provided by the Mexican consul who was then compelled to withdraw from the project so that the studio could not claim to have the approval of the Mexican government.71 The threat of a possible ban certainly caught the studio’s attention. In a lengthy letter to Jack Warner, the head of the First National studios (where the film was being shot), Graham Baker, refuted or explained the article’s charges. The article suggested that the expert who had resigned had pointed out cultural inaccuracies in the film and that it was derogatory to Mexico. The major complaint about the language in the film derived from the fact that Spaniards played many of the main roles, including the lead. Antonio Moreno, an actor from Spain who had had a long and successful career in the silent American cinema, had been cast in the role of Pancho López, the Mexican bandit, or

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FIGURE 10 This advertisement for a showing of El hombre malo at the Teatro California in Los Angeles promises a film “specially produced for Spanish-speaking countries, with a cast of Latin stars, headed by the popular Spanish artist Antonio Moreno.” Collection of Robert Dickson.

“Bad Man” of the title. This linguistic blunder (from the Mexican point of view) was exacerbated by another, touchier issue. In the original English-language Bad Man (both stage and sound film versions), the American family speaks standard English and López and his gang speak “broken” English (i.e., a highly stereotyped version of Spanish-inflected English). The contrast between the two, in Baker’s view, was part of the appeal of the original story.72 Those involved in the production decided to suggest the same contrast in the film by having the American family use Castilian Spanish and the Mexican characters speak with their country’s idiom. He explained that the Mexican Consulate wanted the entire cast to speak in Mexican Spanish. Baker argued for the use of Castilian by the American family because they “had probably been educated at various schools or universities in various parts of the United States, so that the family would speak correct English rather than localizing it. . . . Therefore our Spanish family in the Spanish version could have been educated in Spain or any other Spanish speaking country.”73 Baker, Blanke (who was on the Academy’s CFP),

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and others involved in the production insisted that Castilian was used as the “neutral” form of Spanish in stage productions throughout Latin America.74 They ignored the seemingly obvious problem of making analogies between the English and Spanish versions of The Bad Man: if the original contrast is based on “correct” versus “broken” English, than the analogous relationship between the two forms of Spanish suggests Mexican deficiency.75

FIGURE 11 Antonio Moreno as the Mexican bandit Pancho López in El hombre malo (1930, version of First National/Warner Brothers’ The Bad Man). Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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The controversy over the film spread from the Los Angeles Spanishlanguage press to Mexico, and by late May the studio was receiving reports of a press campaign against both the film and some Spaniards in the cast and crew who supposedly had discriminated against Mexican actors.76 The matter had also come to the attention of the MPPDA, which asked Blanke to explain the situation to them in writing.77 In Blanke’s letter to John Wilson of the MPPDA and in Baker’s letter to Jack Warner, they gave contradictory explanations of language usage in the film. Both appealed to a notion of voice and accent as malleable aspects of an actor’s performance that should not be judged by essentialist criteria of nationality. Both stated that they had two Mexican actors employed as dialogue coaches for the film, who were to work with Spaniard Antonio Moreno on his speech.78 In his letter to the MPPDA, Blanke justified the choice of Moreno over Mexican actor Leo Carrillo (the two men considered for the lead role) as having been dictated by availability. Internal Warner Brothers’ correspondence, on the other hand, indicates that Blanke preferred Moreno over Carrillo, and Baker explained to Warner that Moreno was selected because he would have wider appeal in the Spanish-speaking world.79 Baker continued to argue somewhat disingenuously that prejudice about nationality should not affect casting; he stated that Moreno had previously played American characters, despite being Spanish. (While technically true, Moreno had been cast for Euro-American roles only in silent films or in Spanish-language version films. He never played a EuroAmerican character in an English-language sound film, presumably because of his noticeable non-native accent.) Blanke, however, wrote that one Mexican actress, Delia Megaña, was cast on the basis of her talent; but that they then rewrote her character as Mexican rather than American, which would have implied the need for her to speak her lines with the Castilian accent.80 Despite assurances that the film would respect Mexican culture, accent, and idiom, Baker also explained that the film tried to avoid seeming overly Mexican, thus obviating the need for perfect authenticity. He quoted a letter from the author of the film’s Spanish dialogue, Spaniard Baltasar Fernández Cue, who wrote that he had avoided all words that might be understood only in Mexico. Fernández Cue believed that his version of the main character’s speech would be preferable to audiences throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Although Baker recognized that the film had Mexican characters, he insisted that Mexicans were mistaken in believing the film to be a Mexican story because the action takes place on the U.S. side of the border. Thus, he concluded, the film should not be considered a depiction of Mexico.81 Blanke also tried to make this clear for audiences by adding a map insert at the beginning of the film showing the location of events.82 These internal discussions reveal that while the studio paid lip service to trying to assuage Mexican concerns about the film, it did not intend to make the film solely according to the criteria of one part of the potential audience.

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Meanwhile, Blanke did everything in his power to reverse the tide of negative publicity. He invited the journalist of the original article to the studio to preview parts of the film, and, later, members of the Mexican diplomatic corps came to see the completed film. He finally managed to convince all of them to give new, positive statements about it in the press. The New York office of Warner Brothers made similar efforts with Mexican diplomats there.83 Blanke arranged a gala premiere in Los Angeles that was highly publicized in all the local Spanish-language media. He even took the precaution of paying small sums to several journalists connected with Spanish-language press syndicates to help ensure favorable coverage—a move that he explained to a colleague as unavoidable.84 By late June, after a tremendously successful opening night in Los Angeles, Blanke optimistically predicted that the studio would be pleased with the box office when the film was distributed.85 Indeed, throughout June and July, Blanke received congratulations on his work on the film and on his successful efforts at diplomacy with the film’s Mexican critics.86 Having “overcome the propaganda circulated by a bunch of disgruntled Mexicans in Los Angeles,” Warner Brothers looked forward to launching its first Spanish version.87 Throughout the controversy, Blanke staunchly defended decisions made about the film’s casting, language, and setting because he knew that it was intended for the entire Spanish-speaking audience.88 Presumably, in other countries the apparently minor details specific to Mexican culture would be less important than having a well-known star (Antonio Moreno), understandable dialogue, and an entertaining story. Blanke soon found to his surprise that El hombre malo was not doing well in its initial run in this larger market. Already in mid-June, in response to a request from the New York office for input on appropriate types of stories for Spanish versions, the First National manager in Spain cabled back, “CAUTION AVOID BANDIT CRIMINAL STORIES ANTI SPANISH MEXICAN STOP.”89 As other foreign managers started to report estimates of what El hombre malo might gross, the Warner Brothers executives became concerned that it might not even break even. The negative cost of the film came in at $68,000, more than what was targeted, but still quite cheap for a feature-length film. In August, the Spanish manager got an offer for $10,000, whereas the studio had hoped for $20,000 to $25,000 in that market. By September, the Cuban manager grossed only $4,900. Results were no better in other territories. By January of 1931, the film had grossed $42,000 in sales and rentals, of which $11,000 went to distribution costs. Thus, to that point, the film resulted in a net loss of more than $30,000—although it is important to note that in the longer term the film did make money, as was the case with many version films.90 These depressing initial results directly influenced Warner Brothers’ decision to suspend production of Spanishlanguage films.91

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The “Sensitive” Hispanic Warner Brothers certainly anticipated and then paid attention to Mexican objections to the film, although the studio countered them primarily by establishing personal contacts with influential people who could help promote the film. The studio seems to have ignored the possibility that other Spanishspeaking countries might also find the film’s story and treatment unattractive or even offensive. When asked later, managers working in important territories (Spain, Cuba, Argentina, Mexico) concurred that El hombre malo was the wrong “type” of film for their markets.92 Most resisted criticizing the film, but the manager from Argentina forwarded local reviews. Despite its distance and difference from Mexico, an Argentine reviewer did not hesitate to take the film’s bandit theme as an example of general U.S. prejudice. “I do not know what the Yankees think of us Latin Americans, but . . . from how they paint us in their films, they have typed us as super-wicked prototypes of humanity. One has only to see the nationalities which they give to bandits. . . . If they do not disguise them as Mexican, they make them appear in Panama, Nicaragua or in any part of America in which Spanish is always spoken. . . . [O]nce in a great while they try to sugar the pill, making us appear as generous bandits.”93 Obviously, turning the Bad Man into “a kind of Robin Hood” had not convinced Latin Americans that Hollywood had really changed its views about the character of their neighbors to the south.94 The poor performance of El hombre malo frustrated executives at Warner Brothers who had to make important decisions about the best methods for keeping up with or ahead of the competition in foreign markets. Although they soon concluded that they had chosen the wrong kind of story, their reactions to certain criticisms suggest confusion about what it would take to please their Spanish-speaking audiences. As at other American film studios, pressures from foreign audiences and governments led Warner Brothers to modify its films to reduce the likelihood of giving offense and, therefore, limiting distribution. They did not, however, necessarily respond by actively trying to create films that would appeal to foreign audiences.95 Indeed, as Ruth Vasey has shown in her study of how American film studios responded to pressures from foreign governments, stereotypes of other countries and cultures persisted. She concludes that this was not due to “ignorance, carelessness, or prejudice on the part of particular production personnel, but through the deliberate packaging of salable elements. The picturesque, the exotic, and the quaint were all staple ingredients of Hollywood production.”96 Warner Brothers certainly devoted time and care to the making and publicizing of El hombre malo and obviously wished for it to be salable. How, then, can one account for its misjudgment? Prejudice and ignorance played at least a part. Several executives involved in the film’s making and distribution recognized that they were hampered by

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not knowing the Spanish language. Still, they made considerable efforts to compensate for this by seeking the opinions of “experts” or the culturally knowledgeable. When people at Warner Brothers read reviews or received criticisms that suggested that they had been egregiously careless in their dealings with Spanish-speaking audiences, they were often mystified by the vehemence of these complaints. When Graham Baker tried to explain to Jack Warner why the threat of a Mexican ban on the film had been made, he concluded, after refuting all the substantive points, that “whatever difficulty there is, has something of a hidden nature which we cannot combat or conciliate without knowing what it is.”97 Others attributed the problem to Mexicans who were overly sensitive.98 At least one displayed overt condescension when he wrote that the problems with El hombre malo came about because “[the] foreigner usually has an exaggerated idea of his own importance.” This mistaken self-importance explained foreigners’ dislike of films that purported to show them “the bad side of their people.”99 More than one attributed the negative reviews from Argentina to a general antagonism toward American films and Americans in general.100 H. A. Bandy, in particular, openly dismissed the opinions of Felipe Mier, Warner Brothers’ branch manager in Mexico, on the basis of a supposed excess of sensitivity. Mier had pointed out on several occasions, in response to Bandy’s requests for feedback on Spanish-language short films, that the studio should be more careful in its treatment of Hispanic countries. In May, during the Mexican press campaign against El hombre malo, Mier had written that they ought to have taken his suggestions or those of the Mexican consul, but that this was just part of a larger pattern of carelessness: “The main trouble with all the pictures produced in the United States is that, they do not know how to characterize properly the different types of the different countries . . . for pictures produced for Latin American countries it is unpardonable, the commercial possibilities . . . being greatly reduced. . . . If you intend to produce pictures for . . . [these] markets, why not get the proper men to do so?”101 A few weeks later, Bandy wrote in a letter to Blanke that Mier seemed to want to see only upper-class Mexicans in films. To support his claim, Bandy quoted a letter from Mier in which Mier argued that a certain Warner Brothers film should not be released in Mexico because scenes “that are supposed to happen in Mexico are entirely erroneous.” Mier had gone on to warn that this film would only “give the press arms to keep fighting us.” Bandy told Blanke that Mier was obviously oversensitive and suggested that “in future you do not take anything he says too seriously.”102 Bandy was wrong to dismiss Felipe Mier’s criticisms and suggestions as to appropriate treatment of material for Spanish-language or Latin-themed films. Mier was, in fact, quite astute in his judgments of the tastes of Latin American and, specifically, Mexican movie audiences. It is worth noting here that he later parlayed his experience with the American film industry into a career as a

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successful producer for the United Artists Company of films made in Mexico for Latin American distribution. A United Artists Company (UAC) executive later described Mier as “ideally equipped to make the type of native product that will compare favorably in quality and audience appeal with our Hollywood-made pictures.”103 Bandy’s misjudgment of Mier’s capabilities contributed to the failure of El hombre malo. Although Bandy attributed Mier’s excessive sensitivity to his upper-class background, the notion that Hispanics were especially “sensitive” or “proud” was a pervasive view in the film industry and in American society at large.104 The 1931 film The Cuban Love Song (MGM) provoked a serious crisis when Cuba threatened to ban it and diplomats of other Latin American countries passed a joint resolution condemning false portrayals of their countries. The Cubans were particularly upset over star Lupe Vélez’s performance because of her marked Mexican accent (even though the film was in English). The head of the MPPDA’s Foreign Office, Ted Herron, wrote to Jason Joy of the Studio Relations Committee that he greatly feared that this debacle would bring back “all the super-sensitiveness” that he thought the industry had gotten under control.105 The film Storm over the Andes (1935, made in both English and Spanish versions), which was about the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia, provoked Herron to describe diplomats from these countries as “a little rabid in their opinions.” This was hardly surprising given that the war was still going on when the film was released, but Herron explained it differently. “Behind all this [complaint about details of the film’s script] one must always take into consideration that these South Americans have an inferiority complex when it comes to North Americans.”106 The charge of sensitivity may well have accurately described the problem— although not in the way in which Hollywood executives understood it. Years of experience as consumers of Hollywood cinema had accustomed Spanishspeaking audiences to seeing Hispanic themes portrayed in often negative or disrespectful ways. Small improvements to the character of the “Bad Man” could not overcome the presupposition that this bad man was a direct relation of other Latin villains. In 1934, a Mexican journalist wrote in an article about the film Viva Villa!, “It is said that Hollywood is terrified of us, that they no longer dare make a film with a Mexican subject, given that we are shockingly sensitive . . . or so they say. But it is natural that we should be so. Even the patience of a saint has its limits, and they have gone too far with Viva Villa, after they have so happily and so often shown us to the eyes of the world as swaggering little cowboys suffering from a disgusting romantic streak.”107 Such criticisms did little to deter Hollywood studios from continually recycling these kinds of images. In 1941, Wallace Beery, who had starred in Viva Villa! as Francisco “Pancho” Villa, was cast as bandit Pancho López in a new version of The Bad Man. The coming of sound, and with it spoken language, added another layer of cultural specificity to films. To Spanish-speaking critics, the attempts of

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Hollywood to make films in their own language and sometimes with themes from their cultures exacerbated an already difficult relationship. If Hollywood’s English-language films frequently used Mexicans, or other Hispanics, as stereotyped characters for the entertainment of the world, it became even more intolerable to use the same stories and types in films intended exclusively for Spanish-speaking audiences. Critics became highly sensitive to the strangely translated dialogues, the mix of accents, and the poorly chosen stories from which such films often suffered as a result of their low-budget production in non-Hispanic countries with non-Hispanic production crews. If, for Hollywood, Spanish films were second-tier productions for a limited market, for their intended audiences, they had a much greater significance.

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In November of 1934, Mariano Viamonte Fernández, the New York correspondent of a Mexican film exhibitor trade magazine, in a piece titled “The Decline of Hollywood,” described the recent success of Spanish-language films shown in New York. “Not even a year ago when someone dared to talk about movies filmed outside of the Imperial City of Hollywood, especially those made in Mexico, Spain, Argentina and Peru, the heads of the great American production companies smiled condescendingly, gave a twist to the cigar in their mouth, and ended up with a rather stereotyped phrase: ‘Oh, preposterous, impossible.’” These cigar-chewing studio heads, he wrote, pointed to the tremendous investment required to build sound studios and purchase patent rights as reasons why films made outside of Hollywood could not succeed. The executives claimed that Argentines would never consent to listen to Mexican Spanish, or Spaniards to Argentines, and so on. In spite of it all, Viamonte Fernández continued, New York’s Spanish-language theaters closed but then reopened, replaying Hollywood’s Spanish productions interspersed with few and infrequent films from Latin America or Spain. Finally, by 1934, the miraculous occurred: Spanishlanguage films made outside of Hollywood began to triumph at the box office.1 Viamonte Fernández speculated about what attracted New York Latinos to these films. He imagined that they felt “nostalgia for our customs and our race.” In the theater, away from the pressure and hurry of the city, they could remember “other lands, ours, where we live more slowly, love more strongly, idealize life but when the inexorable hand of destiny intervenes, it is more powerful than the hand of a Hollywood film director who always makes the hero arrive in time.”2 In short, he argues, they remember their own culture, one that he portrays as more humane than that of Anglo-America and more authentically rendered in Hispanic films than in those of Hollywood. 83

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From the time that the republics of Latin America gained independence in the early nineteenth century, both Spanish Americans and Spaniards had struggled to redefine their cultural identities and create new postcolonial relations. In the public sphere, intellectuals considered how race, culture, and historical experience shaped collective identities. If, in the nineteenth century, Spanish American intellectuals had tended to reject much of the Hispanic tradition in an effort to foster national uniqueness and to attain cultural modernity, the growing influence of the United States by the turn of the century led to a reevaluation of the Hispanic inheritance as an important contribution to the distinctive identity of Latin versus Anglo-America. Spain, upon the loss of Cuba to the United States in 1898, also sought to increase its cultural and economic connections with Latin America as a way of renewing national identity and regaining international influence. By the early twentieth century, as cinema emerged as both a new art and the preeminent form of mass media, Hispanic intellectuals, film professionals, and politicians responded to Hollywood’s Spanish-language films by refining arguments about U.S. cultural imperialism and calling for a united defense of Hispanic culture in and through film. While the views of elites often did not correspond to the actual tastes of the masses of Spanish-speaking movie goers, debates about responses to the new sound cinema had important consequences. These critiques led Spain to organize the 1931 Congreso Hispanoamericano de Cinematografía (Spanish American Film Congress), to which all Latin American countries (including Portuguese-speaking Brazil) were invited. Following earlier pan-European models, its organizers intended the congress to develop protectionist measures that would limit Hollywood’s ability to define Hispanics through film and promote local filmmaking. Sharp disagreements over language and cultural policy and national differences among delegates to the congress made it difficult for participants to present a united front. While the participating countries agreed to pressure Hollywood to improve its portrayals of Hispanics, heated controversy over the continuing “war of the accents” suggests the divisiveness of national and regional identities that complicated the making of a Spanishlanguage film market. In the short term, market-based responses proved a more effective counterbalance to Hollywood’s direct incursion into Hispanic cultural production than did state initiatives. Most Hollywood studios began cutting foreign-languageversion production in mid-1931, and this created a diaspora of well-trained Spanish-speaking film professionals who needed work. Although Hollywood had proved able to master the transition to sound and remain dominant in foreign markets, these years set the stage for the dramatic growth of sound film industries in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. As a key example, this chapter considers the making and reception of the earliest commercial sound film in Mexico, Santa (1932), whose principal cast and crew had previously worked in

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Hollywood Spanish-version films. The imbrication of the new Mexican sound industry with Hollywood practices and networks suggests the pressures that the American-dominated film market put on a sphere of cultural production intimately linked to public discourses over cultural identity. At the same time, the promotion and reception of the film in the Spanish-language press demonstrate how calls for Hispanic solidarity in the face of U.S. hegemony served to bolster support for a Spanish-language film market supplied by national film industries that shared—at least in part—a common culture.

Empire Present and Empire Past: The Spanish American Film Congress Intellectuals in both European and Latin American countries responded to the increasing influence of the United States in the twentieth century by developing a critique of American mass culture. American movies, which dominated world movie screens from the late 1910s on, became the cause of particular concern, especially after the introduction of sound.3 Careless and inaccurate depictions of specific countries, cultural traditions, and language usage could cause a furor when studios made films such as El hombre malo. Warner Brothers ignored the depth and sophistication of critiques of Hollywood filmmaking that predisposed Hispanic critics to carefully scrutinize a film designed specifically for Hispanic audiences. Within the Hispanic world, intellectuals and politicians often argued that Hispanic culture, whether expressed through filmmaking or other arts, should serve as a counterweight to the onslaught of “Yankee” or American culture. Spain made a political effort to organize this dissent by holding the Spanish American Film Congress in 1931. This meeting ultimately failed to unify the participating countries due to conflict over the Spanish imperial legacy, commercial competition, and political weakness in the face of U.S. governmental pressure. Still, the discussions contributed to a greater awareness of the potential that a large, language-defined film market had for the Spanish-speaking countries. In the late 1920s and 1930s, formal imperialism continued to shape much of the world, and the United States had recently engaged in its limited experiments with direct colonial rule in the territories won from Spain during the war of 1898. Coherent theoretical formulations of “cultural imperialism” did not arise until the 1960s to describe the role that the imposition of U.S. culture played in establishing the country’s hegemony over much of the world, but such arguments were incipient in Marxist cultural criticism of the 1920s and 1930s. Non-Marxist critics such as Viamonte Fernández made their arguments by comparing the United States to the great imperial powers of the past that controlled subject populations partly through the imposition of a common language and the monopoly of communication systems. Within the United States, such arguments were familiar enough by 1930 that the New York Times could title an

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editorial “Our ‘Imperialistic’ Movies” with the dismissive suggestion that this oft-repeated complaint had little substance.4 The two great imperial powers of the early twentieth century, Britain and France, certainly believed that films could influence the minds of their colonial subjects. Britain imposed restrictive legislation on the importation of American films into its empire following the Imperial Conference of 1926, at which the dominance of American cinema was discussed. British leaders feared that these films would preclude the showing of “Empire scenes and settings” and thus “powerfully [advertise] (the more effectively because indirectly) foreign countries and their products.”5 Similarly, in the early 1910s when France still dominated the global film industry, French military men spoke admiringly of the power of films to pacify colonial subjects. By the 1930s, the French began to fear the influence of films glorifying Anglo-American ideas of empire at the expense of the French. The French government frequently protested American films, believing that some denigrated its system of colonial government.6 Americans worried as well about the potentially negative effects of films on domestic and foreign audiences. Hollywood took care, for instance, not to make films that would offend U.S. white southern racist sensibilities or excite the majority-black population of British South Africa.7 Spain had already lost its American empire by the time motion pictures became the world’s leading entertainment. The crushing defeats of 1898 brought calls for cultural regeneration within Spain. In particular, the current of thought known as hispanismo, a set of ideas that emphasized the Hispanic traditions that bound the peoples of Iberia and Spanish America together and had encouraged Spain in the nineteenth century to forge stronger cultural and economic ties with its former colonies, became more widespread throughout the political spectrum (although it remained more closely associated with the right).8 Some Spanish intellectuals saw this as way to resurrect the lost empire. Inspired by a practical tendency within hispanismo, Spanish governments in the early part of the century began designing a series of economic initiatives intended to promote closer relations between the Hispanic nations. In the 1920s, the government of Spanish dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera devoted special attention to improving communications between Spain and Spanish America. Spain increased regular transatlantic sea traffic and inaugurated new telegraph and radio connections, along with airmail service between the two continents. The Primo de Rivera administration also began hosting Spanish American trade conferences.9 Trade boosters first proposed a Spanish American cinema conference during the planning of the second Congreso Nacional del Comercio Español en el Ultramar (Conference on Overseas Spanish Trade) held in Seville in 1929.10 The Spanish government had asked Fernando Viola, who worked as the commercial director for a company that made newsreels exhibited in Spain and

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Latin America, to help revise censorship laws in response to complaints that American films misrepresented Spanish culture. Viola proposed instead a much broader response to the problem and successfully petitioned the Ministry of Economy to make cinema a topic at the 1929 trade conference. At this conference, the delegates, both Spanish and Latin American, resolved to convoke a Spanish American cinema congress.11 Viola compared this initiative to the earlier successes of similar meetings on the topics of mail and aviation. He made clear in his report to the trade conference that cinema could be a key means to strengthen relations between “the Spanish American countries and their former metropolis” through the exchange of newsreels, educational documentaries, and entertainment films. Viola pointed out the increasing danger that the United States might conquer the Spanish-speaking markets, especially given the rise of sound films. He described the Spanish language as a fundamental aspect of “our life itself.” He looked forward to the opening of the cinema conference, which he hoped would meet on the day of “la Fiesta de la Raza.”12 This holiday, the Day of the Race, is celebrated in Spain and Latin American countries on October 12, the day Columbus first set foot in the Americas. The task of the organizing committee became more urgent during 1930 and 1931 as Hollywood began producing Spanish-language films and offering contracts to some of the brightest talents of the Hispanic world. In the preamble to the measures proposed by the organizing committee, Viola sharpened his rhetoric on the threat of U.S. cultural domination: “The future of the world will belong to the country which holds the scepter of the cinema. . . . No other medium of communication as powerful and decisive as the cinema screen has ever been known, it is the catechism of a new morality and a psychology which easily penetrates the masses, creating in them new beliefs and habits different from those which are particular to every people.” Viola warned that while other countries had taken steps to resist this onslaught, the Hispanic countries had not. As a result, U.S. culture had begun to eclipse their own. Worse still, Viola warned, the advent of talking films brought with it the threat that Hispanic youth would know who Tom Mix was but not Hernán Cortes and might also grow up speaking “the snuffling English of the people of Monroe.” Viola’s reference here to the Monroe Doctrine is telling, as he went on to suggest that the only possible resistance was the use of equal weapons: “opposing cinema with cinema.” The only weakness of the Americans was that English was not yet the world’s language, whereas Spanish had “an immense market.” The production of films in the Spanish language was “a question of life or death for the Race which discovered America.” Viola made clear that not only culture, but business was at stake—through cooperation, the Spanish-speaking nations could compete with the United States.13 In consequence, the conference organizers proposed measures that included mutual protection strategies against U.S. economic hegemony of film

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distribution, plans for coproductions, a defense of the Spanish language, and agreements to ban films that misrepresented the customs or culture of other Hispanic countries. One point called upon the participating countries to prevent the United States from producing “talkies in Spanish, which are always mediated by the strange ways the Yankees have of conceiving and developing stories with Hispanic settings.”14 Perhaps not surprisingly, this measure came without any specific means of achieving this goal. The fall of the Primo de Rivera government and the eventual proclamation of the Second Republic in Spain (April 13, 1931) complicated the organization of the cinema conference. It finally took place in early October 1931 and ended on the twelfth, the Día de la Raza. Ultimately, the congress resolved upon a series of measures that it recommended the governments of the countries represented should adopt. These recommendations were much less strident in their rhetoric and less ambitious in their reach than those the organizing committee had initially proposed. The congress recommended establishing “Iberoamerica,” including all the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries (Brazil also sent an official representative to the congress) as a single cinematographic territory.15 It proposed that each government define what would constitute a “national” production and then establish quota systems for national productions. It recommended a series of protectionist measures and a program of subventions for national filmmaking. It also proposed the creation of an Iberoamerican cinema confederation, with the object of fomenting and regulating film trade within the represented countries and with the ultimate goal of unifying trade policy. The congress further recommended adopting mutual censorship policies by which all the countries would protest the misrepresentation in foreign films of any of the member countries. A number of resolutions were aimed at fostering a sophisticated film culture through the establishment of cinema clubs and government agencies that would foment the production of educational, cultural, industrial, or travel films. Finally, the congress recommended a complicated series of norms for the appropriate modality of Spanish (they did not make decisions on Portuguese) that should be used in various kinds of films. These norms differentiated between historic and modern films, literary and nonfiction films, and films with Hispanic or non-Hispanic settings. Not surprisingly, it adopted a “realist” approach to film language, where pronunciation and usage should mirror the language appropriate to the specific time and place of the film. For other kinds of films that did not clearly dictate a correct modality, it chose to split the difference between Castilian and Latin American Spanish. For fiction films set in non-Hispanic foreign locales or in imaginary scenarios, it recommended “correct Castilian pronunciation”; whereas, for nonfiction films (newsreels, documentaries, travel, or educational) and animated films, they recommended “the educated pronunciation from any Spanish-speaking country.”16

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The aims of the congress were, even if less ambitious than those of the organizing committee, very far reaching. It sought to create a free trade zone for films made in Iberoamerica that could serve as a bulwark against the cinematic hegemony of the United States. The protectionist measures the congress envisioned would jump-start production that could then fill the void of Spanishand Portuguese-language films that Hollywood currently occupied. The congress undoubtedly knew of similar plans proposed by the leading European powers in the 1920s. The “Film Europe” movement was a vision for a transnational cartel that would cooperate on trade policies and production initiatives in an attempt to unify Europe as a “domestic” market. For the most part, this initiative failed to materialize, although it resulted in a series of international coproductions and a number of binational treaties. Promoters of Film Europe proved unable to establish a centralized planning body equivalent to the U.S. industry’s powerful trade association, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA). The competing interests of film companies based in particular nation states stymied Film Europe, as did the lack of a common language for film production once sound came in. Film Europe nevertheless set important precedents. Although based on a reaction to perceived American cultural imperialism, the “dream of a common European culture” existed in tension with what it supposedly critiqued. Intended to defend local, indigenous forms of cultural expression, Film Europe proposed to do so by imitating the practices of the American film industry, especially through employing economies of scale and making films with broad international appeal. Thus, “[if] Hollywood could be accused of ‘Americanizing’ European culture, so the international co-productions of Film Europe could be accused of ‘Europeanizing’ certain sectors of British, French or German cinema.”17 Still, the Film Europe movement claimed legitimacy by articulating the rights of not just nations, but also regions, to cultural expression through the film form, which, proponents argued, should not be dominated by a single country. The coming of sound had undermined plans for pan-European resistance to U.S. dominance of its film markets due to the diversity of languages spoken in Europe. The Spanish American Film Congress, on the other hand, clearly realized that the addition of sound to the cinema gave linguistically united countries an advantage in terms of creating a common market. Although the congress perceived the real advantages that fomenting a pan-Hispanic or pan-Iberian market could produce, its plans had little chance of succeeding in the conditions of the early 1930s. Full implementation would have required a high level of government investment and strong political will to resist the United States on matters of trade policy. Furthermore, at the time of the congress, no Hispanic country had yet released even a single commercially successful sound film. Particularly in the context of a worldwide economic

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depression, the ambitious plans of the Film Congress had to have been a hard sell.18 Spain, as a direct result of the congress, did pursue some of the economic aims proposed by the congress, at least in terms of national development of the industry. By the mid-1930s, the government had imposed a system of taxes and tariffs that benefited national films over imports and created government bodies to regulate aspects of the film industry. This benefited producers, but exhibitors in Spain opposed increases in duties and taxes. Indeed, they frequently colluded with American distributors who evaded taxation by making illegal copies of films.19 Private investors motivated by the occasion of the Spanish American Film Congress organized the promotion and construction of the first Spanish-owned sound film studios.20 Apart from these effects of the congress within Spain itself, the only area in which the countries attending the congress ultimately proved to have sufficient political will to cooperate was censorship. Mutual agreements to censor films that denigrated national customs, culture, or history involved no economic commitment or great political risk as the U.S. film industry had long since shown itself vulnerable to these kinds of arguments. Spain first signed a treaty with Mexico, which went into effect in September 1933 and in which the two countries agreed to ban films that defamed either.21 Mexico already had strict censorship rules of this kind regarding cinematic representations, and its practices were cited by the congress as a precedent for the censorship resolution.22 Spain later signed a bilateral treaty with El Salvador in which both agreed to ban films that denigrated either country or “any other Spanish-American country.” Spain subsequently signed similar treaties with Nicaragua, Guatemala, Peru, and Chile. These agreements, signed in 1935 and 1936, never came into full effect as the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War brought the legitimacy of Spain’s government into question.23 Some Latin American countries also signed bilateral treaties of a similar nature. Peru made agreements with Chile and Argentina in 1935, and Chile made them with Costa Rica in 1937.24 Panama did not sign any bilateral treaties but had a censorship board that as of 1931, much to the consternation of U.S. observers, “now shows a decided sensitiveness towards any film that, even remotely, tends to cast ridicule on Latins or things Latin.”25 Argentina and Mexico, the other two countries (apart from Spain) with the greatest potential to become major producers of Spanish-language films, had learned even prior to the congress that economic protectionism meant facing the wrath of the American film industry. Given that the United States supplied well over 90 percent of all films to exhibitors in these countries, American studios could threaten to halt film sales and effectively destroy the exhibition sector. In early 1931, Argentina had already tried limiting the importation of foreign films (and thus protecting the nascent film industry) by

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raising import duties but had learned that in the absence of Argentine production, the effect was to drive film theaters out of business.26 Argentina became a significant producer by the mid-1930s, but this occurred with little government support. Mexico, which had begun to institutionalize the reforms of the revolution by the 1930s, attempted to institute higher taxes and tariffs on foreign-language films for the first time in July 1931. American film distributors warned theater owners that they would not sign contracts for film rentals if the new higher rates were implemented. Mexican president Pascual Ortiz Rubio met with Mexico City theater owners, who feared for their profits, and he ordered the new law temporarily suspended. Variety reported that Ortiz Rubio, whose administration had passed the higher duties and taxes, decided to postpone implementing them until “the Republic can make its own talkers.”27 As would happen repeatedly in Mexico (and, indeed, in many countries), the conflict of interest between producers who asked the government for economic protection and exhibitors who feared for the loss of profits if they could not show Hollywood films undermined the government’s ability to foment a film industry that could produce enough films to fill local theaters.28 Apart from the economic and political situations of Spain and the Latin American countries, other obstacles also made the implementation of the congress’s resolutions difficult. Simply put, the congress lacked significant advocacy outside of Spain (and even within Spain, it had its critics). Beyond the difficulty that Latin American countries had in resisting the pull of trade with the United States rather than its former metropolis, relations within the Hispanic world also remained fraught over the terms of its cultural unity—or lack thereof. In particular, within Spain, hispanismo and its implicit desire for a return to the hierarchy of metropolis over colony at least in cultural relations blinded many Spaniards to the strength of Spanish Americans’ belief in their own regional and national autonomy and cultural uniqueness.29 This conflict was especially intense between Spain and Mexico, two countries well placed to become important centers of Spanish-language film production.

Cultural Conflict within the Hispanic World: Debates behind the War of Accents Cultural conflicts had already complicated Hollywood’s plans to produce films for the entire Spanish-speaking world. Hollywood film executives had little understanding of the background or intensity of the linguistic debate. Almost as soon as Hollywood’s Spanish-language productions began appearing on screens in Spain and Latin America, intellectuals seized upon them as a new terrain for debating postcolonial relations in the former Spanish empire. These debates had both cultural and material ramifications as intellectuals, politicians,

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journalists, and film professionals fought to establish legitimate claims to shape the emerging idea of a Spanish-language film market. The new nations of Latin America had begun to develop discourses about national and regional uniqueness as part of their bids for independence. Throughout the nineteenth century, Latin American intellectuals had debated the merits of looking to France, Britain, or the United States as cultural and political models. In the nineteenth century, Spain’s hispanismo remained a minor current that appealed primarily to a small, discredited rightist minority among Latin Americans. Hispanismo was based on a belief in “the existence of a transatlantic Hispanic family, community, or raza (race)” and on “the conviction that through the course of history Spaniards have developed a . . . set of characteristics, of traditions, and value judgments that render them distinct from all other peoples.” This culture, it followed, Spaniards had then transmitted to Spanish Americans, who were thus part of the same cultural family.30 Hispanismo played down the contributions or importance of African and indigenous contributions to Spanish American culture as well as the significance of Spanish America’s unique historical experiences. For this reason, many Latin American intellectuals rejected an exclusively Hispanic cultural genealogy and argued instead for a uniquely Latin American identity. These views informed the writings of crucial figures in the history of Latin America’s drive toward independence, such as Simón Bolívar’s Jamaica letter (1815) or José Martí’s “Our America” (1891).31 The debates over competing views of cultural connections between Spain and its former colonies played out most obviously in controversies over the fate of the Spanish language in the Americas. On the one hand, elites in the newly independent countries had chosen to use Spanish as a major tool for nation building, as a way to integrate diverse ethnic and linguistic groups into a coherent nation. Thus, many Latin American constitutions linked literacy in Spanish to citizenship rights.32 On the other hand, these elites could not fully disregard the fact that Spanish was the language of their former imperial masters. Consequently, some Latin American intellectuals argued that Spanish as spoken in South America had begun to evolve into a new form of expression that represented a break with the old, authoritarian, Spanish past. This contention sparked heated debates about the importance of regional differences in Spanish as spoken in the Americas. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, an Argentine writer and statesman with tremendous intellectual influence in nineteenth-century Latin America, believed that language was essentially linked to cultural identity. Consequently, he argued, independence should therefore lead to linguistic autonomy from Spain if Argentines hoped to throw off the retrograde aspects of their Spanish inheritance. Popular usage, he felt, should dictate the establishment of language norms rather than the authority of Spain’s Royal Spanish Academy, which was established to standardize the language.33 For Spaniards,

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anxious to retain cultural influence over their former colonies, linguistic unity was to be the keystone.34 The issue of whether the Spanish language would fragment over time as a result of the breakup of the Spanish empire resulted in a heated polemic between Rufino José Cuervo, a Colombian philologist, and Juan Valera, a Spanish intellectual and politician. Over the course of 1899, Cuervo argued, using historical linguistic evidence of numerous regionalisms in the Americas, that Spanish would suffer the fate of Latin and devolve into a number of related, but separate, languages. Valera rejected Cuervo’s claims of “scientific” evidence and argued simply that provincialisms were a feature of all languages but did not detract from the essential unity of the Spanish language and, by extension, the Hispanic “spirit.”35 These debates form the intellectual background of the interventions of noted linguists and cultural leaders on the subject of Spanish-language usage in the new sound films.36 Indeed, José Francos Rodríguez, who would later be named president of the Spanish American Film Congress, published an article promoting the congress and discussing the question of the Spanish language in sound films. He affirmed his support for using sound films to protect Spanish “from all the dangers which accost it.” He quoted Valera’s declaration that languages are “the history of the Patria, the living testimony of the nations which have populated it, the preponderance of certain races, the modifications made by others, the repository of all of their traditions, the treasury of all the ideas accumulated by them.” Articles on this topic appeared in the Spanish-speaking press of Spain, Spanish America, and the United States. One author found in the controversy over appropriate language usage in sound films evidence of Spanish treachery that showed the “despotism and hate of the Spaniards for their contemptible criollos.”37 This article, and others like it, motivated Spain’s leading linguistic expert on variation in the pronunciation of Spanish, Tomás Navarro y Tomás, to publish a short book entitled El idioma español en el cine parlante (Spanish in the talking films, 1930). Navarro, who was also a member of the organizing committee of the Spanish American Film Congress, argued in his book for the correctness of following the traditions of the Spanish-speaking stage in establishing norms for the sound cinema. These norms dictated that “correct” Castilian Spanish be used in all dramatic representations that did not demand a specific local accent. Navarro, drawing from the actual practices of Spanish-speaking theater, pointed out that the imitation of an appropriate accent and correct use of regionalisms in a play’s dialogue was an important part of the actor’s craft. Thus, he argued, requiring that actors in sound films speak with “correct” pronunciation did not represent a disadvantage for Spanish Americans, nor an advantage for Spaniards, who, Navarro also noted, did not necessarily use correct pronunciation in their daily speech even when born and raised in Castile (much less other areas of Spain).38 Navarro made the case that pronunciation, like grammar or

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spelling, had to be studied to achieve proficiency. Pronunciation, in a dramatic representation, had the same importance as the careful use of language in literature.39 He offers an extended analysis of regional variations of Spanish pronunciation of key sounds such as ll, rr, and, most divisive of all, c and z. His argument in favor of Castilian reflects Spanish tradition by maintaining that the Castilian pronunciation of these sounds most clearly distinguishes each in a way that accurately reflects their orthography. On the one hand, Navarro argued for a conception of language that is plastic and accessible to any of its speakers who cares to devote study and practice to the development of control over pronunciation. He also stated that he was not suggesting that regional speech in daily life should be considered incorrect, only that cultivated uses of language, such as in literature, theater, or the cinema, should be distinct from everyday language.40 This educated language should aspire to universality in its norms. On the other hand, as much as Navarro tried to claim that he was not suggesting that the people of Spanish America were less “civilized or educated” than Spaniards, he could only redeem their pronunciation by pointing out that Spanish American writers and theater actors had accepted the same literary norms as had their counterparts in Spain. He added that it was “a pity” that pronunciation among the different countries had diverged so much.41 Such views were common in Spain and ultimately influenced the decisions of the studio executives who tried to calm the furor raised over accents and regionalisms in Hollywood’s Spanish productions. Some Spanish Americans in the diplomatic corps worried that excessive fighting over this point might threaten the Hispanic common front that would best serve the various countries’ interests in negotiating with the Americans over film trade policy. Thus, in early 1931 the consuls of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Uruguay, and Venezuela serving in San Francisco, California, published a joint letter addressed to the Spanish consul that affirmed “our love toward Spain and the living force which the Spanish language represents between our nations.” They stated their agreement with the principle that “pure” Spanish ought to be the norm of Spanish-language films, although they also affirmed that the Spanish of the “cultured classes of Hispanic America” was as “pure” as that of the cultured people of Spain.42 The Mexican consul did not join his colleagues. An editorial in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior praised this abstention. The consul had done the work he was sent to the United States to do: “to protect and help Mexicans to stimulate commerce and to favor the industry of our country.” In this article, with the telling title “Fake Hispanists with Bad Judgment,” the author mocked the consuls who signed the letter and refuted the existence of a “pure” Spanish or of a fully unified language. Although he noted that Cuervo’s prediction that the Spanish language would divide into different languages in the Americas had yet to come true, he suggested that many indications suggested it would come to pass.43

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Similar polemics over cultural identity between Spain and Mexico appeared frequently in the film trade press and popular press as writers in each country argued for their nation’s potential to take the lead in Spanish-language film production. The well-founded suspicion that at least some Spaniards working in Hollywood had an anti–Latin American and anti-Mexican bias (which formed the background to the controversy over Warner Brothers’ El hombre malo) contributed greatly to the war of the accents.44 This polemic also affected Spain’s proposal of a united Hispanic front to the invasion of Hollywoodmade Spanish-language films. Even prior to the actual meeting of the Spanish American Film Congress, the Mexican trade press had made clear that it would be shameful for the country to permit Spain its pretense of leadership.45 The editors of Mundo cinematográfico (Cinematography world) argued that Mexico should take the lead: Mexico, because it is the Latin American country located farthest North in geographic location, in civilization, in social advances (all the other Latin American nations are taking advantage of what our bloody revolutions have taught. . . .) [Mexico] should on its own initiative be the country which convokes this Congress. . . . Spain . . . was not the best suited country to interfere in Latin American problems. . . . Mexico and the rest of the countries of this continent have sufficient intellectual resources to defend their language and the experience and knowledge to deal with these matters without the intervention of far away countries . . . countries which hold us to be inferior and never tire of publicly proclaiming it.46

Although Mexico ultimately sent representatives to the congress, they clearly did not have the full support of the film sector in the country. Within Spain, some blamed the government for not following through on the goals of the congress while other observers suggested that the reason the congress failed in its goals was that the organizers had invited political representatives and had ignored the industry itself.47 One of the most influential film critics in Spain, Mateo Santos, publicly mocked the pretensions of the film congress, which he compared to a “house of cards,” and doubted that a film in any regional accent would be acceptable to Spanish-speakers elsewhere. Santos concluded that language was a red herring: the only way to unite film audiences was by giving them good films.48

Market-Based Responses: Santa (Mexico, 1931) Arguments heard at the Spanish American Film Congress often made a compelling case for the ideal of a unified Hispanic movie market. The organizers and participants correctly perceived that the introduction of sound into the cinema

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presented a new way to organize international markets and that economies of scale, in the form of coproductions, unified distribution, and the creation of a large “home” market, could enable them to compete with the U.S. film industry. These ideals had little chance of being achieved in face of the reality that none of the constituent countries had yet produced a successful sound film. Furthermore, although Spain devoted considerable effort to developing all areas of its trade with Spanish American countries throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, these efforts achieved only modest successes. The political, economic, and cultural influence of the United States continued to expand, and its power of attraction for the other countries of the hemisphere often proved irresistible.49 Still, the perceived possibility of a vast Spanish-speaking market, real resentment of Hollywood’s preponderance, arrogance, and ignorance, and nationalist sentiment combined to motivate many individuals to strive to jump-start domestic sound film industries where none yet existed. Mexico began full-fledged sound production in late 1931, followed by Spain in 1932 and Argentina in 1933.50 In Mexico, the general currents of economic and cultural nationalism that resulted from the institutionalization of the revolution and close proximity to the United States (and to Hollywood in particular) contributed to the desire to “oppose cinema with cinema.” Given the lack of domestic infrastructure (i.e., sound film studios or established production companies) and of direct government support, Mexican producers capitalized instead on the skills of Hollywood-trained professionals who could help ensure that the results would provide a return on the initial investment required to make a commercialquality sound film. The combination of the financial crisis in the U.S. film industry, which struck early in 1931, and the inconsistent reception of Hollywood’s Spanish-version films led all the studios to eliminate or to cut back their plans for further Spanish-language films. Many Spanish-speaking film professionals looked to Mexico as the best possible spot to exploit Hollywood’s inability to make culturally appealing films for Spanish-speaking audiences. These men and women would prove an important resource for Mexican film producers. Although Mexico for the most part turned a cold shoulder to Spain’s attempt to lead a pan-Hispanic film union, the country had its own high-minded idealists who hoped to inspire national film production through cultural initiatives. Those who founded Mexico’s first “cine-club” in May 1931 on the model of European cinema societies meant for their showings of “vanguard” and educational films to set the tone for a future Mexican cinema. However, “it was not the ‘propitious atmosphere’ created by the Cine-Club which favored the making of Santa . . . but the initiative of a distributor of foreign films, Juan de la Cruz Alarcón.”51 De la Cruz had fixed on the idea that Mexico’s first major sound film should be a remake of its first major silent film: the 1918 adaptation of Federico Gamboa’s novel Santa.52 De la Cruz took advantage of actress Lupita Tovar’s trip

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to Mexico to promote her first feature film La voluntad del muerto (The Cat Creeps, 1930) to ask if she would be interested in the project. The actress accompanied him and the journalist Carlos Noriega Hope to Gamboa’s home to ask his approval, which he gave. They also visited the village of Chimalistac and the old woman upon whom the original character was purportedly based. De la Cruz later traveled to New York to attempt to interest a major American production company in the project, but none committed to it. Thus de la Cruz and Noriega Hope sought out other Mexicans interested in the project. They, along with Gustavo Sáenz de Sicilia, a producer of silent films in the 1920s, Rafael Ángel Frías, a financier, and a few others, formed the Compañía Nacional Productora de Películas (National Film Production Company) in 1931.53 Although the atmosphere may have not been “propitious” according to the ideals of the Mexican Cine-Club, the moment had much to recommend it. It was still far from clear that Hollywood had completely given up on the production of Spanish-language films, but these films had begun to look like a project that could not succeed. Many of those involved in their making had either lost their jobs or were about to. Still, the intermittent successes of some of the later version films demonstrated that there was, indeed, a public for high-quality films made in Spanish. In August 1931, Baltasar Fernández Cue, a Spaniard who had worked on writing dialogue for Spanish versions at Warner Brothers (including El hombre malo), Fox, and Universal, published an article in the Mexican magazine El Ilustrado that diagnosed the ills of the Spanish-version films. He predicted that the moment was right for Mexico to start its own film production. “No country is better placed for it; [Mexico’s] proximity to Hollywood privileges it. In addition, an imposing majority of foreigners in Hollywood are Mexican, and they can bring their knowledge and experience to Mexican production.”54 Other writers in El Ilustrado argued forcefully that the experience of the Spanish versions showed that Mexican cinema could only save itself by expressing true Mexican culture rather than by looking to the model of Hollywood. However, in late 1931 and into 1932, as more and more of the stars who had worked on Hollywood’s Spanish films appeared in Mexico, Fernández Cue’s prediction seemed prescient.55 The decision to produce Santa accelerated this trend. The founders of the new Mexican production company followed the tactic that four of the American majors had employed when they initiated their Spanish-language filmmaking: they chose Antonio Moreno to lend his talents to the project. This time, however, he was asked to direct rather than to star. In spite of the controversy over El hombre malo, in which the Spaniard Moreno had played a Mexican, he was well received by the press. He brought, according to one article, “all his enthusiasm, all his artistic intelligence and all his Hispanic heart.”56 He also brought to the project extraordinary name recognition and decades of filmmaking experience.

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The producers sought out others who also had prior experience in the industry. Moreno had two assistants, Ramón Peón and Fernando de Fuentes, who both later became important sound film directors in Mexico. Peón had directed silent films in Cuba during the 1920s and had served as assistant director for Spanish-version films in Hollywood, while de Fuentes had become involved in the industry by managing two theaters in Mexico City. Lupita Tovar, the film’s star, had worked with Moreno when the two costarred in La voluntad del muerto. She had starred in Drácula and other Spanish-version films by the time she returned to Mexico to make Santa. The man chosen as the romantic lead in Santa, Ernesto Guillén, a Mexican who acted under the stage name Donald Reed, had also worked in a number of Hollywood films, both silent and sound. Alex Phillips, a Russian Canadian émigré, had worked as a cameraman on a handful of films in Los Angeles before being recruited by one of Santa’s producers to be the chief photographer and would ultimately spend the rest of his career in Mexico, shooting nearly two hundred films. Perhaps most notably, the sound system used for Santa was the invention of two brothers, Roberto and Joselito Rodríguez, who had worked as technicians in Los Angeles. Filming began in late 1931, and it was, by most accounts, a labor of love.57 The presence of the internationally known Moreno and the popular Mexican

FIGURE 12 Lupita Tovar in the title role of Santa, with Juan José Martínez Casado as

the bullfighter Jarameño (Mexico, 1932). Filmoteca de la UNAM, Clássicas del cine mexicano, DVD.

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actress Tovar created a buzz of publicity around the production. The cast included a series of then-unknown actors and actresses who would go on to be featured in numerous Mexican films. Filming finished in early 1932 and Santa premiered in Mexico City on April 10. Although Mexican society considered shocking the story of a country girl who was seduced, abandoned, and left with little choice but to become a prostitute, the film achieved considerable success at the box office. Agustín Lara, who composed the film’s music, had already gained notoriety (and popularity) for his daringly sensual songs, and his contribution to Santa increased its appeal.58 The film, made for 45,000 pesos, had earned 700,000 pesos by 1934, according to one of its producers.59 The momentum that the film’s production gave to the Mexican film industry also led a group of journalists to found a new film magazine. At Santa’s premiere, the editors handed around copies of the first run of Filmópolis.60 Santa marked the beginning of serious sound film production in Mexico. Six more sound films came out in 1932. Many were made by or featured professionals who were associated with Santa or who had come from Spanish-language filmmaking in the United States. The importance of these transnational networks and the reliance on the experience and technical skills of those trained in Hollywood troubled national critics. Two writers in El Ilustrado, even though the magazine was published by one of the film’s producers (Carlos Noriega Hope, who also adapted the screenplay), lauded the effort Santa represented but worried that the need to compete with American-made films showed too clearly. One wrote, concerning the difficult relationship, that the Mexican industry “should take advantage of all of [the American industry’s] technical accomplishments and its commercial experience.” It should avoid, however, hewing too closely to the “standardized” products of Hollywood and instead “make films . . . which interest all of Spanish America and Spain . . . films with American technique, but Latin substance.”61 Later critics also saw in Santa all of the “industrial deformities” that would plague the Mexican cinema, which they accused of pandering to the public rather than innovating a unique and truly national style.62 As much as film criticism within Mexico has tended to see Santa as excessively derivative, critics have recognized that the film inaugurated a major character type in the Mexican cinema: the tragic prostitute with a heart of gold, corrupted not by vice but by unfortunate circumstances. It is not surprising that de la Cruz had a hard time selling the project to an American producer. Although the Production Code was not yet in full force, the MPPDA had already begun its campaign to oblige the major studios to comply with its program of self-regulation to avoid losses due to local or national censorship. In order for Santa to play in New York City’s Teatro San José, the distributor had to submit a print of the film and translated dialogue to the state censorship board. New York’s censors approved the film only with the elimination of the scenes

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where Santa is first seduced and all scenes inside the brothel, in addition to other cuts. The reasons given were that the film included immoral scenes that might have a corrupting influence on audiences.63 The critically acclaimed Mexican film La mujer del puerto (The Woman of the Port, 1934), directed by Arcady Boytler, troubled the New York censors even more. They rejected it twice due to the centrality of prostitution to the film’s story line. Only after extensive cuts, including the film’s key revelation that the film’s heroine had had her own brother as a client, was the film approved on a third try.64 Although Santa received only limited distribution outside of Mexico, even just the news of its domestic success seemed to the editors of a Cuban trade journal to be part of a pattern. The success of Santa, the plans for two new film studios in Spain, and the serious projects already underway for sound films in Spain and Argentina were all steps along the path to “a real cinema in our language.” The editorial stated that even though “the Church is still in the hands of Luther,” as far as Hispanic cinema was concerned, progress toward the goal of high-quality cinema had been made.65 Carlos Noriega Hope, the film’s coproducer and script adapter, wrote in the magazine he edited that the effort invested in Santa demonstrated that “Mexico can be, and will be, the commercial center of Spanish-language cinema.” Noriega Hope used the article both to excuse the film’s defects and to defend it as equal to a film made in Joinville (Paramount’s studio in France dedicated to the production of foreign-language version films). He claimed Santa as a triumph for the Mexican cinema as an industry because “it was something that could be shown in all the cities where the people pray to Jesus Christ and still speak Spanish.”66 His description of this Spanish-speaking audience references a line from Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío’s famous “Ode to Roosevelt,” published in 1904, not long after Roosevelt’s acquisition of the Panama Canal project. The poem draws upon the oppositions that Spanish American intellectuals had begun to develop in the late nineteenth century between Latin America and Anglo-Saxon America: But our America, which since the ancient times Has had its native poets; which lives on fire and light, On perfumes and on love; our vast America, The land of Montezuma, the Inca’s mighty realm, Of Christopher Columbus the fair America, America the Spanish, the Roman Catholic, O men of Saxon eyes and fierce barbaric soul, This land still lives and dreams, and loves and stirs!67

These words also seem to inform Viamonte Fernández’s triumphant description of the successes of Spanish-language films among the Hispanics of New York City, who could recall that in Hispanic America people “live more slowly, love

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more strongly,” and still recognize God as a greater power than the falsity of a Hollywood happy ending. Anti-Americanism motivated Latin Americans to argue for a distinctive identity that, while it acknowledged and celebrated the indigenous (and, occasionally, the African) heritage, also emphasized a latinidad that implied an appreciation of the Hispanic inheritance.68 Although nationalism led Mexican critics, public intellectuals, and film professionals to stake claims for the preeminence of their industry and culture, particularly in the face of Spain’s bid to lead with its organization of the Spanish American Film Congress, the pressures of an international film market dominated by the United States made embracing pan-Hispanic solidarity difficult to avoid. The cultural hybridity of Hollywood’s foreign-language films and of films made by foreign nationals who had extensive Hollywood experience troubled critics who wished to stake claims for national cinemas. Even though Hollywood’s Spanish-language films experienced only intermittent or partial success, their production by a profit-oriented entertainment industry demonstrated the potential of niche marketing to destabilize notions of fixed national or ethnic identities. However short-lived the boom years of Spanish-language filmmaking in Hollywood, the experience had a fundamental role in shaping the notion of a Hispanic media market. Hollywood would not ignore the early successes of sound films in Mexico or shortly thereafter in Spain and Argentina, especially as studios realized that their strategies for translating English-language films were failing to eliminate this competition.

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Just after the end of World War II, American film studios began a new campaign to introduce voice dubbing as the standard mode of translation for films in Latin America. They hoped to take advantage of the economies of scale that could be gained from dubbing films into Spanish at their facilities in Los Angeles. This had only limited success. After nearly fifteen years of experience with sound films translated by titles or made directly in Spanish, critics and some audiences in Latin America reacted poorly to dubbing. In 1945, author Jorge Luis Borges wrote an essay titled “On Dubbing” in which he reflected on the new wave of dubbed films that had recently been released in Argentina. “There is no enthusiast of dubbing who would not wind up invoking predestination and determinism. They swear that this expedient is the fruit of an implacable evolution, and that soon we will have to choose between watching dubbed films and not watching films at all. The latter alternative is not so painful.” By contrast, Spain was a country where dubbing was the exclusive mode of translation for foreign film. Although partly due to laws imposed by Francisco Franco following the Civil War, dubbing had become the standard in Spain well before 1936. Much as Borges noted, some enthusiasts vastly preferred dubbing over titling. Borges also wrote that he had heard that dubbing was popular in the provinces. Cosmopolitan intellectual that he was, Borges imagined what it would be like to go to a movie spoken in a language one does not understand and without explanatory titles. He concluded that he would never consent to see a film such as Alexander Nevsky in anything but the original because dubbing constituted “a substitution . . . a deception.”1 Unfortunately for American film studios, few other moviegoers seemed to agree that translation was less important than artistic integrity. Attracted by the novelty of sound, non-English-speaking audiences had gone to see the first sound films made in the United States with little or no translation of the 102

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dialogue. That novelty soon wore off. The ubiquity of Hollywood film made dubbing and subtitling a predominant part of audiovisual culture in much of the world, and both modes of translation sparked contention since their introduction. Neither was fully satisfactory. In 1930, after just six months of grappling with the problem of adapting Warner Brothers’ film output for export abroad, Henry Blanke mused, “Taking one of these American pictures and trying to adapt it for the foreign market is like chopping up the head of a baby.”2 Whether characterized as an act of deception or an act of violence, these responses to film translation demonstrate the persistence of the language problem. Histories of the transition to sound hold that voice dubbing and subtitling effectively solved the crisis that spoken language had provoked for the international marketing of films. By about 1931, the argument runs, the standardization of these techniques, coupled with the disappointing results of version films, led to the end of Hollywood’s experiment with direct production in other languages. Despite the centrality of dubbing and titling to the global circulation of commercial cinema, very few accounts trace the history and impact of their development. Work that has been done favors the theoretical and aesthetic implications of dubbing and titling as acts of translation or are studies of contemporary media markets.3 For the complicated Spanish-language market, the introduction of improved dubbing and titling technologies did not coincide with the end of Spanish-language film production in Hollywood, nor did either solution successfully secure this market for Hollywood. Voice dubbing provoked many of the same cultural anxieties about language usage that versions had. Written subtitles, while cheaper and somewhat less culturally sensitive in terms of reception, failed to satisfy audiences where rates of illiteracy were high. While in Hollywood’s major European markets such as France and Germany, the split between dubbing for popular audiences and subtitling for elite audiences emerged by the mid-1930s, in the case of Spanish, other cultural constraints complicated this method of accommodating diverse audiences.4 Ironically, while dubbing and titling are held to have solved the problem of translation that had impelled version filmmaking, for the Spanish-speaking market, audience experience with Spanish versions and controversies such as the “war of the accents” compromised the later implementation of dubbing and titling. Ultimately, this would open space for locally produced Spanish-language films that played to popular audiences. A telling example of the possibilities created by defining film markets by language is the enormous success of the Spanish-speaking world’s most beloved film star—Cantinflas, the signature persona of Mexican actor Mario Moreno. Moreno’s career in the Mexican cinema had its origins in the struggles of the 1930s over how to market films to Spanish speakers. Mario Moreno’s Cantinflas character is often compared to Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp. This comparison is instructive. Chaplin, perhaps the most universally popular Hollywood star of

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the interwar years, resisted making dialogue films until well into the 1930s and even these continued to employ many conventions of the silent cinema. Mario Moreno, like Chaplin, excelled at physical comedy, but as Cantinflas he relied above all on an inimitable verbal patter that gave Spanish a new verb: cantinflear (to use as many words as possible to say nothing).5 In the famous final scene from the hit film Ahí está el detalle (There’s the detail, 1940), Cantinflas talks his way out of a guilty verdict at court by so confusing the trial’s judge and lawyers that they begin to imitate his style of speech. Cantinflas’s mixture of street slang, nonsense, puns, plays on words, and double talk has delighted fluent Spanish speakers for decades, even as this film, like most Cantinflas films, continues to defy efforts to translate it for the enjoyment of non-Spanish speakers.6 That a wildly popular film such as Detalle has never been dubbed or subtitled underlines the contradiction that lies at the heart of any translation: that which is untranslatable. In the years 1930–1935, when the American studios first had to face the challenge of adapting regular production for non-English-speaking audiences, they made version films as part of the response and simultaneously experimented with other modes of translation. They had to take into account diverse cultural-linguistic, national, and industrial circumstances. The number of speakers of a language, the rate of wiring movie theaters for sound, and national legislation concerning language usage in film all affected studios’ decisions about how to adapt films at the least cost and the best possible level of audience acceptance. This took place in the context of worldwide economic depression. Dubbing and titling may have coincided with the end of most language-version film production in Hollywood—and even Spanish versions were sharply curtailed—but the exceptionally difficult financial conditions facing the film industry do as much, or more, to explain the reduction of Spanish versions than do their purported shortcomings. The experience of the Foreign Department at Warner Brothers helps place the production of version films in the context of the development of subtitling and dubbing. An invaluable set of letters covering the period from 1930 to 1932 from the correspondence files of Warner Brothers’ head of foreign production, Henry Blanke, vividly details the time and budget pressures and limited information that studios had to make key decisions about how best to adapt films for non-English-speaking markets. Other studios faced similar difficulties as circumstances changed quickly. Audience preferences—one key factor—proved difficult to gauge, especially as they varied in different countries and regions. Published criticisms of titling, dubbing, and direct production in Spanish tended to view these processes as a continuum of modes of translation that seemed more or less unsatisfactory. While studios could gauge some factors objectively, audience preferences for different modes of translation varied wildly and were often difficult to separate out from reactions specific to an individual

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film or from press criticisms that did not always reflect the opinions of the wider audience. Indeed, Hollywood’s Spanish-language productions often performed best in rural areas or working-class urban neighborhoods—audiences whose opinions journalists and intellectuals held in low regard. Much as Borges had noted, dubbing also did well with these same audiences. More urban, educated audiences and especially critics writing in major journals and newspapers often rejected dubbing as strongly as they had rejected version films. Added to these multiple pressures and sources of uncertainty, the American film industry faced technical difficulties. Both post-synchronization (dubbing) of sound and the superimposition of printed words over a film image (subtitling) were techniques still being developed in these years and were, at the outset, both costly and of irregular quality. By the mid-1930s, the American industry’s failure to find a single, cost-effective mode of translation acceptable for the entire Spanish-speaking market helped create opportunities for locally made Spanish-language films.

Provisional Solutions for Foreign Audiences: Warner Brothers’ Foreign Department, 1930–1932 Henry Blanke and H. A. Bandy (heads of Foreign Production and Foreign Distribution, respectively) spent an inordinate amount of time and care on the production and promotion of the studio’s first Spanish-language film, El hombre malo. Mexican American and Mexican journalists mobilized against the film as part of a larger trend of resistance to Hollywood films, in general, and, more specifically, to American films’ (mis)use of the Spanish language and Hispanic or Mexican images. Warner Brothers placed great importance on the success or failure of El hombre malo both because it saw it as a test case for its Spanish versions and because it believed that any film that received excessive publicity would have a ripple effect on sales of other films. While individual films mattered, the studio tended to look at them as part of a slate of yearly production that had to be sold and promoted together. The Foreign Departments also had to balance the needs of different markets in terms of allocating time and resources to fine-tuning strategies. In 1930 through 1932, the Spanish-speaking market mattered to Warner Brothers because of its size, but the principal European nations were also of paramount concern because of their profitability. Version films were just one part of the package of films that the studio sought to place in its various markets. As much as studios may have cooperated in some instances through mutual associations, such as the Academy’s Committee on Foreign Production, they competed fiercely with each other for market share both at home and abroad. During the transition to sound, uncertainty led to an extended period of experimentation with different methods of translation and adaptation of

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films for foreign-language markets. Each studio devised its own methods for preparing a slate of films for foreign release and closely guarded this information even as it tried to gauge the successes and methods of the competition. Even before Blanke began work on foreign-version films in early 1930, Bandy had suggested that these films, while they would be excellent products in and of themselves, would also be useful for selling the regular output of American films.7 Indeed, no studio ever intended to supply foreign markets entirely with version films in the target language. Given that Warner Brothers initially planned to make just six versions each in Spanish, German, and French, it still had to adapt quite a few English-language films—over thirty in each of the two seasons considered here. Internal studio correspondence at Warner Brothers from early 1930 also stressed that the studio was behind on its preparation of films for foreign distribution; when Blanke started as head of Foreign Production, he was immediately under pressure to have films ready.8 Over the course of the following two years, the foreign distribution and production branches would exchange a series of accusations and explanations about the length of time it took for films to be adapted and shipped from the Burbank studios (where foreign production was located) to the foreign distribution offices in New York. The multiple requirements of the world film market, in addition to the separation of offices and roles between distribution and production contributed to tension in the two departments’ relations. The Production Department sought to work out the technical challenges of adding translation to sound films in such a way that the film remained as engaging as the original. Initially, Blanke was expected to oversee the production of eight to nine negatives of each film selected for export to send to different distribution points, where positive prints would then be made for foreign exhibitors. These requirements included three copies with dialogue for English-speaking territories (to ship to Canada, Australia, and England), three rescored copies for non-English-speaking territories (to ship to New York and Berlin), and two silent versions with titles (to ship to New York and England). Given that revenue for rentals of silent films was shrinking rapidly by late 1929, the studio looked forward to eliminating the preparation of a special negative for silent showings. Bandy pointed out in a memo to Jack Warner that this would save the studio hundreds of thousands of dollars.9 Economies of scale were always of primary concern. As this early memo suggests, the studio sought to make the process of translation and adaptation as efficient as possible. Thus, for non-English-speaking markets wired for sound, only “rescored” versions were proposed.10 The initial process described as rescoring films at Warner Brothers had little to do with subtitling in the form that has since become standard, where lines of text appear at the bottom of the screen and succinctly convey the dialogue. Bandy wrote to Blanke in January 1930, in his confirmation of their verbal discussions at a New York meeting when Blanke was first employed, that films

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for non-English-speaking markets must eliminate almost all of the dialogue and leave only brief phrases spoken just before or after songs.11 They thought nonEnglish speakers would appreciate songs, background music, and sound effects; early anti-English sound film campaigns in Europe and Latin America probably contributed to this decision as well. Rescoring also seems to have meant creating a new musical soundtrack for the film that would function more like the musical accompaniment that silent films had.12 An even more obvious persistent convention from silent films was the use of intertitles (i.e., frames inserted into the film with written dialogue or summaries) as the principal means of written translation. Some subtitling was used to translate song lyrics, but as Blanke quickly pointed out to Bandy in early 1930, it was much more expensive than inserting intertitles.13 For foreign versions of films, the intertitles served a dual purpose. They both translated the dialogue and physically took up some of the space on the image track. This offered the possibility of eliminating scenes where there was little action other than people talking. Indeed, Bandy stressed that these reedited films should “contain the greatest possible amount of action . . . [and] should be made by the ‘build up’ process, rather than by the ‘break down’ process.”14 This seems to refer to the reality of Blanke’s job title as head of Foreign Production. Given that they were inserting intertitles that took up the space previously occupied by moving images in the original, the Foreign Production Department had to make creative decisions about what to cut out in order to place a title, how many titles were necessary to convey the story, and how long titles should stay on the screen. At some point, Blanke’s crew also began to use some of the footage originally shot for a particular film that had not been included in the final cut.15 During the first several years of sound, directors often shot scenes with more than one camera set up so as to have multiple possibilities when it came time to edit the film.16 Such material was especially helpful for modifying sequences that had interest in the original version for audiences who could follow a long dialogue but did not have interest for an audience that had to read the essence of a dialogue. In early 1931, at a moment when Bandy’s office had been pressuring Blanke to speed up his work on preparing translated versions of films, Blanke reminded them that the goal was to make well-paced, action-filled films and not just straight translations: “We [have] tried to stuff up the rescored versions as much as possible when the original American picture was too short of footage.” While it would be faster to make films the same length as the original American version, Blanke pointed out this would mean “no added scenes, no additional silent reactions, no special and extra added titles, no switching and juggling of sequences, etc.” Clearly, when his department rescored and titled a film for non-English speakers, it was in important ways a different film from that with which they had started.17 Although the studio had hoped to find a single process to satisfy nonEnglish speakers, it quickly became clear that it had not. From the outset,

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Blanke and Bandy had some disagreements about how to make rescored versions. Bandy had advocated for the method described above, in which little of the original dialogue was left on the soundtrack. Blanke had wanted to leave most of the dialogue on the soundtrack, except where the intertitles were inserted to translate its meaning.18 This method had the advantage of allowing anyone in the audience who understood English to follow along; and, whether or not the dialogue was understood, the audience could hear the actual voices of the actors. By spring of 1930, when Foreign Distribution began to receive reports from its overseas branch managers on the successes of rescored versions of films, it decided to adapt films in two different ways. The studio continued to make rescored versions but also began to make what it labeled “X-versions.” These followed Blanke’s plan of leaving the dialogue in and, in consequence, doing less to reedit the film than with the other method. The demand for more dialogue came principally from the Spanish-speaking markets of Latin America, while in Europe rescoring was more popular. Thus, by mid-1930, Warner Brothers had begun to make X-versions for Latin America and rescored ones for Europe. By November this was the standard policy. This meant an extra expense, particularly because leaving the dialogue in meant that more of it had to be translated. For X-versions, a mix of intertitles and subtitles was used to translate dialogue (in rescored versions, only songs were translated with subtitles). Bandy believed that the extra expense of X-versions was justified by the size of the Spanish-speaking market and by the fact that all of the work could be done in the United States before shipping the films. Furthermore, if X-versions were what these audiences wanted, Blanke believed Warner Brothers could edge out its competition from other American studios for Latin American markets.19 Unfortunately, in neither Europe nor Latin America did the studio find audience tastes to be consistent. Bandy went on a tour of different territories in Europe and reported back in the spring of 1930 that he had found that each country seemed to want different types of movies.20 One of Bandy’s colleagues in Foreign Distribution, Karl MacDonald, wrote to Blanke that even in South America, where exhibitors had requested that more dialogue be left in, audience reaction varied considerably according to specific films. MacDonald concluded that it was anyone’s guess what foreign audiences wanted: “If we give them dialogue, they kick about it, and if we don’t give them dialogue, they holler for it.”21 Bandy argued repeatedly that the problem of audience reception had less to do with the merits of one or another mode of adaptation than with the films themselves. He observed that audiences were no longer attracted by the novelty of sound film and now wanted to understand the dialogues. He also emphasized the urgent need for a solution, given that the studio could not afford to lose the revenue from these markets: “Of course, the answer—as I wrote you some six months ago—is action and still more action. I talked to

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Mr. Jack Warner every time I saw him while he was in New York. . . . In my opinion, the Company which first solves this problem is not only going to make a terrific hit in foreign territory, but will give audiences in this country what they really desire.”22 Blanke’s department often had little choice but to select films to adapt for export that relied on dialogue to carry the story, especially because some action-filled pictures were rejected as having excessively local or American themes that would not appeal to foreign audiences. Still, they agreed with Bandy that many pictures were long-winded.23 Among those who worked for the major American studios’ foreign departments, this was a consensus viewpoint in the early 1930s.24 Both superimposed titles (i.e., subtitles) and intertitles posed the problem of slowing down a film’s tempo. Intertitles literally interrupted the action and took up space in films that were not originally conceived with intertitles in mind. Subtitles also took up space on the screen and took time to read. Blanke’s department at Warner Brothers had to experiment with titling even as it was being pressured to turn out films quickly to fill a slate for foreign distribution. Bandy suggested that they try screening the titled films with the sound off for someone who had never seen them before to check whether it was possible to follow the plot with titles alone.25 Intertitles involved more work, because of the need to reedit, than did subtitles; but in early 1931, superimposition of titles remained expensive because it involved reprinting parts of the negative through a matte process to add the titles. Still, at this point most studios used either intertitles or superimposed subtitles to translate their English-language films.26 In September 1931, Bandy returned from another visit to survey the European scene. He quickly wrote to Blanke that by chance he had found out that Paramount had developed an inexpensive method of printing subtitles on film. Bandy described the process as akin to a stamping machine that film could be fed through. The stamps, set with appropriate titles, were inked with an acid that removed the film’s emulsion and thus left titles printed directly on the frame.27 Bandy wrote that Paramount had consolidated all titling operations at its Paris facility and that this process had enabled it to avoid the reediting that intertitles had required. Bandy then proposed that they could do the same, and thus Blanke’s department would only have to supply a list of titles to be added to the films. Blanke immediately set a man at the laboratory to work on creating a similar machine. Still, this did not solve the problem of deciding how many titles were necessary to translate dialogue. Blanke also thought that using subtitles throughout would make some American films seem far too talk-filled, since intertitles had at least allowed some dialogue scenes to be shortened.28 Relying on subtitles also brought the studio back to the original problem of translation for a global film market: it required a unique version for each language. The use of intertitles to translate a film, whether silent or sound, had

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meant that those frames could be replaced with intertitles in the appropriate language. When Blanke’s department inserted intertitles into sound films, it did them in English. The titles were later translated into appropriate languages at one of the distribution spots mentioned above. As Bandy quickly noted after they began considering switching over to all subtitles, the cost for the Spanishlanguage market that used fifteen to twenty prints was reasonable, but for smaller, one- to two-print language markets, it was not.29 Nevertheless, the studio seems to have calculated that eliminating the costs of both time and money that reediting films with intertitles had involved was ultimately worth it, especially once it learned that other studios had switched over to subtitling. By late 1931 Warner Brothers already had plans to superimpose subtitles on ten to twelve films.30 At the same time, the studio began to be more interested in the possibility of using voice dubbing to translate some films. This interest grew out of improved techniques for dubbing and the effects of legislation in European countries governing foreign-language films. Initial attempts to dub the voices of English-speaking actors with a foreign-language sound track in 1929 and 1930 had failed with audiences. This had the effect of pushing some studios toward making foreign-version films. One important reason for poor audience reception was that the earliest method of dubbing films meant replacing the original sound track with a new recording. This resulted in a very poor synchronization between the image and sound tracks. Not until late 1930 was it possible to mix separately music, sound effects, and voices.31 European legislation, campaigns for which began in 1932, also played a role in American studios’ revived interest in dubbing. Italy would only accept films with dialogue in the national language, while Germany and France passed laws requiring that dubbing be done within the country. Such laws gave countries more control over the language used in films and had important economic benefits since they meant using national studios and employing national actors as voice dubbers. Spain threatened similar legislation in 1933 and 1934.32 Earlier legislation (either passed or threatened) in a few countries of Europe and Latin America had banned films in foreign languages. At the time, this had actually inhibited the development of dubbing because studios did not want to dub entire films. Songs were often left in English.33 Such legislation had also played a role in the development of the rescoring technique, which had removed much of the film’s dialogue.34 Once dubbing methods were improved, anti-English precedents served as an argument in favor of dubbing. At Warner Brothers, the Foreign Distribution and Production Departments moved into dubbing in 1932 primarily as a response to other studios’ use of the technique. In 1930, Bandy and Blanke had occasionally mentioned dubbing as a possibility, but both seemed to believe that the technique had proved ineffective. This view was common throughout much of the industry. “Dubbing is out

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for all time,” Variety reported in April of 1930. Bandy concurred and in July wrote to Blanke that dubbed pictures were obsolete.35 In this matter, however, as with other methods for dealing with the problem of translating films for foreign audiences, experimentation and uncertainty reigned. In August, Variety announced “Dubbing’s Comeback on Coast” in an article that described some trials by Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Apart from concerns about the quality of the soundtrack, this article also discussed another common caveat on dubbed films: the assumption that close-ups could not be dubbed. “New plans for dubbing will entail the reshooting of close-ups in these pictures. Idea is to have the players learn their lines in the foreign tongue and recite them while being photographed silent in these shots. This is to eliminate a lack of synchronization with the lip movement in the spots where it would be most noticeable.”36 Blanke and Bandy also worried that, given the differences between languages, a dubbed voice could not be synchronized adequately. This common belief led some studios to dub films in Italian from their Spanish versions, on the assumption that the similarity between the languages would make dubbing more effective.37 Their fears persisted into 1932, even though they had been closely following the development and spread of dubbing at other studios since 1930.38 By early 1932, Blanke had learned from a colleague at MGM who had too much to drink that MGM planned to dub a whole slate of pictures for the upcoming season.39 In March of 1932, Blanke wrote to Bandy that he believed dubbing was the foreign market’s only hope. Still, he continued in the same letter to argue that close-ups would have to be substituted with other material for dubbing to work. Blanke, Bandy, and Sam Morris, a chief executive at Warner Brothers, all thought that dubbed films, like those that they had been titling, could only be effective if the amount of dialogue in the original film was reduced. They also debated among themselves whether dubbing work should be done in Europe or at their studios in Burbank. Blanke, in particular, worried that re-recording facilities in Europe were simply not as good. This soon became a moot point. Although the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) had advised early in 1932 that publicizing the use of dubbing might lead foreign governments to ban the process, ultimately, those European countries that passed laws to regulate dubbing chose instead to require that dubbing be done within the country. In May of 1932, Warner Brothers decided that any dubbing work would have to be done in Europe because of French quota legislation.40

Dubbing and Subtitling: Spain versus Latin America Dubbing cost significantly more than did titling, but only about a third of what direct foreign-language production cost. It required investing in technology and facilities and employing actors for their voice talents. Given the cost, studios

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had to consider whether particular language groups merited the expense. Although Warner Brothers made plans to begin dubbing by mid-1932, its major interest was France and Germany. It did not think Italy a large enough market to merit the cost, nor did it even mention dubbing for the Spanish-speaking market. Even MGM, which had ambitious plans to dub into French, German, and Italian in early 1932, did not plan to send dubbed films to any Latin American country. Nor, apparently, did most studios.41 While the triumph of dubbing as a way to solve foreign market problems had received big headlines in the trade press, such articles tended to refer to the lucrative markets of Hollywood’s traditional European competitors only.42 In spite of the large size of the Spanish-language market, in the early 1930s studios had no plans to dub for this market as a whole. Spain was a special case. Spain’s emergence as a dubbing country resulted from its proximity to France, its relatively high rate of wiring, and domestic developments. In 1931, after Paramount had decided to end its production of multiple-language films at Joinville, it converted those facilities into dubbing studios. Some actors who had been under contract to make version films were then shunted directly into dubbing work. Paramount’s first film dubbed into Spanish appeared in late 1931. In 1932, Paramount announced plans to dub more films into Spanish at Joinville even though audience rejection of dubbing initially ran higher in Spain than in France or Germany. This seems to have been because audiences remembered earlier attempts at dubbing in 1930 that had used poorly translated dialogues and a mix of national accents and expressions. For dubbing at Joinville, Paramount used actors from Spain.43 Paramount’s incursion into dubbing for Spain sparked competition. In 1932, a Spanish company started a dubbing studio that soon began to dub films for several American majors. In 1933, MGM built its own dubbing studios in Barcelona and an Italian businessman who had built Italy’s first dubbing studios opened facilities in Madrid. Two of Spain’s first sound-film production studios that date from this year used their facilities partly for dubbing to supplement their production business. By 1935, Spain had thirteen studios devoted at least in part to dubbing.44 Private initiative sparked this boom in dubbing, but the national government indirectly supported its expansion.45 Investors in these companies and the actors, translators, and technicians employed by them lobbied the government in the early 1930s to pass legislation making it mandatory that any dubbing be done within the country. Although the Spanish government only discussed such legislation in the early 1930s, this possibility (which had been realized in France, Germany, and Italy) motivated American countries to dub in Spain rather than in the United States. Because Spain had wired for sound more quickly and broadly than had Latin American nations, rural audiences were already customers for sound films in the early 1930s. Illiteracy rates even in Spanish cities ran up to 40 percent,

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and among women in rural areas, it approached 80 percent. Dubbing had important advantages for such audiences.46 Film journalists resented this tendency and stated the class conflicts involved in stark terms. An article from 1934 stated that rejection of “ventriloquist cinema” had forced dubbed films out of first-run theaters and into village and neighborhood cinemas. How, then, the author asked, could it be fair to propose a law (then being debated in the Spanish parliament) that would require film dubbing, given that the process existed only to help illiterates understand films? After all, the article continued, all spectators “with good taste” had rejected dubbing.47 In spite of a very hostile anti-dubbing press campaign in Spain prior to the Civil War, dubbed films prospered at the box office. By 1935, one trade magazine reported that one of the American companies that did not want to dub films for Spain was having a hard time renting its films in that country due to audience preference for dubbing.48 Furthermore, the host of technicians and voice dubbers employed in such work became a significant and entrenched interest group. As of 1941, Francisco Franco made dubbing in Spanish mandatory as part of a campaign to impose a unified national identity built upon the suppression of regional languages, and thus he cemented a prevalent prewar practice. In the early 1930s, the American film studios did not make serious efforts to export Spain’s dubbed versions to Latin American countries. Titled versions were doing well there and none of the region’s governments had suggested requiring that any dubbing be done locally. More importantly, American studios were convinced that films dubbed with the voices of Spanish actors would prove unacceptable to Latin Americans. They had, of course, just experienced the controversies provoked by language usage in their Spanish versions. A bulletin from the Department of Commerce that was distributed to film studios summarizes these points and makes the suggestion that dubbing would have to be done in each country. It stated simply that it was “a well known fact that there is a slight amount of resentment between the various Spanish-speaking countries concerning the accent of each nationality.”49 The few attempts made to show dubbed pictures in various Latin American countries during the mid1930s failed with most audiences. Of the country summaries collected by U.S. trade officials from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru that specifically make mention of audience preferences, most state that audiences strongly dislike dubbing, while only the Dominican Republic and Paraguay are described as tolerating it.50 Given the economic conditions of the early 1930s, dubbing a unique version for even the major Latin American countries was not an option. Much as with version films, however, the reception of dubbed films in the early 1930s was deceptively weighted toward the preferences of urban audiences, given that rural and smalltown audiences had little access to sound film theaters. Even the above-cited report from the Department of Commerce noted that using dubbed films in the

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Argentine provinces had led to increases in profits of 300 to 400 percent. The problem, however, was that the majority of earnings from Argentina came from Buenos Aires.51 In 1943 through 1945, American film studios made a major attempt to assert dubbing as a means of translation for Latin American markets. They did so in large measure as a response to the tremendous successes of Mexican and Argentine films throughout Latin America. Although the Argentine industry had begun to falter by this time due to a punitive embargo of raw film stock imposed by the United States over the country’s decision to remain neutral for most of World War II, the studios knew that strong demand for films in Spanish by provincial audiences had seriously hurt their market share.52 Film journalists in Latin America knew it, too. A 1945 article summarized the history of competition for the Spanish-language market by pointing out that by the mid-1930s, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina had begun to make very popular films. While Spain had been knocked out of the competition due to its Civil War, Mexican and Argentine films continued to prosper, “especially in the neighborhoods and in the provinces, and even in first run theaters.”53 Due to this threat of competition, studios invested considerable effort in ensuring the quality of dubbed versions. Warner Brothers employed Luis Buñuel to supervise its Spanish dubbing, while MGM had writer Octavio Paz working on its.54 The studios ran into the combined difficulties of audiences who had grown accustomed to the actual voices of major American stars and were used to subtitles as the norm and the perennial problem of a lack of a neutral version of Spanish acceptable throughout the Americas. The studios had some success in selling exhibitors on a mixed program of dubbed and subtitled films to accommodate the different tastes of urban and rural, upscale and neighborhood theatergoers.55 As in the 1930s, high rates of illiteracy among some sectors of the population made dubbing a more attractive option. Even to the present day in Latin America, subtitles and dubbing are both common forms of translation.56 In Spain, on the other hand, dubbing is the norm at an overwhelming majority of theaters and for television.

The End of Large-Scale Spanish-Version Production in Context This history of subtitling and dubbing helps provide context for understanding why studios had cut back on or eliminated Spanish-version films in 1931. In 1934, one journalist from the film magazine Cinelandia summed up some of the principal complaints about Hollywood’s Spanish version films: “Audiences were hostile to films that spoke their language but had nothing to do either with their present or their future and could not manage to please fans. . . . [A]udiences complained, and with reason, because when the marquee had Greta Garbo’s name, even with subtitles, it sold more than a version in Spanish with widely

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varying accents.”57 Such assertions reflected what critics believed was wrong with versions. When most studios stopped making them, it became easy to claim, in retrospect, that audiences had shared these views and failed to patronize versions. The article might have gotten it right if it had attributed these complaints to critics rather than audiences. As we have seen in chapter 2, extant profit information shows that more Spanish-speaking audiences went to see at least some of the version films in greater numbers than they did to see Garbo with subtitles. Still, many historians of Spanish-language cinemas have concluded from such contemporary evidence as the above quotation that Spanish versions failed principally for reasons of poor cultural reception. Historians of the American film industry who have analyzed the international situation more broadly have concluded that foreign-language production was simply too costly and was replaced by the cheaper methods of dubbing and subtitling.58 Although both accounts stress important factors in the decisions that studios made to reduce or eliminate Spanish (and other foreign-language) versions by the end of 1931, they overlook other factors specific to the moment and, although some note the persistence of Hollywood Spanish-language versions after 1931, do little to account for the anomaly. In part, confusion over the real reasons for the sudden reversals of policy on Spanish films by the major studios reflects the uncertainty and lack of coherent and reliable sources of information from which the studios themselves suffered throughout the period. In 1931, studios were fully aware of controversies in the Spanish-language press over the appropriate accent and regional usage of Spanish in films. They had also read many negative reviews of films by critics who objected to the falseness and low quality of many version films. At the same time, the film industry, which had earlier been buoyed by massive profits from domestic audiences for sound films, had finally begun to feel the effects of the Great Depression. Quite a few went into receivership, while all began to economize on productions.59 Furthermore, foreign revenues took a precipitous dive because of the dramatic devaluations of numerous world currencies and new laws that limited the amount of currency foreign companies could export.60 A United Artists’ report on the situation in Chile and Argentina offers a stark example of just how much the economic conditions had squeezed its profits. In 1930 and 1931, as the transition to sound got under way in Latin America, the company had its own exchange to distribute films directly in Chile. By 1932, the exchange rate had dropped precipitously and currency controls made it nearly impossible to take any profits out of the country, leading to United Artists’ decision to close the exchange and sell film rights outright to exhibitors. The money made from this had to be smuggled out and benefited United Artists more than their customers: as the report recognized, buyers could not make a profit at the prices United Artists was charging and were going broke. Even so, United Artists was not doing much better. In a 1936 report from

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the Argentine unit (a territory that included Chile), the company posted losses in both 1932 and 1933, and even after 1933 profits did not reach the levels of the years 1928–1931.61 Circumstances such as these did not favor foreign-language production plans, especially as methods of dubbing and subtitling were, indeed, improving. The experience of Warner Brothers illustrates the pressures under which studios were operating at this time. The studio had very poor early results from its first Spanish-version film, El hombre malo, and had agreed to make decisions about continuing version productions based on this film. Bandy reiterated this position to Blanke in January 1931 in a letter in which he reviewed where other studios stood. Bandy believed that other studios either had already or were about to cancel their Spanish productions, but he thought they should continue to make them if they either made money or “materially assist us in selling our English dialogue versions.” He concluded, “We are in business, as you know, to make a profit.”62 Given the worldwide economic crisis, it soon became very difficult for Warner Brothers, or any other studio, to make a profit off its foreign markets, irrespective of the films on offer. Already in the spring of 1931, Blanke’s department was affected by cuts that eliminated workers. Blanke cited this cost-cutting as an important cause of the delays in shipping prepared films to New York for foreign distribution.63 By October, Blanke was again faced with personnel cuts. Blanke sent in a list of his workers and their duties, most of which consisted of making rescored and X-versions.64 Not long afterward, when Bandy was debating the merits of using intertitles versus subtitles, he emphasized that they absolutely had to find ways to economize on how they adapted films for foreign markets. Currency exchange rates were falling and had undercut revenue, especially from nonEnglish-speaking markets. It was this concern that led Bandy to conclude that superimposed titles were the better choice since they involved less labor. Even so, he doubted it was worth it for small language markets.65 Once the studio had adopted a policy of using superimposed subtitles for much of the world and dubbing for France, Germany, and, later, Spain, all done within those countries, it could save a considerable amount on devoting production facilities in California to preparing foreign adaptations. By late 1931, Blanke had already been assigned to work on English-language film production (the start of his successful career as a producer at Warner Brothers) in addition to his duties on foreigns.66 Early in 1932, further economy measures took another victim: Bandy “resigned” his position and his duties were given to Sam Morris.67 Given the pressures that studios were under to cut costs during this period, and that low returns from foreign markets made it difficult to make specially adapted products profitable, it is hardly surprising that they reduced or eliminated direct foreign-language production at this point. What is surprising is how much they vacillated over whether this was the correct course of action,

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especially for Spanish-language films. Even an oft-cited article from Variety in late 1930, which proclaimed a “Sad Outlook on Foreigns” and suggested that it was unlikely that studios could ever break even on foreign-language versions, had made an exception for the case of Spanish.68 Studios knew that some Spanish versions had been major hits. Their doubt about the Spanish markets stemmed from their fears that popularity was not enough. Latin American currencies were very weak, and ticket prices were quite low throughout the region. Furthermore, the rate of wiring theaters for sound was proceeding more slowly than in Europe. Thus, however many Spanish speakers there were in the world, they only counted, as far as film studios were concerned, if they had access to a movie theater that could show sound films.69 This last factor proved to have a crucial, but unforeseen, consequence for Spanish-language filmmaking. While urban centers in Latin America had movie theaters wired for sound by 1930, it took years for cinemas in smaller provincial towns to make the costly conversion. In 1932, just over 60 percent of movie theaters had converted to sound. In the two most important Spanish-language markets, Argentina and Mexico, only a third of theaters had wired for sound.70 Interest in the Spanish-language market increased over time as more theaters in Latin America became wired. The rate of wiring affected the general conception of the market’s value and the concentration of production efforts.71 Argentina and Mexico, in particular, and South America, as a whole, had greater value for exports than had Spain at the end of the silent period. Because theaters throughout Spain wired more quickly than those in any Latin American country, Spain’s reception of Hollywood’s Spanish-language productions gained an early and disproportionate importance relative to the country’s population and economic conditions.72 The slow but steady wiring of theaters throughout Latin America meant that distributors could rent films profitably over the course of about three years in the 1930s.73 It also meant that the market for sound films grew over a much longer period of time than had been the case in the United States or Europe. The ever-increasing importance of this market also had implications for the kinds of films produced, whether in Hollywood or in other countries. As more theaters in these countries and others began to wire for sound, a dramatic split between the tastes and preferences of urban (especially at firstrun theaters) and neighborhood or rural audiences began to emerge. In Latin America, provincial audiences consistently expressed a stronger preference for films in Spanish. Higher rates of illiteracy made subtitles unappealing for these audiences, and unlike the often cosmopolitan elites in cities, they were generally less critical of mass-produced Hollywood entertainment.74 It took time for American film studios to realize that their Spanish-version films fared differently according to the audiences and that reviews published in the capitals could be misleading.75 Ironically, prior experience with complaints about

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language usage related to version films later influenced studios’ initial decisions to avoid the use of dubbed films in Latin America—precisely the market where dubbing would ultimately have the best potential to satisfy the growing numbers of spectators outside of major cities. As Carlos Borcosque, a Chilean journalist and film director who had worked on some version films, noted in 1932, critics and popular audiences had rarely coincided in their tastes, and some of the most criticized of Hollywood’s Spanish-language films had been among the most successful.76 While version films seemed to many cultural critics a particularly pernicious form of cultural imperialism, dubbed films and subtitled films from Hollywood also caused concern for cultural nationalists. Juan Piqueras, one of Spain’s most sharply critical writers on the cinema and the publisher of an influential film journal, dismissed the controversy over dubbing that began to emerge in the press in 1932 as a misplaced patriotism and probably the result of particular economic interests. The effort spent arguing, first against versions and then against dubbing, would, he predicted, later be spent on subtitles. None of this, he argued, made any difference. In his view, only educating the tastes of the masses to appreciate good films and, better still, making some in Spain could reverse the invasion of Hollywood.77 Throughout the Spanish-speaking world, others came to similar conclusions. In the mid-1930s, as economic conditions began to stabilize, the vast Spanish-speaking market remained a temptation.

6 bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

Fox Film’s Prestigious Spanish Productions, 1932–1935

From 1932 to 1935, just as other studios eliminated most foreign-language production, Fox Films expanded its Spanish production slate. During this period, Fox moved toward a greater number of original productions and, above all, granted far more authority to the Spanish-speaking stars and writers it employed to work on these projects. By giving greater control to these film professionals over some projects, Fox Films opened space for them to pursue their own cultural agendas in ways that their American producers did not understand. Because these professionals enjoyed increased autonomy, they found themselves responding to cultural politics in the Spanish-speaking world from what looked like a compromised position within the powerful, and mistrusted, American film industry. Even the hardest working and most influential members of Fox Film’s Spanish Department during this period displayed ambivalence about the projects in which they were engaged. Suspicion that all of Hollywood’s glitter hid a darker reality pervaded cultural criticism of the industry in the Spanish-speaking world. Fox Films produced a remarkable series of films during this period that made money at the box office and sometimes garnered critical respect, but the complicated cultural politics of a tenuously united Spanish-language film market proved difficult to navigate. Fox Films made the decision to continue—and expand—its production in Spanish due in part to the early commercial successes of musicals starring Mexican tenor singer José Mojica. Fox had found a true movie star in Mojica. The eleven films in Spanish he made for the studio were wildly popular. They decisively demonstrated that American studios could make money on films intended exclusively for Spanish-speakers. Yet in perhaps the starkest gap between popular and critical reception for Hollywood’s Spanish-language fare, critics widely panned Mojica’s films. Even Mojica complained of the quality of scripts he had to work with and the incomprehension of English-speaking 119

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producers for the tastes of a Spanish-speaking audience. Early success at the box office allowed him to assert more control over his later projects, and two of his final films for Fox incorporated stories that held deep meaning for him. Fox’s decision to move into making films that addressed some of the cultural criticisms leveled at Hollywood’s version films also came about due to the effective arguments made by a group of writers from Spain that higher-quality films could succeed for the Spanish-speaking market. Early on, several established playwrights, including José López Rubio and Gregorio Martínez Sierra, had worked as dialogue adapters for the version films made in 1930 and 1931 at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Both switched to Fox in late 1931, where they worked on the film adaptation of Martínez Sierra’s play Mamá, one of the few original productions made exclusively for the Spanish market during the early years of versions. Although Fox also suspended version production for a time during 1931, López Rubio and Martínez Sierra worked to convince producers at Fox that they could succeed in the Spanish market if they gave greater freedom to the writers who adapted the scripts. They succeeded only partially. The studio still sought to make movies with popular appeal, such as the light musical comedies of Mojica or the Brazilian actor Raúl Roulien, the other popular leading man with whom Fox had great success. Films featuring these two actors also helped counter the impression that Hollywood studios favored Spain over Latin America—a charge that had come out of the “war of the accents” during 1930 and 1931. Yet many of the Fox films were set in fantasy or “exotic” locales. Even so, some of Fox’s productions sought to respond to the most serious criticism of earlier Spanish-version films—that, although spoken in Spanish, they failed to resonate with Hispanic cultural sensibilities. For a few special projects, Fox gave an unprecedented amount of artistic control to actors and writers working on Spanish productions. The three most unusual and high-profile films include La cruz y la espada (The Cross and the Sword, 1933), Nada más que una mujer (Pursued, 1934), and Angelina, o el honor de un brigadier (Angelina, or the brigadier’s honor, 1935). The first took place on a mission with a story about colonial California, the second featured Berta Singerman, a performer famous throughout the Spanish-speaking world for her declamation of poetry, while the third was a farce set in nineteenth-century Madrid and spoken entirely in verse. These films attempted to engage with Hispanic culture in ways that went far beyond the version films of 1930 and 1931. Ultimately, however, simultaneous attempts to appeal to popular tastes, to satisfy critical scrutiny, and to avoid cultural missteps or the appearance of favoritism for any one group within the larger Spanish-speaking market often meant that the studio worked at cross-purposes. These tensions, which would contribute to the decision to close the Spanish Department in 1935, were not due only to the cultural limitations of Hollywood’s understanding of Hispanic peoples. Similar challenges would face producers throughout the Spanishspeaking world when they sought to make films with broad appeal.

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Fox’s Spanish-Speaking Star: José Mojica Fox Films owed much of the success of its Spanish productions to opera star José Mojica. Mojica proved to be the biggest box-office draw of any Spanish-language film star of the early 1930s, with the possible exception of Carlos Gardel, the tango singer who made a series of very popular films for Paramount prior to his death in 1935. Mojica consistently appeared on lists of the top male stars among Latin American audiences in the 1930s, and sometimes as the only Spanish-speaker represented.1 During the years Mojica worked for Fox Films, from 1930 through 1934, he gained greater control over his choice of projects. Mojica’s career in Hollywood ended not from a lack of professional opportunities, but rather because he decided to devote himself to the Catholic Church. He considered the 1933 film La cruz y la espada, in which he played a Franciscan monk—the role he soon after took up in real life—his most important movie. Its production, however, owed much to the changing strategies of Fox Film toward its Spanish-speaking markets. José Mojica was born in a provincial Mexican town in 1894 to a woman from a well-to-do family who had an affair with a married man. The stigma of illegitimacy and the consequences of a later disastrous marriage to another man led Mojica’s mother to take him to Mexico City. An excellent student, Mojica entered the prestigious Colegio Nacional de Agricultura for his secondary education. However, the tumult of the Mexican Revolution ultimately interrupted classes so much that they were suspended. In the meantime, Mojica took the opportunity to take classes at the Conservatorio Nacional.2 His career as a tenor in the opera prospered, but the difficult conditions in Mexico led him to try his luck in the United States. Still in his early twenties, Mojica became a major star with a long-term contract at the Chicago Opera, concert tours, and a record deal with RCA Victor. Mojica cut a striking figure on stage and was highly photogenic. Before long, his fan mail occupied a full-time secretary.3 When sound came into the cinema, Mojica realized that it presented an opportunity for a man of his qualifications. Sometime in 1928, he traveled to Los Angeles to film some screen tests at various studios, where he sang in both English and Spanish. Back in Chicago, he soon received offers from several studios, but only Fox sent someone in person who had been instructed to offer Mojica more than the other studios. He later wrote that he accepted a contract for forty weeks and nearly $80,000. It was actually somewhat less, but still a star salary by Hollywood standards.4 Both the amount and the date of his signing by Fox (mid-1929) suggest that the studio planned to exploit him in English-language films. Indeed, they first assigned him to an English-language musical titled One Mad Kiss, in which Mojica was to star, along with Antonio Moreno and Mona Maris. The plot was loosely based on a story about Lola Montes, a dancer from Spain who had become Ludwig I’s (king of Bavaria) lover. The film’s original

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director proved unsuitable, and some of the material filmed was scrapped. Once the producers decided to reshoot some sequences, they had the new director simultaneously film sequences in Spanish. The resulting version, El precio de un beso, became Fox’s first Spanish-language release.5 Fox Film’s first Spanish version came about partly by accident, but it set the studio on a fortuitous course. Like other studios in 1930, Fox Films decided to undertake a season of direct production in Spanish. Unlike the others, Fox

FIGURE 13 Members of Fox Film’s Spanish Department: (left to right) producer John

Stone, actor José Mojica, and writers Gregorio Martínez Sierra and Miguel de Zárraga. Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

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chose to focus on Spanish and held off on productions in other languages. The tremendous box-office success of El precio de un beso confirmed for the studio early on that Spanish productions could turn a profit. In other respects, Fox’s early Spanish-language efforts resembled those of most studios. From 1930 to 1931, Fox made twenty-three films in Spanish: eighteen feature-length films and five short films. Of the eighteen features, fourteen were straight versions produced at approximately the same time as the English-language originals. Three others, films in which Mojica starred, were adapted from scripts that had been used for silent films in the late 1920s. (Studios commonly reused scripts, which were often extensively adapted by in-house writers, to save on the cost of buying the rights to a new screenplay.) Just one film did not derive from an Englishlanguage script. Of the short films, four were original stories and were made exclusively for a Spanish-language audience. By contrast, from 1932 to 1935, the studio made twenty-two Spanish features, of which only two were straight versions and the rest were original productions for the Spanish market.6 The same complaints that dogged many studios’ Spanish-version films also applied to those made by Fox. Although some of its versions succeeded with audiences, not all of its projects seemed to reflect any particular interest that the stories might have for a specifically Spanish-speaking audience. For instance, in the 1931 Fox film Eran trece (Charlie Chan Carries On), Spanish actor Manuel Arbó plays the Chinese American detective Chan. He is supported by a multinational cast of Spanish-speakers who embark on a round-the-world tour only to find there is a murderer among them. The film is notable for the inclusion of a brief and seemingly improvised sequence where Brazilian actor Raúl Roulien entertains the rest of the cast with imitations of different nationalities in song. After this film, Roulien began to star in Fox’s later Spanish-language musicals. While Roulien played the stereotyped part of the Latin gigolo in his one major English-language role in Flying Down to Rio (1933, as Julio Ribeiro), in most of his films in Spanish for Fox, he played the lead role as an Anglo-American or European character in unspecified or fantasy settings. Asegure su mujer (Insure your wife, 1934), a comedy about a scheme to offer insurance against marital infidelity to worried husbands, seemed to be set in a major American city; El último varón sobre la tierra (The Last Man on Earth, 1932) is set in an unidentified country of the future dominated by women (after the extinction of all men—but one!); while another film, Granaderos del amor (Love grenadiers, 1935) takes place mostly in an imagined flashback to Austria during the Napoleonic era. Similarly, Mojica played parts as a highway man in London, a Cossack in Russia, and a prince of Arabia, among others. When the studio did choose films with a Hispanic setting or topic, such as El precio de un beso, these films often confirmed critics’ suspicions that Hollywood studios had little regard for Hispanic cultures even when they were

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FIGURE 14 Raúl Roulien, in the role of Max Minchin, doing an impersonation of an Argentine tango singer in a scene from Eran trece (1931, version of Fox Film’s Charlie Chan Carries On). Twentieth Century–Fox, Cinema Classics Collection, DVD.

engaged in making movies specifically for that market. When production began on the Spanish version of One Mad Kiss, Mojica objected to the composers for the film’s music, who “only wrote American music, and at first turned out atrocious [songs], masked as ‘Spanish,’ which I refused to sing.” Mojica and his accompanist wrote new songs for the film that would “give the Spanish-speaking public something with a genuine flavor and would please in Argentina and in Mexico as well as—and with more reason—in Spain.”7 Carlos Gardel also wrote that in his experiences with Paramount Pictures, even with a contract that granted him some control over his films, he still had terrible problems with the directors assigned to the projects. Gardel’s script writer and lyricist, Alfredo Le Pera, described the making of El día que me quieras (The day you love me, 1935): “the usual things started, the clash with the director who does not understand, changing the situations, dehumanizing and clowning them.”8 This ultimately led to bitterness on the part of the Argentine participants, even though the film was a huge hit with audiences. In spite of such conflicts, Mojica’s films (and Gardel’s) exemplified one of the paradoxes of Hollywood’s Spanish-language productions: some of the films that received the worst reviews in the Spanish-language press had the most

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success with audiences. Mojica’s El precio de un beso was a case in point. Fox had test-marketed the film in San Bernardino, a small California city with a large Mexican American population. Mojica was pleased to see how well received his film was by “the common people,” upon whom, he wrote, “depended the true success of a cinema artist.”9 The Hollywood-based Spanish-language film magazine Cinelandia savaged it. “The film’s subject and acting are nearly worthless and prove only two things: that Mojica has a splendid tenor voice and that each of the actors has a different accent. . . . That the set design and costumes are ‘españoladas’ [stereotypically Spanish] is incomprehensible for a film that they plan on sending to our countries.”10 In one of the few magazines in Mexico that published independent film criticism rather than paid publicity pieces, respected critic Luz Alba wrote that the film was the worst yet of Hollywood’s Spanish-language efforts. She berated Mojica for his effeminate style and affected songs and described the film in general as an attack on the Spanish language.11 The audience at the film’s premiere in Barcelona booed the film, and the reviews were so bad that Fox sent Mojica to Spain to make a personal appearance and to discover what had gone wrong. What he discovered, by the time he arrived, was that the film had broken box-office records throughout Spain, as it would in most Spanish-speaking countries where it played.12 While the opening-night audience had been made up of the city’s elites, who despised the film, regular audiences found it very attractive. Mojica attributed the negative reactions to nationalist jealousy on the part of Mexican critics, who saw him as a sell-out to Hollywood, and to dismay by critics elsewhere at the film’s stereotyped use of Spanish elements. As Mojica correctly observed in San Bernardino, critics could not make stars, but audiences could. He had similar experiences within Mexico. In Mexico City, “Hollywood’s Spanish films were considered ridiculous and horrible,” and even his musical concerts suffered as a result, whereas in Guadalajara, “in a neighborhood movie theater, with cheap tickets, there were as many people waiting outside as those inside the theater.” The tremendous success of his first and subsequent films ultimately gave Mojica enough clout to demand and receive a percentage of the profits on some of his films.13 Mojica exaggerated a bit when he claimed in his memoirs that Fox founded its Spanish Department because of him, but he was not far off.14 Fox Films, like other studios in 1930, had multiple reasons to undertake foreign-language production. When the others cut back on these productions, Fox Films decided to continue its Spanish Department because of Mojica’s box-office possibilities. Variety reported in 1931, “The future for Spanish versions is hazy. Fox maintains Spanish will get a break, but this is due to the success of Mojica in ‘Mad Kiss,’ and maybe one other film which pleases the public outside the immediate center.”15 Fox Films could have followed the same strategy as Paramount Pictures, which cut almost all foreign-language production with the exception of a series

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of films in Spanish starring its one sure money-maker: Carlos Gardel. Even Warner Brothers, the major studio that made the fewest Spanish versions in the early period, took note of Mojica’s success. In 1934, Warner Brothers made two original Spanish-language films that starred Enrico Caruso Jr., son of the worldfamous Italian tenor. Both films imitated successful Mojica films, but Caruso did not catch on with audiences. Nevertheless, from 1932 on, Fox did not just seek to exploit Mojica’s popularity. From 1932 to 1935, he starred in only six of twenty-two Spanish-language features that Fox produced. Of these twenty-two films, two were straight versions (made at the same time as an English-language production) and just four were adaptations from silent scripts the studio owned. Nine were based on entirely original screenplays, and the other seven were adaptations of Spanish plays. This shift away from making films in Spanish that merely imitated English-language releases represented a new strategy of making higher-quality films. Mojica benefited from this. By 1932, after having made five films for Fox, he was able to negotiate a contract in which he had some control over the choice of project and its musical composition.16 He used this power to great effect for the two films he ultimately considered his best: La cruz y la espada and Las fronteras del amor (Frontiers of love, 1934). Both had deep personal interest for him. Fronteras was the quasi-autobiographical story of a Mexican tenor who retires to his ranch in Jalisco (Mojica’s native state) to escape the pressures of fame and meets a young American woman who, without realizing his true identity, falls in love with him. This film, Mojica’s last for Hollywood, accurately reflected his increasing desire to leave the life of celebrity behind.17 The project that meant far more to him was La cruz y la espada. Although as a child he had been as devoted a Catholic as his mother, he later wrote that his experiences in Mexico City’s public schools, where the teachers hammered home liberal critiques of Catholicism, drove him away from the Catholic Church. By the time of the Mexican Revolution, he was experimenting with spiritism, as did other followers of the revolution’s first leader, Francisco Madero. He dabbled with other alternative religions during his early artistic career.18 By the mid-1930s, however, disillusionment with fame and fortune had increasingly led him back to the Catholic Church. He grew interested in the life of Saint Francis and in the Franciscan order. During a visit to Mojica’s home, Miguel de Zárraga, one of Fox’s Spanish Department writers, picked up one of his biographies of Saint Francis. Zárraga suggested that Mojica play the part of a Franciscan in a film. Although he liked the idea, Mojica insisted that his producers would never accept such a project— particularly because they were Jews (this and other anti-Semitic references are suppressed from the English-language translation of Mojica’s autobiography).19 Zárraga told him not to worry and wrote a screenplay set in the missions of California, perhaps counting on the recent revival of interest in these missions

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as tourist sites and markers of a romanticized Hispanic past.20 Nevertheless, Mojica correctly predicted that his producers would not want him to play anything other than a romantic lead. According to his autobiography, the intervention of Gregorio Martínez Sierra, a writer and de facto supervisor of the department at Fox, saved the project. Martínez Sierra insisted that “for a Spanishspeaking audience, a movie with a religious theme would not just be acceptable, but a sure success.”21 The argument that the movie would appeal to all Hispanics because of a fundamental cultural characteristic won the day. Mojica was delighted with the chance to use his fame to advance the cause of the Catholic Church, particularly in his native Mexico. The year before making Cruz, Mojica had planned on using some of his earnings to smuggle arms for the Cristero movement in Mexico.22 This plan had fallen through, but with Cruz, Mojica could reach an audience of millions.23 In the film, he plays a Franciscan monk at one of the missions of Alta California. He suffers a series of temptations, from an interest in his friend’s fiancé to a lust for money and power following his accidental find of a vein of gold in the hills. During a final confrontation with his friend, who believes that the monk took advantage of his absence to seduce his fiancée, the Franciscan refuses to fight. As his friend lunges at him with a knife, the monk puts up his hand to ward off the blow and the knife nails his hand to the door. The sight of the monk’s hand bleeding next to a small crucifix hung on the door brings both men to full repentance. The Franciscans of the mission church at Santa Barbara, where some of the film was shot, were pleased enough with the film to sponsor a benefit showing. In addition to its religious message, the film glorifies the legacy of Spanish imperialism. At the beginning, a voice-over prologue sets the historical scene for the viewers. “The civilization of California is owed to heroic Franciscan Fathers, armed only with the Cross, and led by the glorious Father Junípero Serra. They Christianized the Indians without enslaving or oppressing them. Each of the Missions they raised on virgin land was a monument to Peace and Harmony; a hymn in stone to Faith, Culture and Progress. . . . The Hispanic Spirit put down immortal roots in this paradise on earth.”24 Mojica, in his autobiography, had associated the propagation of the “black legend” of Spanish colonialism with the anti-Catholic liberalism of his primary school teachers.25 For reasons such as this, Mojica was especially pleased that the film did extremely well even in revolutionary Mexico.26 The film also served to deepen Mojica’s own religious commitment. After just two more films with Fox, he left the studio. Although he made another two films in Latin America in the late 1930s, his vocation led him to take vows at a Franciscan monastery in Lima, Peru, in 1941. Ultimately, he put his talents entirely at the service of the Catholic Church, giving concerts to raise money and writing the story of his conversion, Yo, pecador . . . (I, a Sinner): a book which became an international bestseller and was made into a movie during his lifetime.

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Embracing the Broader Market: Appeals to Latin America Mojica’s unease with his life as a movie star was well known, and his possible retirement from films was announced several times. Fox Films took care to cultivate other stars and other kinds of projects. It especially worked to combat one important complaint that its Spanish Department had faced: the studio discriminated against Latin Americans in favor of Spaniards. Fox Films, more than other studios, was accused of having favored Castilian, particularly because the studio had originally relied on recruiting talent from the Spanish stage for many of its early version films. By 1931, Fox began to change its policies in regards to the casting of its Spanish-language films. Fox tried to buy out the contracts of some actors from Spain and sought to replace them with Latin Americans. Raúl Roulien, a Brazilian who spoke fluent Spanish, became one of its most popular stars. John Stone, who was the head of Fox’s Spanish Department, traveled to Mexico and South America on several occasions both to observe how film industries there were developing and to scout for talent and possible film projects.27 The studio reportedly employed Miguel de Zárraga’s wife, Elena de la Torre, to read and recommend film projects based on the works of major Latin American authors.28 In 1934, Fox ran a highly publicized screenplay contest soliciting original Spanish-language scripts—the winning author was a Brazilian woman.29 From the evidence of the films Fox actually produced, some of this apparent embrace of Latin America was merely publicity—but not all. In the summer of 1934, the studio made Nada más que una mujer, a film overtly calculated to appeal to Latin Americans by featuring the Argentine performer Berta Singerman and including her declamations of poetry drawn from works that spanned the Americas. This film was a most curious turn toward the high culture of Latin America, although its intentions were somewhat compromised by the studio’s contradictory impulse to fit Singerman’s talent for declamation into a hackneyed tale of virtue and love, lost and redeemed in a South Seas setting. Nada más opens with the protagonist Mona Estrada (played by Singerman) arriving by boat to Ropangi, an island only to be found on a map in a screenwriter’s imagination but supposedly located in the Philippines. The Englishlanguage version, Pursued, upon which Nada más was based, had located Ropangi in Borneo, then part of the Dutch East Indies. In Nada más, however, the Philippines setting helps naturalize the use of Spanish. The choice of language is emphasized in a humorous bit at the film’s start. Two American tourists disembark in Ropangi and try to ask for a hotel room from a rickshaw driver in nearly incomprehensible Spanish: “Señor, nosotros querer to tener como dormir cama nosotros” (literally, “Sir, we like to to have as sleep bed us”). Mona, who follows them off the boat, commands another driver, “Llévame al Cabaret Oriental” (Take me to the Oriental Cabaret) and swiftly establishes both her

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linguistic belonging and her woman-of-the-world persona. She ignores the exotic surroundings and the stares of sailors. When she arrives at the cabaret, she tells one of the showgirls that she is looking for work. When the owner, Madame Laskar, appears to look Mona over, she asks her what she can do: “Do you sing?—No. Dance?—No. Then, what is it you do?” Mona answers, “I say verses. . . . I recite.” Madame laughs at the idea of poetry recitals in her cabaret but grudgingly agrees to let her audition. Mona climbs up toward a balcony overlooking the club and begins to recite the poem “La rumba” by Cuban poet José Zacarías Tallet: Zumba mama, la rumba y tambó mabimba, mabomba, mabomba y bombó Cómo baila la rumba la negra Tomasa cómo baila la rumba José Encarnación Ella mueve una nalga, ella mueve la otra, él se estira, se encoge, dispara la grupa . . . [The rumba and drum are buzzing, mama mabimba, mabomba, mabomba y bombó Oh, how Tomasa the black dances rumba, oh, how José Encarnación dances rumba. She moves a buttock, she moves the other he stretches, contracts, tosses the rump, the belly over one, then the other heel.]30

As Mona performs her recital, the scene fades from an audition in the early morning to a nighttime performance before a rapt audience at the cabaret. This introduction to Mona’s dramatic use of expressive inflection, gesture, and movement serves to convince the viewer, as much as the madame, that the narrative conceit of reciting poetry in a cabaret is convincing. Or, perhaps more accurately, her compelling performance of this and other poems helps make the viewer more willing to overlook the film’s flimsy plot. Contemporary Spanish-speaking audiences, however, would not have needed an introduction to the talents of Singerman, whether or not they had ever seen her perform. Singerman was a major star in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries from the late 1910s through the 1950s. Singerman was born in Minsk at the turn of the century, and her Russian Jewish family emigrated to Argentina while she was still a small child. Singerman, as the name suggests, came from a long line of cantors who sang in the temple. Singerman was a child prodigy who began performing in theaters from the age of seven. She studied declamation as a teenager and by 1921 was touring South America giving poetry recitals. She was a true mass phenomenon, attracting crowds often numbering ten to fifteen thousand in venues such as Mexico City’s Plaza de Toros, the Malecón in Havana, or the Retiro

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FIGURE 15 Berta Singerman performing “La rumba” in a scene from Nada más que una mujer (Fox Films, 1934). Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Gardens in Madrid. Although as a child she had recited primarily Yiddish poetry, she began to expand her repertoire to include classics by poets such as Rubén Darío or Charles Beaudelaire and later began introducing the modern poetry of Latin America and Spain.31 Singerman established close relationships with many key figures of Hispanic literature and the arts: Alejo Carpentier and Nicolás Guillén in Cuba; Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral in Chile; Federico García Lorca, Manuel de Falla, and Ramón del Valle Inclan in Spain, to name just a few. Valle Inclan wrote of Singerman in an oft-quoted phrase: “Singerman has a rare mastery that harmonizes voice, attitude, and gesture into a single emotion.”32 Singerman also founded her own theater company and, in the late 1920s, was responsible for some of the first performances in Latin America of plays by Jean Cocteau, Jean Anouilh, Henrik Ibsen, and others. She had a particular impact in Brazil, where she became one of the muses of Brazilian modernism.33 She also helped to popularize, through her performances, works of poesía negra from Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Brazil, including in her repertoire poems by Guillén, Luis Palés Matos, and Jorge de Lima, among others.34 Tallet’s “La rumba,” used in the film, was one.

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Singerman had no special connection to the cinema, although she had a role in an early Argentine silent film.35 She came to the attention of Hollywood when a tour took her to Southern California, where she gave recitals in Pasadena, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in the summer of 1934. A review in the Los Angeles paper La Opinión raved over her dramatic performance of the poem “Los pregones de México” (Street cries of Mexico). Singerman created a “blessed moment of nostalgia that erased fourteen years of exile, pulling us out of the feverish rush of Los Angeles, to make us awake—just for a moment—on the streets of Mexico . . . ours, intensely ours.”36 Sal Wurtzel, a producer for Fox Films who oversaw the Spanish Department, was also in the audience.37 Wurtzel then invited her to do a screen test at the studio and shortly thereafter signed her to a contract for one film with the studio, with the option to make two more.38 The contract and the choice of Singerman’s first project suggest that while the studio was willing to take a chance on the high art appeal of the performer, it was not going to commit itself to a new kind of film art. While the film features Singerman reciting her poetry, the scenes are shoehorned into a conventional plot. Singerman recalled being quite dismayed when she realized the kind of script that the producers had chosen for her film debut, and she blamed herself for “the stupidity” of having agreed to accept their choice of script without first having read it.39 Nada más que una mujer was the Spanish version of the Englishlanguage film Pursued, starring Rosemary Ames, released while the Spanish version was still in production. One of the industry trade magazines, the Hollywood Reporter, called Pursued “hopeless drivel.”40 The film told the story of a cabaret singer (converted into a performer of poetry in the Spanish version) in a South Seas dive who rescues David Landeen, an American who has been beaten and left for dead in the street so that the film’s villain can steal the plantation Landeen has inherited. Because Landeen is left temporarily blind, the singer does not tell him what she does for a living but rather pretends to be the daughter of a wealthy island planter. Complications ensue, but true love triumphs in the end. While the script was weak, Singerman was happier with the choice of director (Harry Lachman), cinematographer (Rudolph Maté), and writer for the Spanish version (Enrique Jardiel Poncela). Lachman, in addition to directing, was a respected painter. Maté, who would become one of the most highly regarded cinematographers of the 1930s and 1940s, had recently arrived from Europe, where he had become known for his photography on Carl Dreyer’s 1928 The Passion of Joan of Arc. In Nada más, his use of canted angles and extreme highand low-perspective shots emphasize the dark side of the story’s nightclub setting. Jardiel Poncela, a talented humorist, made the best of a bad situation by injecting notes of humor into an otherwise weak script. Singerman also had the Chilean actor Alfredo del Diestro as her costar. He had recently appeared as the main character of the critically acclaimed Mexican film El compadre Mendoza (Godfather Mendoza, 1933).

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The publicity materials for Nada más que una mujer emphasized repeatedly the film’s multinational Latin American cast that belied the assertion that Fox disdained these nationalities.41 The film’s setting, a port town, helped to make the mix of accents and nationalities less incongruent. Still, by far the most notable effort of the film to play to the national pride of Latin Americans was in the choice of poems for Singerman to recite. In addition to Tallet’s “La rumba,” she performs “Los pregones de Buenos Aires” (“Street Sellers’ Cries of Buenos Aires”) by Alberto Vacarezzo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s “Hombres necios” (“Stubborn Men”), “Tutu-Marambá” by Olegário Mariano, and “Los que buscan olvidar” (“Those Who Seek to Forget”) by Gabriela Mistral. These poems represented, respectively, Cuba, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, and Chile. Singerman helped to choose the poems for inclusion in the film and used her influence to convince authors to give Fox the necessary copyright permissions.42 The resulting film is extraordinary in many respects, particularly because it is one of the very few documents in existence of any of Singerman’s performances. It appears to have been only moderately successful. Fox did not choose to pick up the option for Singerman to make further films. Reviews from the Spanish-language press suggest that the incongruity between Singerman’s poetry recitals, along with her enormous prestige as an artist, and the conventional plot was simply too great.43 In Buenos Aires, one reviewer wrote that the film continued to display all the faults of Hollywood’s Spanish productions, “lack of care with plot, direction, details, and often, casting,” with the exception of Singerman’s performances.44 A Mexican reviewer of the film wrote, “Let the reader imagine Singerman . . . declaiming the verses of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in a dive that they say is in the Philippines but smells from a distance like China.” As the same critic noted, in spite of his indignation over the inadequacies of the film’s plot and setting, Singerman, or any performer, faced a difficult task trying to satisfy “the Latin American audience, mother Spain, with her dialects and s’s . . . Argentina, with her Buenos Aires, and . . . her million Italians and their tangos . . . the Caribbean Islands, with their mulattos . . . who speak . . . with guttural reminiscences of Mother Africa, etc. and one realizes that trying to satisfy everyone is like trying to plug the holes of a sinking boat with chewing gum.”45 In Nada más que una mujer, the producers tried to satisfy all these publics by acknowledging their various cultures in the film’s narrative and its cast, but the plot failed at naturalizing these elements. Still, Singerman noted in her autobiography that “while the film might not have pleased me or demanding viewers, the truth is that it did well with the broader public in the Americas.”46 As her remark suggests, the split between elite and popular audiences was persistent and profound.

Fox’s Spanish Playwrights Although Fox made a publicized commitment to include more Latin American elements in its Spanish productions, the staff writers were all Spaniards and all

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playwrights. They won the confidence of their producers at Fox and gained an unprecedented level of control over the Spanish productions made from 1932 to 1935. They included Miguel de Zárraga, José Lopéz Rubio, Gregorio Martínez Sierra, and Enrique Jardiel Poncela. Zárraga was a minor figure who worked more in journalism than in literature and had been in the United States since the 1910s. As a writer, director, and producer, Martínez Sierra had reshaped Spanish theater during the first three decades of the century and also had enormous commercial success with troupes that toured both Spain and the Americas. López Rubio and Jardiel Poncela, on the other hand, were in their early thirties when they came to work for Fox. Both became noted humorists and were considered part of Spain’s literary “Generation of ’27.” While employed at the studio, these writers were discreet in their public comments about the film projects of their department. In later interviews and private sources, they were more forthcoming about their impressions of Hollywood and Fox Films. Their reflections demonstrated a high degree of ambivalence about their place in the American film industry and the limitations on the cultural authenticity of the films they made. Nevertheless, for López Rubio and Jardiel Poncela, the time spent in Hollywood shaped their later work for both the stage and screen. The influx of a group of young Spanish playwrights to Hollywood owed to the influence of Edgar Neville (1899–1967). In the late 1920s, Neville, an aristocrat, served as a diplomat for the Spanish government in the United States. He first visited Hollywood on a vacation in 1928, bringing with him a letter of introduction from the head of the Spanish consulate in Los Angeles. Neville quickly became friends with a number of major stars, including Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and, above all, Charles Chaplin. Neville had already begun to establish himself as an author, but he was entranced by the possibilities of the cinema. Although he had nothing but contempt for sound films at the beginning, he understood the possibilities of the Spanish versions. He got a contract with MGM and adapted the dialogue for the highly successful version El presidio (The Big House, 1930) and later for En cada puerto un amor (Way for a Sailor, 1931). Neville did not work on any more films in Hollywood, returning to Spain in 1931 to begin a career in the Spanish cinema. Before leaving, however, he used his influence to convince Irving Thalberg to offer contracts to several of his friends. These included writers José López Rubio, Antonio de Lara (“Tono”), and, almost, Miguel de Mihura—who had to decline the offer due to poor health. When the Royal Spanish Academy inducted López Rubio in 1983, he used his speech as an opportunity to dub this group of men (plus Jardiel Poncela) as “the other Generation of ’27, the humorists.” Until then, the term had been associated with the work of poets such as Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, and Luis Cernuda, among others.47 Neville also recommended Gregorio Martínez Sierra to the studio. Martínez Sierra (1881–1947) was of an earlier generation of playwrights and may well already have been known to studio executives. In the late 1920s, his

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company performed in Spanish at a New York theater, and his most famous play, Canción de cuna (Cradle Song), was produced on Broadway in 1927 (it was made into an English-language film by Paramount in 1933). He received a contract from MGM in January 1931. After MGM ceased its Spanish versions, Martínez Sierra moved to Fox in the summer of 1931. He had enormous clout there. Even though he actually deserves less credit as an author for his work than he was given at the time (biographers have concluded that his wife, Maria Léjarraga, wrote many of his plays, and his colleagues at Fox did most of the screen adaptations), some accounts credit him with convincing the studio executives that version films were doomed to fail and that Spanish-language films should be based on original material.48 At Fox, Martínez Sierra persuaded producers to make a film of his play Mamá with Catalina Bárcena, his sentimental companion and a renowned actress who had starred in many of his stage productions. He also had Spanish director Benito Perojo brought in for the project, although Perojo ultimately left the studio prior to the film’s completion in disgust at what he perceived as his American supervisors’ lack of concern for quality. Still, the film, which got good reviews in Spain (although it was panned in Buenos Aires), seems to have done well at the box office.49 Over the next three years, Bárcena was featured in seven Fox films in Spanish, five of which were based on plays credited to Martínez Sierra. The two were by far the best paid of anyone in Fox Film’s Spanish Department, with the exception of Mojica.50 On all of these projects, they worked closely with López Rubio and Jardiel Poncela. José López Rubio (1903–1996) had the longest career of any writer for Spanish-language films in Hollywood. Also on the recommendation of Edgar Neville, he was first given a contract at MGM and moved to Fox in 1931, where he would work until 1935. He adapted at least twenty-four films in Spanish between the two studios. In 1936, during an interview with a Spanish film magazine, the journalist asked López Rubio what had caused the failure of the version films of 1930 and 1931. López Rubio responded, “There was no such failure! Commercially, that is. The movies had made money; but there was a sort of fearfulness, and of course, a lot of confusion. Instead of looking for stories that would work for our audience and hiring good actors, which was the logical thing to do, they decided to suspend production. It’s true that a lot of the Spaniards were to blame.”51 When he went to Fox in 1931 to work on Mamá, he explained that he and other Spaniards were still fighting to convince their producers that the language used in Spanish films should be correct Castilian. He attributed Fox’s temporary halt in making Spanish films in mid-1931 to this fight between Latin Americans and Spaniards working for the studio and to Spaniards fighting among themselves for jobs and influence. However, after meeting with Fox executives in Paris and convincing them that he and his Spanish colleagues should have more control over productions in their language, he received a new

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contract. He said that from that point on he had more decision-making power and that everyone began to work with much greater enthusiasm.52 In a much later interview, he described their major achievement as having convinced Fox to abandon versions in favor of original works.53 One measure of López Rubio’s new power of decision was that he extended an invitation to another young Spanish playwright to come work for Fox in 1932. Enrique Jardiel Poncela (1901–1952) had begun to establish himself as an idiosyncratic humorist with successful plays and novels such as Usted tiene ojos de mujer fatal (You Have the Eyes of a Femme Fatale) and Pero ¿hubo alguna vez once mil vírgenes? (But, Have There Ever Been 11,000 Virgins?). At Fox, Jardiel Poncela wrote the dialogue for films such as Mojica’s La melodía prohibida and Singerman’s Nada más que una mujer. He also acted as dialogue director on some films, an important role on a set where the actual director of the film generally did not speak Spanish. He did not care for most of these films. He wrote of one, the 1934 ¡Asegure a su mujer! that featured Raúl Roulien and Conchita Montenegro, that it “could have turned out all right” after he had fixed the script, but it did not. He wrote home to Spain in a private letter that, “like always, they have taken out the good and left in the bad and added things that were worse than bad. If that wasn’t enough, the cast is disgusting. Nobody speaks Spanish in the film and the result is a mixed Anglo-Brazilian-Chilean-Mexican-Argentine salad that makes one sick. . . . The story is a German comedy robbed from the French, translated by a Pole and destroyed by the Americans.”54 Despite his qualms about some of his work for the studio, Jardiel Poncela clearly proved his worth to his superiors. After his first contract expired in 1933, he received another for a higher salary and a longer term. Shortly after his work on ¡Asegure a su mujer!, he was told that the studio would make a film of one of his plays.55 Angelina o el honor de un brigadier (Angelina or the honor of a brigadier) was adapted from Jardiel Poncela’s play of the same name that he had written in Madrid during 1934 when he was between contracts with Fox. He recalls that its composition grew partly out of his dissatisfaction with the cinema, “the perforated reptile” that prevented him from working on other projects. He had concluded that films could never achieve artistic perfection unless the writer was also the director, production supervisor, and editor.56 Perhaps he had made similar arguments to his bosses at Fox. In early 1935, John Stone told him he could make Angelina and “you’ll do the adaptation, pick the actors, sets, furniture and take care of the art direction. Louis King will take care of the technical part.”57 The studio had already chosen the star, however. Rosita Díaz Gimeno had worked in Martínez Sierra’s theater company in the late 1920s, appeared in some of Paramount’s Spanish versions made at its Joinville studios, and then worked in early sound films in Spain. Fox representatives traveled to Spain to sign her for two films. By her account, it was she who suggested a short list of plays she thought would be suitable. Among these six were Angelina and a play

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titled Rosa de Francia (Rose of France) by Eduardo Marquina and Luis Fernández Ardavín. Fox would produce both.58 Jardiel Poncela’s high level of control over the film version of Angelina reflected an important commitment on the part of the studio. The play was recent, not well known outside of Madrid, and spoken entirely in verse. It parodied a genre of plays common on the late-nineteenth-century Spanish stage; and its language, as was a hallmark of Jardiel Poncela’s work, was filled with humoristic wordplay. The action concerns a brigadier who has just returned from service in the Philippines (still a colony of Spain in 1882, the year in which the play is set). His sudden reappearance complicates his wife’s love affair with another man, who, in turn, unable to make love to the wife, takes an interest in the brigadier’s daughter. She, the Angelina of the title, is engaged to a young poet but soon decides to elope with her new suitor. Ultimately, the brigadier and the scoundrel fight a duel, in which the scoundrel, of course, dies—but then reappears as a ghost, along with the ghosts of the brigadier’s father and mother, whom the scoundrel then seduces. Apparently, the producers at Fox were worried about the dialogue in verse, but López Rubio convinced them that that was where the humor lay. It is unlikely, though, that Jardiel Poncela’s producers at Fox understood what he was up to with this work, or the way that it mocked outmoded Spanish theatrical conventions and would ultimately open up space for new modes of theatrical comedy. Likewise, Mojica’s producers probably did not realize the kind of intervention into Mexico’s internal struggles over the role of the Catholic Church that he hoped to make with La cruz y la espada. Nevertheless, the creative freedom that Fox’s Spanish Department had on a few of these projects paid dividends in higher-quality films. Angelina has been judged one of the

FIGURE 16 Advertisement for a showing of Fox Film’s Angelina (1935) at the Capitol in Barcelona. Collection of Jorge Finkielman.

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best of all of Hollywood’s Spanish-language productions. At the time, a wellknown Uruguayan film critic wrote of the film, “If anyone had told us a year ago that we would include a movie spoken in Spanish on the list of the year’s best cinema, we would have called a psychiatrist. . . . But miracles do happen in this world.”59 These gains did not always offset the negative perceptions of Hollywood’s Spanish productions so often featured in the Spanish-speaking press. When Jardiel Poncela gave an interview to a journalist in Spain shortly after finishing Angelina, he went out of his way to explain that the production of Spanishlanguage films looked very different from inside an American studio than from Spain. He explained that Americans were not rude, nor did they hate Spaniards; they simply had a different psychology and knew very little about Spain. He also explained that Latin American culture was gaining in importance at Fox studios and that this had led to the tendency to universalize even clearly Spanish works.60 No doubt his comments responded to persistent criticisms of Hollywood-made Spanish films even when they were based on Hispanic themes and settings. Critics in Spain, which was disproportionately represented in Fox’s Spanish Department, continued to take the Fox films of the mid-1930s to task, even those written and largely acted by Spaniards. One such piece criticized the films of Martínez Sierra with Catalina Bárcena as not being “Spanish in the deep, profound, racial sense of the word Spanish,” which the author attributed to both “the hostile atmosphere toward everything Hispanic that reigns in Hollywood” and the implicitly traitorous greed of Martínez Sierra and Bárcena, who had done nothing for the “rebirth of Spanish cinema.”61 As Jardiel Poncela had pointed out, hatred toward Hispanics did little to explain the persistence and expansion of Fox Films’ Spanish productions. Still, the difficulty of appealing to a broadly defined Spanish-speaking audience did lead the studio to make movies that tended toward light entertainment, cosmopolitan or historical settings, and stories with universal appeal, often by drawing on plays that had proved popular on the Spanish-speaking stage. Fox seemed to have found a moderately successful mix of Spanish and Latin American elements. However, the department struggled to make the films with a limited budget. In early 1935, as a result of Fox Film’s severe economic difficulties, the whole department had its salaries cut in half. According to Jardiel Poncela, the possibility of making another of his plays into a film fell through partly because he did not think it could be made on the budget proposed. When he left for Spain during the spring of 1935, he did not yet know if the following season’s budget would be approved. The department had planned six more films (two each for Mojica, Roulien, and Bárcena), but the studio eliminated Spanish in the summer of 1935 when the company’s financial problems led to a merger with Twentieth Century.62 José López Rubio’s adaptation of Rosa de Francia would be the last film made by the Spanish Department.

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Undoubtedly, the new chief of production, Darryl Zanuck, played a role in the elimination of the Spanish Department because he was instrumental in forcing Fox Films to streamline all of its production plans after the merger and concentrate on the studio’s strengths. Still, by 1935, at least one report on the fate of Fox’s Spanish Department attributed plans to eliminate it to the increased competition for screen time in Latin America from better-quality locally made movies. These films could “appeal to the strong national spirit in selling them to audiences.”63 The competition from these other national film industries would soon prompt Hollywood studios to devise new strategies for dealing with the continuing world demand for Spanish-language films. In the 1930s, as today, the extent to which common cultural ties unify the peoples broadly defined as “Hispanics” (the Spanish-speaking peoples of Latin America, Spain, and diasporic communities elsewhere) is an open question. Fox Films confronted the question of how to sell to a Spanish-language market in a way that went beyond simply trying to solve the problem of translating films. While some of Fox’s Spanish productions continued to attempt to appeal to audiences with sophisticated light entertainments set in the United States or Europe, many others took up the more difficult problem of how to play to Hispanic tastes without privileging one portion of the Spanish-speaking market at the expense of another. Rather than appealing to current social realities or markedly national concerns, Fox’s Spanish films from this period drew on high art traditions and the cultural legacies of the Spanish empire. These moves undoubtedly responded to calls for higher quality and for more respectful Spanish productions, but they also were in accord with dominant Anglo-American perceptions, particularly, a pervasive belief in the superiority of Spain’s contribution to the cultures of the Spanish-speaking world. This, coupled with the tendency toward using cosmopolitan themes and settings for films as a way to make them attractive to a multinational market, continued to mark these films as products of Hollywood that sought to entertain, rather than engage. In the 1930s, an era of intensifying nationalism, this often seemed insufficient.

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By the mid-1930s, Hollywood had begun to learn that neither its own films in Spanish nor translated films in English had eliminated competition from native producers of Spanish-language films. Ever resourceful, some American film companies decided that what they could not beat, they would join. The United Artists Company took the lead in developing coproduction and distribution deals for films made in Spanish.1 In a 1936 speech delivered at United Artists’ sales meeting in New York City, Arthur Kelly, the vice president of United Artists, recognized that conditions had changed: “Instead of fighting national production (by other countries) United Artists . . . is encouraging these local producers, helping them to raise the level of their product, offering them an international outlet for their pictures. . . . You’ve got to realize that the time has come when we can no longer dump 40, 50, 60 pictures into a foreign country, grab our money and run. It’s a put-and-take proposition these days. We must give some of that money back!”2 Other American companies also used this strategy. The studios controlled distribution networks in much of the world and could use this strength to also gain influence over production in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. This change in tactics bought American studios a share of the profits and an important measure of power over the competition for the Spanish-language film market, but it was no victory. Kelly put the best possible spin on the situation, but, as he pointed out, the American film industry had lost part of what it had formerly dominated. Although Kelly spoke of the international market in general, the Spanishspeaking film market grew in importance during the mid-1930s, particularly as the political situation in Europe deteriorated and the effects of international economic depression began to ease. At the same time, film producers in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina improved the quality and quantity of their output. These early sound film productions frequently relied on networks of professionals 139

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who had worked on Hollywood Spanish-language films. They had gained not only technical knowledge, but also connections within the U.S. film industry and to a broad, transnational group of Spanish-speaking film professionals. These connections served as an important source of social capital that undergirded early sound film in Spanish-speaking countries. Nevertheless, precedents set by Hollywood’s Spanish-language films that had succeeded with audiences led to conservative choices of film genres and featured actors for much of this production. Lack of capital and a solid industrial foundation meant that much early production in Spain, Argentina, and Mexico consisted of low-budget films with popular appeal. The international successes of a series of Spanish-language musicals illustrate the influence of Hollywood genres and suggest that local producers also recognized the benefits of selling romanticized visions of national folklore to appeal to a broad audience. Such market concerns conflicted with the nationalist projects of film journalists, politicians, and even filmmakers who argued for a cinema that stood apart from that of Hollywood and contributed to the consolidation of a national identity that could resist the encroachment of American popular culture. Success with audiences also threatened national film production in another way. As American film studio executives saw evidence of the slow but steady expansion of successful sound film production in these countries, they began to worry about loss of screen time and renewed threats of economic protectionism. Studios developed coproduction and distribution deals as strategies to respond to these threats. While such relationships could be advantageous to local film producers who lacked reliable financing and access to international distribution networks, they favored both individuals and films that were known quantities to American studio executives. While this helped enable vigorous local production, exploiting a language-defined market meant making concessions in terms of cultural autonomy.

Sound Production in Mexico, Spain, and Argentina After the box-office success of Santa, filmed in 1931 and released in 1932, production of feature-length films in Mexico increased to over twenty a year between 1933 and 1935. Many of the writers, directors, crew, and cast members of these films had worked in the American film industry in the United States or for American distributors in Mexico.3 Mexico’s proximity to Hollywood contributed to this constant interchange of people. As José Bohr had learned when he purchased sound-recording equipment in Los Angeles for use in Mexico City, it was difficult, but possible, to drive from one city to the other, although most probably traveled by train or boat. Quite a few film professionals made the trip frequently. As Hollywood’s Spanish-language productions became more sporadic, some actors, such as

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Ramón Pereda, Alfredo del Diestro, Carlos Villarías, and Adriana Lamar, cobbled together a living by alternating projects in Mexico with work in Los Angeles. In 1935, Mexican immigration officials almost denied a work visa to the Argentine actor Barry Norton, who had starred in a number of Hollywood version films and was invited to work on one of José Bohr’s Mexican productions, on the grounds that Mexico had an excess of leading men. After Norton was finally allowed to enter the country, one article reported that someone from the industry had persuaded the immigration authorities to relent by thinking of the consequences, given that a Mexican radio star was about to embark on a tour of Argentina.4 Quite a few of the Mexican cinema’s professionals during this period were not Mexican nationals, but the industry soon began to develop more local talent. Still, Mexico remained the most international of the three major Spanishlanguage film-producing countries. Mexican critics worried that the national film industry was too influenced by Hollywood style and substance, but observers at the time recognized that Mexico derived important advantages from its proximity to Hollywood. Film professionals could acquire “necessary experience” and “in forty-eight hours” receive equipment and parts.5 Carlos Borcosque wrote: “Every film technician needs . . . artistry . . . and this cannot be learned but must be practiced. That’s what a national cinema—whether in Argentina or Chile or Spain—is still missing. Mexico, in this sense, has an undoubted advantage given that many of their technicians and directors have been in Hollywood, drinking in the atmosphere, suffering hunger and poverty, and learning more in that way than they could have learned in a correspondence course on technique. . . . I believe . . . in the extra who after several years in Hollywood returns to his country as a director.”6 When Borcosque wrote the above in 1934, neither Argentina nor his native Chile had produced more than a handful of films, although Spain had. Neither Spain nor Argentina had as close a connection with Hollywood as did Mexico, but in both of these countries many individuals key to the development of their early sound cinema had worked on Hollywood version films. In 1939 Borcosque, who was still directing Spanish-language films in Hollywood in the mid-1930s, began a long career as a director in Argentina and Chile. In Argentina, production of feature films with fully synchronized sound had started in 1931, but the few early sound films of 1931 and 1932 suffered from lack of financing and real sound studios. In 1933, local business interests with close connections to Argentine radio and theater established production companies: Lumiton and Argentina Sono Film. From the outset, these companies and others that followed drew upon tango music and tango-inspired stories as a mainstay of Argentine films. The extraordinary success of tango singer Carlos Gardel’s films for Paramount probably influenced these choices. Gardel first made films at Paramount’s Joinville studio in France. John Alton, a cinematographer at Joinville, later directed two early Argentine sound films but worked principally as a

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cameraman for Lumiton and Argentina Sono Film. The Chilean Adelqui Millar, already working at Joinville, helped set up the deal with Gardel to make films there. Millar directed Gardel’s first film and later continued his career directing in Argentina. Paramount employed members of Gardel’s theater troupe, then on tour in France, to make his films. Two actresses, Sofia Bozán and Gloria Guzmán, first appeared with Gardel in films made at Joinville and continued their careers as lead actresses in Argentine sound films. Manuel Romero, who managed Gardel’s troupe, started as assistant director on Gardel’s first film and then directed two others while at Joinville. After 1935, he became one of Argentina’s most important directors, as did his coauthor on the script for Gardel’s first film, Luis Bayón Herrera. After the Joinville films, Gardel made several films for Paramount in New York. The last two of these served to launch the career of one of his costars, Tito Luisardo, who became a major star in Argentina in the later 1930s.7 Unlike Mexico and Argentina, Spain had a relatively productive silent film industry in the late 1920s, but it still took until 1932 for regular sound production to get started. U.S. film companies raided talent from Spain’s film industry and theater for their Spanish-language version films, more so than from Mexico or Argentina. Numerous well-known writers (Pedro Muñoz Seca, Edgar Neville, Eduardo Ugarte, Gregorio Martínez Sierra, José López Rubio, Enrique Jardiel Poncela), actors (Imperio Argentina, Catalina Bárcena, Rosita Díaz Gimeno, Conchita Montenegro, María Ladrón de Guevara, José Nieto, Rafael Rivelles, Roberto Rey, Ernesto Vilches, among others), and Spain’s two most important directors from the silent period (Florián Rey and Benito Perojo) all received contracts to work for American film studios. Some continued to work for Hollywood studios through the mid-1930s and thus represented a real loss of talent for the Spanish film industry. Directors Rey and Perojo began working in Spain by 1934. Perojo had quit work on Fox Film’s Mamá in 1932. Rey had continued to make films with Imperio Argentina at Joinville through late 1932, when Paramount decided to cease foreign-language production there and converted the studios into a dubbing facility. Although Rey and Perojo were far from the only directors working on sound films in Spain, they each made some of the biggest international successes of Spain’s cinema in the 1930s. The casts of Spain’s sound films of the 1930s tended to feature actors who had previously worked on Hollywood Spanish-language films. Their images as stars relied on their earlier successes as leads in version films. Juan de Landa, for instance, who had appeared in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s El presidio (version of The Big House), later had a role in a 1934 film directed by Perojo, Se ha fugado un preso (A prisoner has escaped). In an article in Popular Film, one of Spain’s leading film journals, the journalist joked that Landa was “a prisoner once again” and referred to his previous performances in Hollywood versions as some of the best yet done in the Spanish language.8 Spain, like Mexico, also attracted some itinerant film professionals. These included Antonio Moreno, who returned briefly to his native Spain to star in

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María de la O in 1936; Lupita Tovar, who appeared in Vidas Rotas (Broken lives) in 1935; Cuban actress Hilda Moreno, who worked on two Spanish-language films in the United States, one in Mexico, and five in Spain between 1932 and 1936; and Rafael Sevilla (Mexican) and Ernesto Vilches (Spanish), who had made several films in Mexico and who went to Spain together to make El 113 in 1935; among others.9 Some of these films incorporated their transnational origins into the film’s narrative. In the flamenco film María de la O, Antonio Moreno plays a character who is originally from Andalucía but has to flee after killing a man in revenge for his wife’s death. When he returns many years later to find his daughter, his English-accented speech (remarked upon in many reviews of his work in Hollywood Spanish-language films) is explained by his character’s long residence in the United States. One of Spain’s early box-office successes, Boliche (1933), features a cast of Spaniards and Argentines and tells the story of an immigrant traveling from Argentina to Spain. The film, which includes performances by a tango trio, did well both nationally and in Latin America.10 In 1935, Spain produced forty-four sound films; Mexico, twenty-six; and Argentina, fourteen. Output in Mexico and Argentina continued to increase in the later 1930s to single-year highs of fifty-seven and fifty, respectively, although Spain’s production came to a halt with the outbreak of Civil War in 1936.11 In each country, producers distributed films nationally and, for some films, internationally to other Spanish-speaking countries. Still, effective international distribution constituted an obstacle for the growth of these industries. Film producers in Mexico and Argentina often limited their sales to neighboring countries and frequently relied on ad hoc agreements. During the early 1930s, only in Spain did investors establish a full-fledged international production and distribution company that had branch offices in Europe and the Americas. The Compañía Industrial Film Española (CIFESA), founded in 1932, originally distributed films for Columbia Pictures to Spanish-speaking countries but soon moved into exporting and then producing films made in Spain. Both Perojo and Rey worked for this company, and the profits from their hit films made its consolidation as Spain’s leading company possible.12 Although Rey and Perojo made these films in Spain, each used stars, genres, and styles that drew from their international filmmaking experiences and responded to market preferences that went beyond the national—precedents set at least in part by the successes of Hollywood’s Spanish productions. Florián Rey had worked at Joinville on musical comedies featuring his wife, Imperio Argentina. In some, she costarred with Carlos Gardel. Gardel, Argentina, José Mojica, and, to a lesser degree, Raúl Roulien starred in many of the most successful of Hollywood’s Spanish-language films. They appeared in films where the plots served principally to set up the musical numbers. When Rey began making films for CIFESA, he continued to feature his wife’s talents as a singer and dancer, but no longer had to fit her into plots cooked up by American film studios.

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Instead, Rey drew on the traditions of Spanish light musical theater, particularly the kind of works known as zarzuelas. In films such as La hermana San Sulpicio (Sister San Sulpicio, 1934), Nobleza Baturra (Aragonese virtue, 1935), and Morena clara (Dark and bright, 1936), Imperio Argentina played in light comedies or melodramas replete with a typically Spanish atmosphere that featured folkloric elements of rural culture. Rey’s films also emphasized overtly Hispanic (in the sense of the word that emphasizes the inheritance of imperial Spain) values: church, honor, and quasi-feudal social relations. These “clerical dramas” featured characters with a strong religious vocation. The plots of all of these films revolved around the potential threat of a loss of honor and frequently played on the complications of cross-class love affairs. All of these films did very well at the box office, nationally and internationally. Morena clara became the most successful Spanish film of the decade.13 In Morena clara, Argentina plays a gypsy girl who, after a series of trials and tribulations, manages to win the heart of a young man from a good family. The film features all of the typical costumes, dances, and musical styles of Andalucía, the region of Spain most often represented in stereotyped depictions of the country. Critics accused Rey of making españoladas. This term of opprobrium describes works of art that exaggerate Spanish folklore and conflate it with gypsy and Andalusian traditions.14 This exotic vision of Spain originally derived from nineteenth-century French Romanticist works such as Prosper Merimée’s 1845 opera Carmen. Still, it is a vision of Spain that has also “been re-deployed in Spanish culture” and frequently appears in art, literature, theater, and film produced within Spain.15 In 1935, a journalist asked Rey about his thoughts on how to make a film with universal appeal. He replied with a defense that he would repeat throughout his career: “We will achieve greater universality as much as our productions keep our racial values. . . . Each country should bear witness to itself and the rest of the world. . . . If we want to export [films], we must constantly increase their Spanishness.”16 In part, the polemics over Florián Rey’s films, both from the early 1930s and later, derived from the suspicion that they pandered to precisely the same kinds of stereotypes of Spain and Hispanic culture in general that Hollywood films had so often abused. Critics had leveled this criticism at Hollywood’s Spanish versions with particular frequency, although then, too, films such as Mojica’s El precio de un beso or Novarro’s Sevilla de mis amores that were españoladas became important popular successes.17 Rey, like Perojo, found himself in a difficult position between national critics who wanted Spanish cinema to emphasize national culture but simultaneously feared that doing so would lead to stereotypical depictions.18 While Rey suffered more frequently from accusations of making españoladas, his colleague Perojo faced vicious press attacks for films labeled “cosmopolitan.” Perojo had, indeed, worked at film studios in France, Germany, and the United States. His films tended to be light comedies of manners. The important

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Spanish film magazine Popular Film took Perojo to task for his “lack of hispanismo of any kind.” After the release of Perojo’s Crisis mundial (World crisis, 1934), the magazine made Perojo’s failings the subject of its opening editorial and accused Crisis mundial of including the worst features of American films with none of their saving graces.19 Although the editorial mocked Perojo’s international ambitions, Crisis mundial, in fact, succeeded in opening the Cuban market to Spanish films, much as one of Perojo’s films of the previous year had done in Argentina. In 1935, Perojo made La verbena de la paloma (Fair of the dove), a film also classified as an españolada because it was based on a popular zarzuela. This film joined Morena clara as one of Spain’s biggest national and international successes of the decade.20 Along with flamenco music and gypsy motifs, Hollywood films had a long tradition of incorporating the Argentine tango into its representations of exotic Hispanics—perhaps most famously in the 1921 film The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in which Rudolph Valentino performed the dance in a costume that mixed Argentine, Spanish, and Mexican elements. The tango had become an international craze already by 1910 and remained popular. No practitioner had more influence than Carlos Gardel, the illegitimate son of French parents whose mother emigrated to Argentina with him when he was a boy. Gardel’s meteoric career took off in the early 1920s. Through touring and with the aid of radio and record players that had begun to spread throughout Latin America, Gardel gained international fame. In the early 1930s he wanted to move into films, and when he was on tour in Paris he and his managers approached people at Paramount about a film project. The first film he made there, Luces de Buenos Aires (Lights of Buenos Aires, 1931), became an instant smash hit. The same proved true of the other films he made at Joinville (two shorts and a feature), and for Paramount at its studios in Astoria, New York: four features under a new deal that gave Gardel a greater share of and more control over his films.21 The overwhelming box-office success of some of Gardel’s features in Spanish-speaking countries—by some accounts Paramount’s most profitable films of the decade—opened doors for him in the American entertainment industry. When Gardel died in a plane crash in Medellín, Colombia, on June 24, 1935, he was on a tour sponsored by Paramount and RCA Victor intended to promote his new films and the songs from them. His untimely death converted the star into a legend, and his films and records became even more commercially successful. His death interrupted the next projected phase of his career: that of the cross-over artist. While in New York making his last films, Gardel was also studying English for the purpose of appearing in English-language films. He filmed some scenes for inclusion in Paramount’s The Big Broadcast of 1936, through which the studio planned to introduce him to English-speaking audiences. As his death came shortly before the film’s release, Paramount cut Gardel’s scenes from the general release of the film, retaining them only in

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FIGURE 17 Carlos Gardel and Imperio Argentina performing a duet in a scene from

Melodía de arrabal (Paramount, 1933). International DVD Group, Tango en DVD.

prints intended for Latin American distribution. Still, the studio continued to profit from Gardel’s popularity, re-releasing his films regularly through the 1960s.22 The fledgling Argentine sound cinema began to rely on the popularity of the tango. In 1933, Argentina Sono Film made the first fully synchronized and professionally produced sound film: Tango. The film starred a number of wellknown stage actors. Although it failed with critics and at the box office, it featured several actors—Libertad Lamarque, Luis Sandrini, Pepe Arias—who would become Argentina’s leading films stars. Chief among them was Lamarque, who achieved a level of fame similar to that of Imperio Argentina and some of the later stars of the Mexican cinema, such as María Felix or Ninón Sevilla. With the combination of Lamarque, “light operettas,” and “tango after tango,” the Argentine cinema had a “formula” that did very well both domestically and internationally.23 In the first half of the 1930s, only Mexico did not join the trend of making films that featured national folklore and popular musical styles. This would change with the 1936 release of Allá en el rancho grande (Over there on the big ranch). Mexican cinema had developed some of its own genres in the early

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1930s, such as films (like Santa) about tragic prostitutes, supernatural happenings, or major historical events. In Mexico, according to leading cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, who shot Rancho grande and a long series of other films, prior to the success of Rancho grande, producers had shied away from showing scenes emphasizing “typical” Mexico or its Indian population for fear that these would be “denigrating to Mexico. . . . There was a constant doubt whether Mexican music and landscapes would be popular, because we were haunted by that famous inferiority complex.”24 After 1936, films featuring Mexican folklore became the backbone of the industry.

Watching the Competition from Hollywood Although using formulas and techniques that imitated aspects of successful Hollywood films troubled national critics in Spain, Argentina, and Mexico, the popularity of some films made in those countries caught the attention of American film studios. In the mid-1930s, frequent reports in the trade press chronicled the rise and expansion of these industries. This, coupled with changing economic and political conditions in Europe and Latin America, refocused attention on the Spanish-speaking market. Fox Films had continued to make films for this market through 1935 with some success, although financial difficulties that led to the merger with Twentieth Century had ended this production. Paramount had continued to make films with Carlos Gardel until his death in 1935, and even the ever-cautious Warner Brothers had returned briefly to Spanish-language production in 1934. Universal and Columbia also made a few films in Spanish in the mid-1930s. Studios seem to have judged such sporadic production ill-suited to the production methods then in place that employed workers under long-term contracts. Several studios chose instead to finance productions in Spanish made at independent studios and to serve as the distributor (for instance, this was the arrangement that Paramount had made with Carlos Gardel).25 Shortly after Twentieth Century–Fox eliminated its Spanish production unit, it began to work with independent producers.26 In 1934 and 1935, the studios remained unsure of whether the Spanishspeaking market merited unique productions. As one article on the rise of Spanish-language production at independent studios reported, “the chief obstacle in supplying films to the Latin market seems to lie in the fact that it usually takes about a year to recoup negative cost, due to the difficulty in making collections.” Still, “the profit allows such a nice margin” that independents were seeking financing for it.27 Another article pointed out that studios had made an important miscalculation in emphasizing Spain over the Latin American countries when making films in Spanish as it constituted only onefifth of the total market. The article reported that while Spain accounted for 20 percent of the market, Argentina was 25 percent, followed by Mexico with

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a 15 percent share, Chile and Brazil each with 8 percent, and other countries with the rest. Still, the article suggested that producing Spanish versions remained risky given that rates of exchange remained unfavorable in many of these countries.28 Although studios did continue with some Spanish production during these two years, not all did. Arthur Loew of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) toured South America and recommended that the studio continue to send films with superimposed titles.29 However ambivalent American studios felt about targeting this market, reports that competitors had begun to make real progress in capturing a share of the Spanish-speaking market began to appear more regularly. The success of the film Boliche led MGM to make an offer to the film’s stars, who turned it down in order to make another film in Spain.30 Not long after, Variety reported that more Spanish than American films were playing at Madrid’s major movie theaters for the first time. The article suggests that Spanish producers were trying to show the strength of the industry at a moment when the Ministry of Industry was considering film quota legislation that would favor nationally made movies. “[They] evidently hope to convince public opinion that such a decree would not rob them of any theatrical pleasures.”31 Another article reported on the expansion of film production in Spain and noted rumors that Fox and Paramount were considering making films there. “Producers all point out that Spanish dramatic talent can be gotten cheaply compared to the prices that have to be paid in Hollywood. . . . They also claim that Hollywood production creates too big a nut to make Spanish tongue pictures profitable out there, while linguistic difficulties created by the varied accents of Argentines, Mexicans, Cubans, etc. detract from the good will angle among the sensitive Latins.”32 By 1935, other reports stated that increases in production in Spain, Mexico, and Argentina were edging out American films in some cinemas.33 Bulletins from the Department of Commerce and internal correspondence from United Artists for its territories in Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America confirm the serious concern that local productions had begun to occupy an alarming amount of screen time. One report from early 1935 emphasized the importance of Argentina as a market: after the United Kingdom, Argentina had become the most important market for American movies. In 1934, the report continued, Argentina had imported nearly 15 million feet of film. Almost all of these films were shown with Spanish subtitles. The report noted that six Argentine films had come out in 1934, with another eight in production.34 By 1936, United Artists’ general review of Argentine production had a considerably more urgent tone, noting that nationally made films had begun to become competitive with American films. Despite the small numbers (estimated at twenty for 1936) available, the films played for such long runs that the report estimated the nationally made films took up as much screen time as sixty American films might have. The report further noted that of these, the

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lowest-performing film had grossed at least 100,000 Argentine pesos (around $30,000 U.S.), while the best, La muchachada de a bordo (Boys on board), was expected to gross 700,000 Argentine pesos (over $200,000 U.S. dollars).35 A Department of Commerce bulletin from 1936 described the Argentine audience as “ravenous . . . for anything in its own language.” This was despite the local films’ “bad taste” and “technical shortcomings.” They did even better outside of Buenos Aires, out-earning American films by as much as ten to one. The report concluded that the only solution would be for American companies to establish studios and consider coproductions within the country, while dubbing more pictures would be “the next best thing.”36 The 1937 bulletin confirmed the continuation of these trends and added that more Argentine films were being distributed in other Spanish-speaking countries, but it also pointed to growing production costs due to increased salaries for actors who had become popular stars. The report suggested that American studios could begin to sell sound equipment to Argentine producers, who were now established enough to afford it. Most production in Argentina had used a hodgepodge of locally made and imported European and American equipment for sound recording.37 Still, the poor technical quality of these films’ sound reproduction had not stopped audiences from flocking to them. Reports from individual United Artists agents responded soberly to these developments. In 1936, one recommended acquiring Argentine films both to “increase our gross business” and to “assist our salesmen . . . in securing playing terms and playing time for our other pictures.”38 Another United Artists employee in Argentina wrote a lengthy and heartfelt letter about the difficulties of acquiring national productions. The author at first confessed to having lost an early opportunity to acquire the film Noches de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires nights, 1935, director Manuel Romero’s first film made in Argentina); he had lost it because he had “tried to squeeze the producers . . . too much.” Since that time, he continued, local producers had made so much money on their films that they set terms for distribution deals too high to be worth it. He described the long runs of national films in detail and compared the returns of the bestgrossing United Artists picture of the year at one theater (Monte Cristo, $3,969) with national pictures at the same venue coming in at $12,000 to $14,000. Furthermore, other American companies were rushing in to begin making deals with Argentine producers. Paramount executives, he had heard, were planning to offer actor Luis Sandrini a $10,000 contract, in the hopes of finding a star who could replace Gardel, without whom “they are dying on their feet.” According to local gossip, Fox also planned to start acquiring local films. For United Artists, the agent was looking into a deal with producer Adolfo Wilson, who was planning three films, the first with Tito Luisardo, who had originally appeared with Gardel in two Paramount films. The letter stated in no uncertain terms that “companies that, in 1937, do not have the advantage of national product in their line-up,

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will take a secondary position.”39 United Artists committed to this strategy from the later 1930s on. Just as American film studios began to realize how successful production in Spanish-speaking countries was eroding their hold on screen time, conditions in the European film markets worsened. France and Germany continued to pass restrictive legislation that aimed to limit U.S. domination of their national industries.40 The Hollywood Reporter summed up the European woes with a front-page headline that blared: “Continent in Jeopardy: Contingents, Quotas, Taxes, Ignoring of Foreign Market Needs, Ruin European Trade.”41 Although the article blamed American studio executives for not making films that had more appeal for foreign audiences, it also noted that another principal problem was that the fear of impending war was depressing the box office. In 1936, with the outbreak of Spain’s Civil War, the European situation became even darker for the American industry. By 1937, the same trade journal reported that studios were looking to Latin American countries to replace the lost income from Europe. Studios began to consider doing more dubbing into Spanish, especially given that “surveys have demonstrated that native-made product, which cannot equal the productions made in the United States, nevertheless outgrosses the Hollywood variety by four to one.” The article noted that during the previous four years studios had paid little attention to this market in favor of Europe, and this created the opportunity for local competition to grow.42 The same 1937 article that described the U.S. industry’s turn toward the Latin American market mentioned that governments throughout Latin America were considering protective legislation for established and nascent industries and noted that some studios were planning coproduction and distribution deals with local producers.43 Concern that countries in Latin America might follow the same path as Europe had in seeking to limit U.S. films in local markets, in addition to increasing evidence that locally made films were stealing screen time from American films, brought about their new policies.44 The first major threat came from Mexico. From 1931 to 1934, increases in Mexican film production led to further calls from film workers, now organized and represented by an increasingly powerful union, for the government to aid the nascent industry. The Mexican government responded by slowly increasing tariffs on imported films in languages other than Spanish. American film studios protested each increase and were able to win some concessions during the presidency of Abelardo Rodríguez (1932–1934). Rodríguez owned a theater chain and had personal reasons to fear driving American films out of the market.45 New president Lázaro Cárdenas, inaugurated in 1934, had a deeper commitment to the ideals of the revolution and proved a more skillful leader than his predecessors of the early 1930s. Cárdenas undertook agrarian land reform on a massive scale, strengthened the Mexican labor movement, and pursued policies of economic nationalization.

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In 1938 he succeeded in nationalizing Mexico’s oil industry in the face of British and American opposition. This victory marked one of the triumphs of the revolution; Cárdenas’s support of the film industry brought more mixed results. The Cárdenas administration invested in the film industry by creating a national film institute, partly funding a new film studio, and providing easier access to credit for film production. Cárdenas also heeded the calls of the film labor union and producers’ organization and sought not only to enforce collection of high tariffs and taxes that were on the books but had been “suspended” by previous administrations, but also to impose fines for nonpayment from previous years. Despite pressure and threats from representatives of the U.S. film industry, Cárdenas stood firm. In 1935, the American distributors collectively decided to withdraw from the Mexican market in order to force the government to come to terms with them.46 According to one studio document that recorded the decision to act in concert to oppose the new Mexican laws, these were some of the Mexican government’s specific complaints that had led to its actions: “that we bring in pictures detrimental to the country; that we are responsible for changing their customs; that according to the producers the Mexican is a bandit.” The report continued that given the country’s “general tendency to Communistic policies,” which might lead to nationalizing the film industry, this justified the “drastic step” of withdrawing from the market.47 At about the same time the U.S. studios had threatened to withdraw from the market, Mexican workers employed by American distributors went on strike for higher wages and were supported by theater workers throughout Mexico. Close to six months without American films threw the Mexican exhibition sector into a profound economic crisis, in spite of wellpublicized deals, such as one with a Spanish film producer that sought to replace Hollywood films with Spanish or other European movies. Nevertheless, by early 1936 the Cárdenas government both reduced tariffs and taxes to levels acceptable to the U.S. distributors and negotiated an end to the film workers’ strike.48 Although Argentina was not yet following Mexico’s radical course, the country had begun to study the situation of the national industry. In 1933, Argentina created a national film institute and in subsequent years began to study quota legislation modeled after that of Italy and Germany. Cuba threatened similar measures in 1936, but in the near total absence of local filmmaking, these came to naught.49 Spain, too, considered increasing protectionist measures, but the outbreak of civil war made such moves moot. Even so, conditions during the early days of the war actually seemed much more threatening to the future of American films in that market. One early report warned that whichever side won would nationalize the country’s film industry, although the actions of the Republicans caused more concern.50 Spain’s Civil War also had the practical effect of making the Spanishspeaking countries of Latin America into a more unified regional market.

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Mexico and Argentina benefited not only from reduced competition from another Spanish-language producer, but also from the forced or voluntary exile of numerous film professionals. The war’s tragic consequences did not spare them. Juan Piqueras, one of Spain’s most influential film critics and an avowed Marxist, happened to be on a train traveling from Paris to Madrid on July 18, 1936 (the day fascist forces under Francisco Franco staged the coup that started the war). Unexpected illness led him to stay at a hotel in a small village that was soon taken by the fascists. Piqueras was taken from his bed and executed. Rosita Díaz Gimeno had returned to Spain from her time at Fox Films to work on a movie, El genio alegre (Happy spirit), that was still in production when the war began. She, too, was accused of supporting the Republicans and narrowly escaped execution through a prisoner exchange. Enrique Jardiel Poncela, on the other hand, was denounced in Republican Madrid as having connections to the rightists and he underwent arrest and interrogation. He later managed to leave the country for Argentina. Former colleagues at Twentieth Century–Fox gave José Lopéz Rubio and Gregorio Martínez Sierra contracts to help them get permission to leave Spain and return to the United States. These and many others went to work in Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, or elsewhere for the duration of the war or, in some cases, permanently.51 In perhaps the most unexpected consequence of Spain’s Civil War, a joint initiative between Nazi Germany and the Spanish fascists led to the creation of the Hispano-Film-Produktion Company. This company, financed mostly by the Germans but with connections to the Spanish CIFESA, produced five Spanishlanguage feature films directed by Florián Rey and Benito Perojo. They starred many of Spain’s most well-known actors, including Imperio Argentina. Rey and Perojo shot the films in Berlin’s UFA studios (then part of a nationalized film industry under the minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels) and on location in Nationalist territories in Spain. The films were classic españoladas or light musicals that did very well throughout Latin America, including Imperio Argentina’s most popular film, Carmen, la de Triana (1937). Goebbels used coproductions with Spanish film professionals as one part of an explicit attempt to replace Hollywood as the purveyor of the world’s popular culture.52 The success of these films strikingly demonstrates how deeply the notion of a Spanishspeaking film market had become entrenched.

Joining the Competition: United Artists and Allá en el rancho grande Given the increasing importance of Latin America as a film market, the rise of serious competition, and fears of European-style restrictions on American films, the U.S. film industry soon found sufficient motivation to adopt new strategies to meet these challenges. These included distribution and coproduction deals.

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While several companies, including United Artists, Columbia, and Universal, had picked up a very few films made in Mexico, Argentina, and Spain prior to 1935, in the latter half of the decade they and others began to compete over what they perceived to be the best available Spanish-language films. For United Artists, this policy directly responded to the tax and tariff crisis in Mexico and to commercial competition. After the Mexican crisis had been resolved, the vice president of United Artists, Arthur Kelly, instructed his company to seek out coproduction and distribution deals with Mexican firms. He believed that establishing relationships with producers, rather than just exhibitors, was a way to mitigate the dangers of a potential nationalization of the Mexican film industry.53 At the same time, many Mexican film producers realized that without adequate distribution throughout Latin America, they could not make sufficient profits to stabilize production.54 In 1936, United Artists drafted its first contracts for coproduction with two Mexican companies. One was headed by Felipe Mier, the man who had been, in 1930, Warner Brothers’ distribution manager in Mexico City. At the time, his suggestions about how to market films in Latin America had been dismissed as the product of excessive sensitivity. United Artists proved to have better judgment. Two of Mier’s earliest coproductions with United Artists were the first films of Mario Moreno, better known as Cantinflas, while his second proposed slate of films included two with José Mojica (the last films the star would make before taking orders as a Franciscan). Still, United Artists’ decision to work with a man who had long experience working with the U.S. film industry was suggestive of the conditions that collaboration with the U.S. industry would impose upon filmmakers in Mexico. No film better illustrates the pressures on filmmakers in Spanish-speaking countries who had to compete in a global film market dominated by Hollywood than the 1936 Allá en el rancho grande. Its idealized and anachronistic representation of Mexico’s rural haciendas was the despair of critics and later historians of the Mexican cinema. For a country that had redefined itself around the ideals of the 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution, the film’s romanticized portrayal of traditional social relations between landowners and peons seemed like a step backward. Yet its enormous popular success throughout Latin America undeniably helped consolidate the economic basis of the Mexican industry. For United Artists, which distributed it outside of Mexico, it was one of the biggest-grossing films of the decade (in any language) in Latin America, and it encouraged both this company and others to expand their business with producers in Mexico and Argentina.55 Rancho grande spawned such a long series of imitations made by the Mexican industry that they became known as a genre, the ranchera films.56 In late 1936, United Artists representatives in Mexico assured the home office that it would realize a profit of at least $35,000 if Rancho grande were

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picked up for distribution outside of Mexico.57 While the film was doing well at a few theaters in Mexico, this was no guarantee that it would do so outside of Mexico, given the experiences of earlier Mexican films in Latin America. Other factors seem to account for the confidence of the local United Artists agents. Although the film was made at a studio that was partly funded by the national government, Rancho grande’s principal investors were exhibitors who had strong connections to the American industry. Gabriel Figueroa, the film’s cinematographer, had recently returned from time in an American studio as assistant to Gregg Toland, one of the greatest of Hollywood’s directors of photography. Fernando de Fuentes, the film’s director, had studied and worked as a diplomat in the United States before returning to Mexico, where he managed one of Mexico City’s leading movie palaces. With the introduction of sound, de Fuentes moved into production, first as an assistant on early films made by veterans of Hollywood’s Spanish-language cinema and then as a director in his own right. Thus, some of the key personnel were known quantities in Hollywood. Rancho grande also had the advantage of sharing important characteristics with some Hollywood films. It was far from an incisive study of the recent history of Mexico’s turbulent transition from dictatorship to revolutionary republic. The film’s lead actress recalled later that it was surprising that the film got made during the Cárdenas administration given the film’s uncritical depictions of “feudal” rural relations.58 From the point of view of Mexican critics, Rancho grande represented a return to the reactionary values of popular theater genres that idealized the life of rural Mexico, where peasants and landowners cooperated in a mutually beneficial system and could, as a result, spend most of their time and care on love affairs, affairs of honor, and the more than occasional song.59 What American movie executives might have noticed, however, was the film’s striking similarity to a genre with which they were fully familiar: the singing cowboy film. Like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and so many others, the hero of Rancho grande alternated herding his horses, attending the rodeo, and wooing his girl with frequent ballads. The cowboy in question was a Mexican actor by the name of Tito Guízar. Guízar had left Mexico City in his late teens to try his luck in New York City and had become a regular stage performer dressed in the costume of his native Guadalajara, as a charro. By the early 1930s he had his own radio show: Tito Guízar and His Guitar. Guízar’s theme song, which he used to introduce the show, was none other than a classic ranchera song, “Allá en el rancho grande.” Indeed, when Fernando de Fuentes approached Guízar about starring in the film, it was Guízar who suggested using the song for the film’s title to capitalize better on his fame.60 Guízar was by no means a major star, but he would have been familiar to Los Angeles–based film executives.61 In 1935, he had made appearances in two Hollywood films: See, See, Señorita and Under a Pampas Moon, although only as a

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singer and not as an actor. United Artists executives also would have known from the experiences of the previous years that the only real hit films in Spanish had all featured photogenic recording stars turned movie actors in films that relied on widely popular songs. Paramount had made a fortune on the films of tango star Carlos Gardel; Fox Films had done quite well with the Mexican tenor José Mojica; and the Spanish company CIFESA was profiting from the voice and looks of Imperio Argentina, who had previously costarred with Gardel. Thus, Guízar must have seemed an attractive proposition, as would have one of his costars, the composer and performer Lorenzo Barcelata, some of whose songs had been recorded by American record labels. Indeed, one of Rancho grande’s best sequences is the singing “duel” between Guízar and Barcelata. Cuban (and Hollywood Spanish-version veteran) René Cardona played the other male lead in the film, as the patrón of the hacienda. Furthermore, the movie lacked nothing in terms of Mexican folklore that might catch the eye of an American. It even featured a sequence, unrelated to the main story line, of two dancers performing the jarabe tapatío, better known in the United States as the Mexican hat dance. One of the two dancers was the future film director Emilio “el Indio” Fernández, who had just returned from Hollywood, where he had performed as an extra in films with Fred Astaire and

FIGURE 18 Tito Guı´zar as Francisco (right) and René Cardona as Felipe (left) in Alla ´

en el rancho grande (Mexico, 1936). Cinemateca, Classic Mexican Cinema, DVD.

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Ginger Rogers. A review in the New York Times praised Rancho grande for the “realism” of its scenes of life on the hacienda and for having “the right mixture of music, comedy, romance and near-tragedy.”62 By the 1930s, many of the folkloric elements featured in the film, particularly its emphasis on the figure of the charro, had become strongly associated with images of “lo mexicano” both inside and outside of the country, although, within the country, social tensions over the relation of regional and national cultures remained high.63 United Artists’ executives recognized that they had a superior opportunity in the chance to distribute this film for all Spanish-speaking territories outside of Mexico for over 60 percent of the box-office gross.64 They also knew that other American studios were keeping a close eye on Spanish-language productions in not just Mexico, but also Spain (up until the start of the Civil War) and Argentina. The concerns and methods of United Artists come out most clearly in the 1936 general report on the situation in Argentina, a report written before United Artists had picked up Rancho grande and realized the possibilities of the Latin American market. The United Artists manager in Argentina responded to a request for a report on acquiring national films. He pointed out that Fox Films and Paramount had already entered into deals with two of the more successful Argentine directors. Both these companies, like United Artists’ Argentine manager, hoped that they would find a star who could replicate the successes of the recently deceased Gardel. In each case, when the Argentine manager described the deals made by rival companies or proposed films, stars, composers, and producers with whom United Artists might make coproduction deals, he referred to either their direct connections to and proven success in the American industry or, failing that, their semblance to well-known quantities. He recommended picking up films planned for Tito Luisardo, who had costarred with Gardel. One potential star, a child actress, was described as similar to Shirley Temple. The manager stressed that if they entered into a coproduction deal for multiple films with one of the producers he was recommending, United Artists would be able to get approval over casts and stories.65 The company took his advice and later that year wrote its first Argentine coproduction deal for a series of three films. These parallel developments took place even before Rancho grande began its amazing run as a box-office smash. Even as Rancho grande took off, the company had already begun to draft more contracts, not just for distribution deals, but for coproduction in Mexico as well. Again, United Artists consistently chose to work with individuals who had long histories of connection to the U.S. industry and who picked projects (over which United Artists had veto power) that often replicated earlier successes. It was in one of these coproductions that Mario Moreno, better known and loved by audiences throughout the Spanish-speaking world as Cantinflas, first appeared in a comic version of a ranchera film.

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United Artists, Fox Films, Paramount, Columbia, and R.K.O. made similar deals in Argentina and Spain; these relatively short-term, ad hoc arrangements were cost-effective ways of profiting from Spanish-language films.66 The U.S. studios gained some of the profits from these films. Still, their participation guaranteed the producers greater profits and thus provided more stability for industries in Spanish-speaking countries. The growth of competitive film industries in Argentina and Mexico in the late 1930s was profoundly shaped by American film studios, which had the power to promote the use of particular genres, stars, and producers with close connections to the U.S. industry. These relationships demonstrate the power of networks to offset the risks of de-nationalized and de-centralized cultural production.

Final Films The competition from films made in Mexico and Argentina motivated several American film studios to make one further attempt at Hollywood-based production in Spanish. As Brian O’Neil has pointed out, the last Spanish-language films made in Hollywood at the end of the 1930s show a striking move toward attempting to appeal to audiences seeking greater cultural authenticity by using stories set in Latino neighborhoods of Los Angeles, New York, and Texas. Of the thirteen films made in Spanish from 1937 through 1939, six took place in California (mostly Los Angeles), three in New York, and one along the U.S.-Mexico border. While Hollywood studios sponsored these productions, they were actually made by independent producers who put the projects together and negotiated a guaranteed distribution deal with a studio. The producers, directors, and scriptwriters on these films were more often Latinos than had been the case on earlier Spanish productions made in Hollywood. The casts typically included a number of Spanish-version veterans, although quite a few were returning to Los Angeles from Mexico, where they had emigrated to continue their careers. Some actors who had established their careers in Mexico traveled north to participate in these productions.67 The most noted star of this group of films was Tito Guízar. He signed a contract with an independent producer in Hollywood shortly after his success in Rancho grande. From 1938 to 1939, Guízar starred in five of the last few films made in Spanish in Hollywood for some time to come. All were light films that included musical numbers designed to showcase Guízar’s talent as a singer. In Papá Soltero (Bachelor father), he played a Mexican worker on a Texas highway crew who ends up traveling to Los Angeles in charge of an orphaned little girl. In another, Cuando canta la ley (The singing charro), Guízar plays a Mexican detective investigating a crime on the border between Texas and Mexico. Two others, El trovador de la radio (The radio troubadour) and Mis dos amores (My two loves), have him playing a singer working in Los Angeles. In El otro soy yo (I am

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the other one), Guízar plays a double role, acting as each of two twin brothers, one a carefree singer based in San Francisco, the other a serious businessman living in Panama. The New York–based Cine Mundial described this last as the best and most entertaining of Guízar’s films.68 The Mexican press, on the other hand, accused these films, much as it had the Spanish version films of the early 1930s, of being artificial and too obviously the product of an Anglo-American mentality. For his part, Guízar echoed these same criticisms when he announced in 1939 that he had decided he would only make Spanish-language films in Latin America (he later returned to Hollywood to act in English in some Latin-themed films). Nevertheless, he noted, “My Hispanic films have opened with great success in our countries.”69 Indeed, although his films may have featured U.S. Latino scenes and settings, each was distributed in Latin America as well. The other films made in Spanish during 1937 through 1939 are also notable for their quality and originality. Two were costume dramas based on stage plays: the 1937 La vida bohemia that starred Gilbert Roland in his final Spanish-speaking role and an adaptation of the French classic “La vie de bohème,” with Rosita Díaz Gimeno, set in Paris’s Latin Quarter. Two others were serious dramas set in Latino neighborhoods in New York and Los Angeles. Verbena trágica (Tragic festival, 1938), selected in 1996 for inclusion in the National Film Registry, tells the story of a boxer, played by noted Mexican actor Fernando Soler, who returns home from prison to his neighborhood in Spanish Harlem only to find that his fiancée was unfaithful in his absence. Though mostly filmed on set in Los Angeles, some exterior shots from New York were included in the film. The street fair referenced in the title was in honor of “El día de la raza” (literally, the day of the race, Columbus Day), a background that allows for the scenes of the street fair to include flags from throughout the Spanish-speaking world as decorations.70 In the 1939 El milagro de la calle mayor (also made in an Englishlanguage version, Miracle on Main Street), the main character, played by Mexican-born actress Margo in both versions, is a nightclub dancer who turns her life around after finding a baby abandoned in a nativity at a church in a Mexican neighborhood of Los Angeles. The final Hollywood film made in Spanish in the 1930s was La inmaculada (The immaculate, 1939). Though filmed in Los Angeles, it was set in Mexico City and its central story is of a woman who faithfully stands by a philandering husband even after he loses everything and is paralyzed in an accident. The story’s tragic tone and unhappy ending have far more in common with Mexican melodrama than with Hollywood sunshine. These final films were part of the broader effort of the American industry to compete for the Spanish-language market. Conditions in the worldwide film market were changing quickly in the later 1930s, and circumstances increasingly favored Latin America as the most stable outlet for Hollywood films. In 1939, Nathan Golden, head of the Motion Picture Division of the Department of Commerce, warned the industry that it would be dangerous to ignore the

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growth of Spanish-language production outside the United States: “Economically, it would be unwise for our companies to encourage production in South American countries: however, American companies should produce in Hollywood Spanish-dialogue films employing stage favorites brought from South America and placed in a Hollywood setting, with the use of reconstructed sets and Hollywood technique.”71 This would help offset the competition from Mexican and Argentine films that were then displacing American movies. The concerns of industry watchers in the United States were matched by the satisfaction of advocates for a vibrant cinema in the Spanish language. A writer for the Los Angeles–based Cinelandia noted in 1938 that “films in our language now constitute a much more pressing need [for Hollywood producers] than in previous years.” Still, opinions expressed in the magazine remained divided. The editor doubted that films in Spanish—wherever they were made—could equal the quality of Hollywood’s English-language films, given that these merited larger budgets since they would be shown throughout the world. He thus implied that Spanish-language films could only ever hope to do well within a languagedefined market. Nevertheless, another Cinelandia writer noted with amazement that nationally made films in Spanish were, indeed, displacing Hollywood films and were doing so due to their attractive stars. Yet another writer observed the successes of Mexican films in the Spanish-speaking market but complained that they all repeated the same formula that had worked in Rancho grande.72 Despite Golden’s warnings about the dangers of encouraging production outside the United States, studios continued to find it more cost effective to enter into distribution or coproduction deals with producers in Spanish-speaking nations than to finance productions in Los Angeles. Mexican, Argentine, and Spanish films further had the advantage of more compelling and “authentic” themes, settings, and casts over Spanish-language films made in Hollywood, where even using Latino stories did not fully stem negative publicity from the Spanish-speaking press. Still, national producers would experience many of the same difficulties that had plagued the American efforts. While national critics urged filmmakers to engage with social realities, the lure (and often necessity) of making films that could be exported to the entire Spanish-speaking world led producers to seek projects with broad popular appeal. Major political events, starting with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and the looming onset of World War II, would further complicate matters by changing the calculus of American interest in Spanish-speaking film industries from principally private to a mix of public and private. While key relationships established earlier in the decade helped to set the conditions under which national industries would strive to compete, Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policies of the later 1930s and 1940s gave Hollywood new leverage in its relationship with the Spanish-speaking market.

bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

Conclusion

The addition of synchronized sound to the commercial cinema exacerbated the problem of the cultural acceptance of films in an international media market. Sound, and particularly spoken dialogue, added a new layer of cultural specificity that complicated the worldwide sale of movies. In the 1930s, this led Hollywood to adapt its practices and allowed American studios to retain their position in most markets, but it also created space for new film industries and forms of expression to develop, albeit in ways heavily influenced by relationships with the U.S. film industry. The competing tendencies that sound film provoked by pitting greater cultural specificity against an increased importance of economies of scale for more expensive sound film production led to contradictory pressures on Hollywood. Already by late 1930, Juan J. Moreno, editor of the Los Angeles–based, Spanish-language film magazine Cinelandia, had predicted that studios might respond to the crisis of language differentiation by making sound films that emphasized the drawing power of major stars and featured “a maximum of action and a minimum of dialogue.” These films could be “shown in foreign lands, without any strange accent that might shock the spectator’s senses or obstruct his understanding of the drama developing before his eyes. Visual films in which lack of knowledge of the language spoken by the actors is abundantly compensated for by the interesting personalities whom we so admire.”1 Such an erasure of specificity might recreate the “universality” of silent films, but it would not fully erase the attractiveness of films that appealed culturally and linguistically to audiences. In 1939, another observer, Peruvian intellectual, author, composer, and film director César Miró, wrote a book about his experiences in Hollywood in the later 1930s. In its conclusion, he advised his readers, “We should not wait for Hollywood to work miracles with cinema in our language.”2 It was foolish to expect the international dream machine to make 160

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films in Spanish that reflected the full complexity of Latin American, Spanish, or Latino cultures. Such conflicts over the use and control of one of the twentieth century’s most important and popular media, the commercial feature film, were part and parcel of broader social tensions produced by economic modernization and cultural change. The introduction of film sound created turmoil for the U.S. film industry, which had succeeded in capturing international markets with movies made in a system employing mass-production methods. Because making movies specifically for Spanish-speakers meant reducing potential profits, the industry consequently limited the time and money spent on adapting films at the outset. Yet the problems with both direct production in Spanish and modes of translating English-language films did not result only from rational economic decisionmaking. Deeply ingrained cultural prejudices, aggravated by lack of knowledge about the peoples grouped together into an imagined Spanish-language film market, made the contradictions inherent to Hollywood’s pretense to represent the dreams and desires of the world more apparent. Although studios cared about the potential profits from Spanish-speaking film markets, attempts to cater specifically to those markets displayed signs of marginality whether through cultural missteps in films, poor treatment of Spanish-speaking film professionals, or disregard of linguistic variations in Spanish. Still, Hollywood was no monolith. The creation of new ways of marketing sound films to language groups gave Spanish-speakers the chance to enter the industry. Because studios realized, to some extent, that their lack of knowledge about Spanish-speaking countries hampered their efforts to sell films, they ceded some control to employees who could claim expert knowledge or who demonstrated their ability to appeal to audiences. Many of these individuals later used this experience in other national industries, where the inadequacy of Hollywood’s attempts to co-opt or to eliminate demand for films in Spanish created the opportunity to produce sound films for both a domestic and a large export market. Above all, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina did so. Although their film industries developed in ways shaped by Hollywood’s dominance of world film markets, their existence is, nevertheless, striking proof that the U.S. film industry had failed to eliminate local competition. As the Hollywood Reporter pointed out in 1935 about one market where the United States had always had special strength, American producers needed to pay attention to the increasing importance of Mexican, Spanish, and Argentine films “since every foreign film exhibited in Cuba may be said to displace an American picture.”3 While it is true that Hollywood ultimately found new ways to participate in or to undermine some of the production from these countries, these new strategies developed in response to a failure more significant than histories of the U.S. industry have allowed.

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Because attention to Hollywood’s success in exporting products throughout the world has become an important criterion of defining effective competition, the ability of competitors to take away market share in just a portion of the international movie market has seemed less consequential. The traditional focus of histories of the international film industry on the competition between the United States and the major European film-producing countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, and Italy) has distorted the importance of the introduction of film sound. While these European countries had actively competed with the United States since the early twentieth century for worldwide film markets and had developed significant production industries, sound changed their practices but did not cause either dramatic growth or decline. Given that these countries also had some of the world’s strongest economies, thus making their film exports and imports proportionately more significant in terms of monetary value, they also attracted more attention as important film markets. Beyond the fact that movies have a social significance that surpasses their value as commercial products, the economic importance of key European countries to the international film industry has obscured the important ways that film sound changed that industry. The countries mentioned above either had small language markets or, in the case of Great Britain, had to compete directly with the United States in the English-language market. Thus, sound, and the protective barrier of language, had a relatively lower impact. However, for languages with a large number of speakers, the introduction of sound had important consequences. The rise of important sound film industries in India, Egypt, Hong Kong, and Taiwan bears out conclusions drawn from the history of the Spanish-speaking market. The enormous output of films in Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, and Chinese over the decades following the introduction of sound into the cinema had no parallel during the silent film era in the countries that produced them.4 Until recently, this vast body of films received little attention because these films circulated principally in a defined regional or linguistic market, did not compete with Hollywood films globally, were rarely, if ever, shown in the United States or much of Europe, and were often formulaic, lowbudget films that did not fit norms of the “art” or “oppositional” cinema typically used to contrast national films with Hollywood films.5 Still, their existence and popularity mean that in their own markets these film productions either succeeded in displacing American films or created new markets that the United States had never reached in the first place. By the late 1930s, both Argentina and Mexico had become large-scale producing countries that made films not only popular with national audiences, but also regionally. That Mexico pulled ahead and became the preeminent Spanishlanguage film industry by the 1940s had much to do with the geopolitics of the World War II era. Given that Argentina remained officially neutral, but tended toward support of the Axis during the conflict, the United States used every

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available means to pressure the Argentine government into signing on as an ally. Punitive measures included embargoing Argentina’s access to unexposed film stock, along with an array of other goods and materials. Mexico, on the other hand, was among the United States’ most important allies from the late 1930s through the end of the war in the fight against the Axis powers. For this reason, Hollywood studios were encouraged to invest yet further in the Mexican film industry—a decision that not only made good business sense, given the popular successes of Mexican films during the second half of the 1930s, but also allowed Hollywood to support the policies of the U.S. government during wartime.6 As for Spain, although the Civil War ended by 1939 and Spanish film production slowly recovered, the imposition of a fascist dictatorship under Francisco Franco made Spain a pariah nation for years following the war. Even so, by the later 1950s, Spain had once again begun to coproduce and export films to Latin America; these often featured popular singers and dancers.7 When one considers the Mexican golden age cinema of the 1930s and 1940s, its success within a regional market is notable. Ana López points out, “To this day and throughout the [South American] continent, one still speaks as often of Cantinflas as of Chaplin, of María Félix as of Marilyn Monroe, of Jorge Negrete as of Clark Gable.”8 In a piece written in English and published in the United States, this comparison with “universal” Hollywood stars makes a point about the cultural life of hundreds of millions of Latin Americans. The enduring power of the iconic stars of the Mexican cinema mentioned by López is not lessened by the fact that they are unfamiliar outside of the Spanish-speaking world. Ultimately, the boom years of the Mexican golden age lasted only through the early 1950s, when worn out, overused genres and widespread corruption in state-sponsored film-financing practices contributed to the exhaustion of the industry. Nevertheless, by the 1960s, two new developments would suggest the continuing power of a broadly conceived Spanish-language audiovisual market. One was the success of what has come to be called the New Latin American Cinema, which corresponded to the art cinema of Europe in its emphasis on directors as auteurs. It also responded to the cold war ideological conflicts between Latin America’s political left and right. Inspired in part by the success of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and by anticolonial uprisings throughout the Third World, Latin American directors from Cuba to Chile began a pancontinental move toward producing films that rejected Hollywood conventions, embraced the poverty of means with which filmmakers had to work, and asserted a radical revindication of the oppressed classes of Latin America. While landmark films such as Tomás Gutierrez Alea’s Memories of Underdevelopment (Cuba, 1968) or Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas’s Hour of the Furnaces (Argentina, 1968) made a strong impact at film festivals and among urban intellectuals, it was the introduction of television that demonstrated the continuing strength of popular demand for Spanish-language productions.

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Mexican television had already begun to dabble in what later became known as the telenovela by the late 1950s, a genre that soon spread throughout the continent and became the basis for the consolidation of large-scale audiovisual production. The Mexican state encouraged the development of national television production as part of a broader effort at modernization based on import substitution industrialization by granting permits for television stations to private investors who were closely aligned with the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The pioneers of Mexican television included Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, patriarch of the family that controls Televisa, the largest Spanish-language media company in the world. Azcárraga Vidaurreta had extensive interests in Mexican radio and film by the time he began investing in television in the 1950s. Such connections helped ensure some continuity between popular genres drawn from radio plays and films and early television productions. Mexican television of the 1950s at first relied on teleteatros (plays staged and filmed live for television) in an attempt to appeal to urban middleand upper-class viewers who were, at the time, the group within Mexico most likely to own television sets. These teleteatros soon gave way to less-expensive, serialized dramas that drew on popular theater, radio, and film precedents as well as the model of U.S. “soap operas,” which were originally sponsored by major detergent companies. There were other transnational influences on what became known as telenovelas, particularly the pan-Latin American popularity of Cuban radionovelas, whose scriptwriters would work on early telenovelas in both Mexico and Brazil, the country that would ultimately become Mexico’s major competitor in the genre. The popularity of the telenovela grew along with the spread of television ownership throughout Latin America.9 Spanish-language television production has not only remained vital but continues to increase. While U.S.-based media conglomerates participate in this production, companies based in Latin America or Spain hold a major share of the Spanish-language entertainment market.10 Parallel developments can be found in other linguistic communities with large numbers of speakers. Even in the United States, where domestic audiovisual production dominates both movie and television screens, the successes of Bollywood or Hong Kong moviemaking, the appeal of the Latin American telenovela, and the significance of the Arabic-language television station Al-Jazeera increasingly are matters of common knowledge.11 The case of Spanish-language filmmaking in the 1930s also highlights the power that market opportunities had to spur the diversification of media capital.12 The New York Times noted that already by 1930 sound films had spurred the growth of “minor production centers for foreign markets, even like the Ford plants abroad,” although this comparison reveals the assumption that these new producers would merely implement practices developed in Hollywood. Fordism, with its emphasis on mass production to achieve economies of scale

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through standardization, characterized the Hollywood studio system. Cultural and economic geographers have studied how Hollywood, in the period following World War II, made the transition to a post-Fordist system of production in the wake of major events like the 1948 Paramount decision that broke up the vertical and horizontal integration of the American film industry and the rise of television and home video as sources of competition.13 Today major American film studios regularly seek projects that offset the costs of short-term contracts for high-priced stars and directors by filming on location in countries with lower wage rates and material costs, or they opportunistically make temporary alliances with foreign production companies to take advantage of government-provided tax breaks and subsidies.14 While this kind of flexible production now typifies mainstream Hollywood production, the challenge of film markets divided by languages provoked Hollywood studios to begin experimenting with such practices well before World War II. Furthermore, recent developments reveal that far from having been solved, the challenges of cultural-linguistic differentiation have remained persistent. From the Children’s Television Workshop’s Spanish version of Sesame Street, produced since the 1970s for distribution throughout Latin America and on U.S. Spanishlanguage channels, to ABC’s multiple Spanish versions of Desperate Housewives, the solution of taking a television show’s “format” and remaking it in a local idiom has become a characteristic of the international audiovisual industry. And in a remarkable instance of history coming full circle, Lionsgate, a Hollywoodbased independent film and television conglomerate, recently signed a deal with Mexican media giant Televisa to produce a series of films aimed at U.S. Latinos (some in Spanish and some in English) through a joint venture, Pantelion Films.15 The creation of a Spanish-language film market in the 1930s had important social consequences for the development of niche marketing. Although asymmetrical, the conversation betwixt and between the powerful U.S. film studios and Hispanic audiences, critics, film professionals, and politicians resulted in new modes of filmmaking that took cultural difference into greater account. The possibility of selling films to a large market defined by language proved a double-edged sword that limited both the power of the United States to monopolize the business of representation and the power of other film industries to address principally national audiences. “Americanization” did not erase “national identity,” although those who acted on the idea of a Spanish-language film market did create a new means with which to cut across traditional definitions. Popular movies often mixed and matched national folklore, international film genres, and cosmopolitan casts. Audiences responded to them for reasons that often transcended both nationalist political projects and a purported desire to emulate an American way of life. Although intimately bound up in the history of nations, a transnational perspective on the film industry reveals the changes

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wrought by the rise of mass media and consumerism on social identities in an interconnected world. We can no longer assume either the centrality of the United States to world media or the ongoing hegemony of Hollywood; rather, we must ask how the reconfiguration of economic and cultural power in a now genuinely global media market will affect people locally. While the diffusion of media capital and influence has diversified the sources of commercial audiovisual production, the ongoing imperative to market to broad audiences continues to place limits on access to media networks and forms of cultural expression.16

NOTES

INTRODUCTION

1. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 7. 2. Alan Williams, “Historical and Theoretical Issues Related to the Coming of Recorded Sound to the Cinema,” in Sound Theory, ed. Altman, 135–137. 3. The significance of language in defining audiovisual entertainment markets is well developed in scholarship on television. For a general overview, see Emile G. McAnany and Kenton T. Wilkinson, “Introduction,” and John Sinclair, “Culture and Trade: Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations,” both in Mass Media and Free Trade, ed. McAnany and Wilkinson, 3–29 and 30–62, respectively. Discussions specific to the Spanish-language market include Rodriguez, Making Latino News; and Wilkinson, “Language Difference.” 4. David Bordwell, “The Introduction of Sound,” in The Classical Hollywood Cinema, ed. Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson, 298–308; Altman, Sound Theory; Richard Abel and Rick Altman, The Sounds of Early Cinema, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001); Douglas Gomery, The Coming of Sound. For discussions of the evolution of this historiography see Crafton, The Talkies, 1–8; Burke, “The Transition to Sound,” 65–70. 5. Higson and Maltby, “Film Europe” and “Film America.” 6. O’Brien, Cinema’s Conversion to Sound; Betz, Beyond the Subtitle, 45–92. 7. For the most recent statement of this view, see Burke, “The Transition to Sound,” 70. Natasa Durovicova made the argument that economic histories of multiple language versions (MLVs) had failed to appreciate the significance of MLVs in her “Translating America: The Hollywood Multilinguals, 1929–1933,” in Sound Theory, ed. Altman, 139. 8. Altman, “Moving Lips,” 70. The most significant early critical theorizations of the impact of synchronized sound on the cinema were S. M. Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovikin and G. V. Alexandrov, “A Statement” (1928), and René Clair, “The Art of Sound” (1929), both reprinted in Film Sound, ed. Weis and Bolton, 83–85, 92–95, respectively. 9. “Films and World Unity,” New York Times, May 21, 1930, 26:3. 10. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 160–161. 11. Rodriguez, Making Latino News, 90–91; Wilkinson, “Language Difference.” 12. McAnany and Wilkinson, Mass Media, 16 and 42. 13. Mar-Molinero, The Politics of Language; del Valle and Gabriel-Stheeman, The Battle over Spanish; Echávez-Solano and Dworkin y Méndez, Spanish and Empire. 14. Mar-Molinero, “Subverting Cervantes,” 27–47. 15. Beer, “From the Bronx to Brooklyn,” 30–40; Kanellos, A History of Hispanic Theater, 17–44.

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16. Garcia, Hispanic/Latino Identity; Oboler, Ethnic Labels; José Enrique Idler, Officially Hispanic. 17. Dávila, Latinos, Inc., 1–17, 88–125. 18. Mar-Molinero, “Subverting Cervantes.” 19. García Canclini, Consumers and Citizens, 18–19, 103–107. 20. Variety, October 30, 1929, 1. 21. O’Neil, “Yankee Invasion of Mexico,” 79–105. 22. For a detailed filmography of Hollywood’s Spanish-language production, see Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood. 23. Betz, Beyond the Subtitle, 45–92; and Joseph Garncarz, “Made in Germany: Multiple Language Versions and the Early German Sound Cinema,” and Ginette Vincendeau, “Hollywood Babel: The Coming of Sound and the Multiple-Language Version,” both in “Film Europe” and “Film America,” ed. Higson and Maltby, 249–273 and 207–224, respectively. 24. Exceptions include O’Neil, “Yankee Invasion,” and Marvin D’Lugo, who explores these issues in terms of musicals in “Aural Identity, Genealogies of Sound Technologies, and Hispanic Transnationality on Screen,” in World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives, ed. Durovicova and Newman, 160–185. For earlier discussions of the links between Hollywood Spanish-language filmmaking and sound cinemas in Spanish-speaking countries, see Pinto, “When Hollywood Spoke Spanish,” 3–8; Hernández Girbal, Heinink, and Dickson, Los que pasaron por Hollywood; García de Dueñas, ¡Nos vamos a Hollywood!; Armero, Una aventura americana; García-Riera, México visto por el cine extranjero; Caparrós Lera, El cine republicano español; di Nubila, La época de oro; Getino, Cine argentino; Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República; Mahieu, Breve historia del cine nacional; Méndez Leite, Historia del cine español; Mora, Mexican Cinema; Berg, Cinema of Solitude. 25. Mistsuhiro Yashimoto, “National/International/Transnational: The Concept of TransAsian Cinema and the Cultural Politics of Film Criticism,” in Theorising National Cinema, ed. Vitali and Willemen, 257–258. 26. Doane, “The Voice in the Cinema,” 33–50. 27. López, “Cinema for a Continent,” 7–12.

CHAPTER 1

FIRST RESPONSES TO THE CHALLENGE OF SOUND, 1929– 1930

1. Thompson, Exporting Entertainment, x, 71–100. 2. Ibid., 103; Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 15–16. 3. Fenix Film, 1931. Incomplete copy (missing reels 1 and 4 of 8) held at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, Los Angeles; Ciudad de ensueño script, Motion Picture Scripts Collection, New York State Archives, Albany, NY. 4. “Sono Art Is Making Spanish and English Version of ‘Blaze ‘o Glory,’” Movie Age, September 28, 1929, 15. 5. De la Vega Alfaro, José Bohr, 19–31; Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 26–27. 6. De la Vega Alfaro, José Bohr, 201. 7. Crafton, The Talkies, 193–199, 201–212. 8. Balio, Grand Design, 13–18, 21–26.

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9. Martine Danan, “Hollywood’s Hegemonic Strategies: Overcoming French Nationalism with the Advent of Sound,” in “Film Europe” and “Film America,” ed. Higson and Maltby, 230. 10. Jason Borge, “El espectro de Hollywood y la crisis de los talkies,” in Avances de Hollywood, ed. Borge, 101–220; Saunders, Hollywood in Berlin, 221–240. 11. Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 15–18, 98–101, 125–135. 12. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 64. 13. Quoted in Walker, The Shattered Silents, 132–133. 14. “El cine mudo y el film sonoro,” Arte y cinematografía, January 1930, 1. 15. “El cine mexicano,” El Universal, May 26, 1929. 16. “Talkies in English Opposed in Brazil,” New York Times, November 18, 1929, 7:5; “Foreign Language Bans Halt Hollywood Dubbing,” Variety, January 15, 1930, 7; “Sound Study in South America,” Variety, May 21, 1930, 6. 17. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 67–84. 18. “Foreign Versions Jump Raw Stock Footage 300%,” Variety, January 29, 1930, 11. 19. “European Motion Picture Industry in 1929,” Trade Information Bulletin 694 (1930). Quoted in Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 92–93. 20. “Foreign Talks Market-Rated,” Variety, May 14, 1930, 6. 21. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 85; de Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 80. 22. One of the biggest stars created by Hollywood’s Spanish-language cinema, José Mojica, mentions in his autobiography that he was shocked to discover when he sang at concerts in Tunisia, the Balkans, Greece, Egypt, and Palestine that he was well known by “judíos españoles” (Judeo-Spanish or Sephardic Jews) who had seen his films. “I could see for myself, for the first time, the tremendous propagandistic power of the cinema. I was as well known in Istanbul as in Havana.” Quoted in Mojica, Yo Pecador, 307. 23. “Coast’s Foreign Versions,” Variety, November 6, 1929, 4. 24. “French-Mades Expected to Mop Up,” Variety, October 30, 1929, 5. 25. “U.S. May Lose Europe,” Variety, March 26, 1930, 11. 26. “Decision on Foreign Mades Will be Reached Abroad by Zukor, Lasky and Kaufman,” Variety, April 9, 1930, 4; “Americans Must Produce Abroad to Hold Foreign Market, Claimed,” Variety, April 16, 1930, 6. 27. L. Linares Lorca, “Del ‘talkie,’” Mudo y sonoro: Revista cinematográfica seminal [Barcelona], October 2, 1930, 6–7. 28. Crafton, The Talkies, 424. 29. “Tiff’s Spanish Revue—4 Stars,” Variety, November 13, 1929, 5; de Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 85–86. 30. “Coast’s Foreign Versions.” 31. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 159. 32. Taves, “The B Film,” 313–350. 33. Bielby and Bielby, “Women and Men in Film,” 252. 34. “Sombras de gloria,” The AFI Catalog of Feature Films, http://www.afi.com/members/ catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=237 (accessed August 16, 2009). 35. “Alma de gaucho,” The AFI Catalog of Feature Films, http://www.afi.com/members/ catalog/DetailView.aspx?s=&Movie=242 (accessed August 16, 2009).

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36. “Parlante en Español: Sombras de Gloria,” Cinelandia March, 1930, 4, 42; Juan J. Moreno, “Cinelandicas,” Cinelandia May 1930; “Así es la Vida,” Cinelandia, June, 1930, 34; “Alma de Gaucho,” Cinelandia, September 1930, 30; Alejandro Aragón, “Spanish Talkies,” El Ilustrado, July 17, 1930, reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 216–222. See Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 35, for a critic’s review of Rosa de fuego. 37. “Parlante en Español: Sombras de Gloria,” 42. 38. Finkielman, The Film Industry, 81–84. 39. Ciuk, Diccionario de directores, 112–114, 484–485. 40. His early comic films made in Germany, where he emigrated in 1919 following the Russian Revolution, include Boytler Tötet Langeweile (Boytler against Boredom) and Boytler gegen Chaplin (Boytler against Chaplin). 41. Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 307–308; Emilio García Riera and Maria Luisa López-Vallejo y García, “Arcady Boytler 1,” Revista Filmoteca 1, no. 1 (November 1978): 33–36. 42. “Fortunio Bonanova,” in Hernández Girbal, Heinink, and Dickson, Los que pasaron por Hollywood, electronic edition from the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/), reprint of the first edition (Madrid: Verdoux, S.L., 1992). 43. De la Vega Alfaro, Arcady Boytler, 1893–1965, 19–34; Ciuk, Diccionario de directores, 88–89. 44. De la Vega Alfaro, Arcady Boytler, 1893–1965, 47–49. 45. Ibid., 83–100. 46. Cinema Reporter, May 15, 1952, quoted in Ciuk, Diccionario de directores, 81.

CHAPTER 2

HOLLYWOOD’S SPANISH VERSIONS, 1930– 1931

1. Richard deCordova, “The Emergence of the Star System in America,” 17–29; Charles Eckert, “The Carole Lombard in Macy’s Window,” 30–39; and Karen Alexander, “Fatal Beauties: Black Women in Hollywood,” 45–54, all in Stardom, ed. Gledhill; and Dyer, Stars. 2. Galo Pando, “Chismes y cuentos,” Cinelandia, June 1930, 8. 3. Lupita Tovar’s introduction to the Spanish version of Dracula (Universal Studios DVD, 1999). 4. To date, Dracula is the only widely available DVD that contains both the English and Spanish versions of a feature-length film from this time period. The Spanish version of Charlie Chan Carries On (titled Eran trece) is available on DVD (Twentieth Century–Fox, 2006), but the English-language original is considered lost. The Laurel and Hardy Spanish versions and English originals, all shorts, are also available in various versions on both VHS and DVD. Some other Spanish versions and original productions are available for viewing at film archives. 5. Skal, Hollywood Gothic, 162–169. 6. Of course, much of the cost savings on the Spanish version were realized through use of the same script and sets. Production worksheets, Drácula, Universal Collection, University of Southern California, Cinema-Television Library (hereafter cited as UC/USC); Skal, Hollywood Gothic, 140. 7. Ginette Vincendeau, “Hollywood Babel,” in “Film Europe” and “Film America,” ed. Higson and Maltby, 221.

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8. Nicolás Kanellos, “Brief History of Hispanic Theater,” 3:248–267. 9. Louvish, Stan and Ollie, 259–263; Mitchell, The Laurel and Hardy Encyclopedia, 105–106. 10. Ward, “A History of the Hal Roach Studios,” 166–171, 210–215. 11. “Spain’s B.O. Record,” Variety, February 19, 1930, 5; “Spaniards Hail Gag Language in Shorts,” Variety, February 26, 1930, 4. 12. “Spaniards Hail Gag Language”; “Comedies and Comedians Says S.A.; Laurel-Hardy Shorts Drawing Capacity in Buenos Aires,” Variety, July 2, 1930, 7; untitled film listings, ABC (Madrid), May 10, 1931, 52. 13. “Roach’s 1st Full Drama—With Four Foreign Versions,” Variety, March 19, 1930, 4. Fox Films made a similar experiment in early 1931 with five versions of The Big Trail, although director Raoul Walsh did not take on all five. While the casts were entirely different in each language version, they all featured footage filmed for the original. Apparently, the results were not satisfactory as this was Fox’s only attempt at multiple foreign versions; the company specialized in Spanish-language versions. On The Big Trail, see Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 156–157. 14. “Quickie Stuff No Good in Doubling Languages,” Variety, June 11, 1930, 5. 15. Such typecasting affected numerous actors of Latino origin (del Río, Novarro, Vélez, Roland, Rita Hayworth, and others). See Rodríguez, Heroes, Lovers, and Others, 48–91. 16. Mary Beltrán analyzes the effects of the transition to sound on the parallel case of Dolores Del Río in Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes, 17–39. 17. Waldman, Paramount in Paris, viii–ix. 18. Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 50. In addition to Paramount’s version of The Benson Murder Case, Moreno starred in Warner Brothers’ El hombre malo, Fox Film’s El precio de un beso, and Universal’s La voluntad del muerto. 19. “Summary of Estimated Costs,” El cuerpo del delito/The Benson Murder Case, Paramount Pictures Production Files, the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (hereafter cited as PPF/MHL). 20. An article from the time period gives the range for actors who regularly had lead roles as ranging from $250 to $1,250 a week, although many of those contracts were only for weeks worked, rather than for guaranteed weekly payments. See “¿Cuánto ganan los artistas hispanos?,” Films Selectos, February 7, 1931, reprinted in Armero, Una aventura americana, 281–282. 21. Bodeen, More from Hollywood! 156–157; Cardboard City and Rose of France, Fox Legal Files, Arts Library Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles. 22. Sam Morris, who headed Warner Brothers’ Foreign Distribution Department in the 1930s, compared profits on a series of films to demonstrate this point to Jack Warner in 1937. See Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 161–162. 23. “Spain’s Literate Unable to Sway Populace,” Variety, January 1, 1930, 2. 24. The novel was published under the title El misterioso asesinato de Benson by Calpe Press. Dario Verona, “El cuerpo del delito,” Cinelandia, June, 1930, 39. 25. Benson Murder Case, PPS/MHL. 26. Waldman, Paramount in Paris, viii–ix. 27. Abel Green, “World’s Screen and Stage,” Variety, July 30, 1930, 3, 18. For overviews of European criticisms of Paramount’s Joinville foreign production, see Vincendeau, “Hollywood Babel,” 214–217; and de Grazia, Irresistible Empire, 316.

NOTES TO PAGES 46–49

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28. “Metro Finds Foreigners Work Best in Hollywood, Despite Temperament,” Variety, September 17, 1930, 6. 29. Waldman, Paramount in Paris, ix–xiii. 30. Geoffrey Shurlock was foreign production supervisor for Paramount in Los Angeles. American Cinematographer, January 1931. Quoted in Armero, Una aventura americana, 278. 31. “Summary of Estimated Costs,” Honeymoon Hate, PPF/MHL. 32. “Summary of Estimated Costs,” The Sea God, PPF/MHL. 33. Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 22–23. 34. Juan Piqueras, “Editorial: Historiografía,” Nuestro Cinema, nos. 8 and 9 (January– February): 1932. See also Mateo Santos, “El patriotismo de la verdad,” Popular Film, September 1930, quoted in Armero, Una aventura americana, 275. 35. “Par’s Rep in Spain: Adelqui Millar Says He’s after Talent for Hollywood,” Variety, May 28, 1930, 6; Green, “World’s Screen and Stage,” 13; “Par Raids Italy’s Talent: Incident Makes Nation Sit Up,” Variety, August 6, 1930, 7. 36. García de Dueñas, ¡Nos vamos a Hollywood!, 40–41. 37. Crafton, The Talkies, 539–546. 38. “Ernesto Vilches,” interview by Florentino Hernández Girbal, Cinegramas, reprinted in Juan Heinink and Robert Dickson, eds., Los que pasaraon por Hollywood (electronic edition, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, 2000). 39. Soister, “The Spanish Man of a Thousand Faces,” 29. 40. A contemporary magazine article also stated that Vilches was the highest-paid actor in Spanish versions and gave a figure of $8,000 for each of his first two films. “¿Cuánto ganan los artistas hispanos?” in Armero, Una aventura americana, 281. 41. Vilches actively sought the best possible conditions from different studios. He offered to work for Warner Brothers, at the end of his MGM contract, for $15,000 a picture (which he claimed another studio was offering him) if he could have some control over the project. Warner Brothers seriously considered this proposal but decided it would push the cost of the film too high. Apparently Vilches was willing to bargain, but Warner Brothers decided $12,500 was still too high. Letter, Henry Blanke to H. A. Bandy, July 7, 1930; letter, Bandy to Blanke, July 16, 1930; letter, Bandy to Blanke, July 24, 1930; letter, Blanke to Bandy, July 28, 1930, Blanke/Bandy correspondence files, Warner Brothers Archive at the University of Southern California. 42. “Ernesto Vilches,” interview by Hernández Girbal; Álvaro Armero, “Ernesto Vilches: Rebelión en la Paramount,” in his Una aventura americana, 136. 43. “Fresh Spaniard Gets Hissed on Stage for His Slurring Remarks,” Variety, November 5, 1930, 30. 44. Soister, “The Spanish Man of a Thousand Faces”; Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 52–53; Álvaro Armero, “Josep Carner Ribalta,” in his Una aventura americana, 116–118. 45. “Sad Outlook on Foreigns,” Variety, October 15, 1930, 7. 46. These are Wu-Li-Chang, a version of Mr. Wu in which Chaney starred, and Cheri-Bibi, the film that was planned for Chaney but made with another actor because of Chaney’s death. 47. On Crespo’s career, see de Paco, José Crespo, 84–106. 48. Schatz, The Genius of the System, 87–88.

NOTES TO PAGES 49–54

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49. The other “major-minor” studio, Columbia Pictures, played a waiting game on versions and started on its production late in 1930 with El código penal, a version of The Criminal Code. “Columbia’s Foreigns,” Variety, October 15, 1930, 6. 50. Skal, Hollywood Gothic, 154–159; Álvaro Armero, “Lupita Tovar: La estrella de la Universal,” in his Una aventura americana. 51. Production worksheets, Slim Summerville Films, UC/USC; Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 173–174. 52. See opening dates listed for Spanish version films in Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood. 53. None of the extant ledgers from major studios that researchers have found include profit/loss information on the studios’ foreign versions. See the following articles in the Historical Journal of Radio, Television and Film: Jewell, “RKO Film Grosses,” 37–50; Glancy, “MGM Film Grosses,” 127–145; Glancy, “Warner Bros Film Grosses,” 55–74. 54. “Hits and Splits in Buenos Aires This Wk.,” Variety, June 11, 1930, 7; “‘Mad Kiss’ in Spanish with Mojica Liked,” Variety, August 20, 1930, 7; “Biz Off in S.A.,” Variety, September 17, 1930, 6; Harry E. Goldflam, “Retitled Originals Satisfy Brazil When Spanish Versions Are Cold,” Variety, October 20, 1931, 14; “‘Estrellados’ gusta en Cuba,” Cinelandia, December 1930, 70; “Entrevista con Juan de Landa,” Filmópolis (Cuba), no. 32 February 1932, 15; “Informes breves,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), April 1931, 12–14, May 1931, 11–12, and September 1931, 10–12; “Mejores películas, 1928–1931,” Blanco y Negro 42, no. 2154, September 25, 1932. United Artists’ reports can be found in “Brazil—Competitive First Run Grosses,” 1F-1–7, Box 1, Brazil Folder 3, Wisconsin State Historical Society; and “Spain—Competitors and Competitive Grosses,” 1F-9–8, B9 Spain F1, UA Corporation Records: Series 1F: Black Books, Wisconsin State Historical Society. 55. Both versions are in the Twentieth Century–Fox collection held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study, Los Angeles. 56. El proceso de Mary Dugan and El presidio are held by the Filmoteca Española, Madrid. 57. Carlos F. Borcosque, “La producción hispano parlante de 1931,” Cinelandia 1, no. 3 (March 1932): 23, 50–51. 58. See “Cartelera,” in ABC (Madrid) for March 1931 through September 1931, January 1932, August and November 1933, and May 1935, http://ABC.hemeroteca.es/ (accessed August 16, 2009). 59. Alfredo Mirelles, “Fotogenia y Fotofonia,” Blanco y Negro 40, no. 2046, August 3, 1930; Alejandro Aragón, “Spanish Talkies,” El Ilustrado (Mexico), August 28, 1930; and Luz Alba, “El cuerpo del delito,” El Ilustrado, June 5, 1930, all reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 216–222 and 213. 60. “A Matter of Accents,” Variety, July 2, 1930, 6. 61. “When Foreigners Let Loose, Sound Mixers Can Only Sound Silly,” Variety, January 11, 1931. 62. Alba, “El cuerpo del delito,” 213. 63. Josep Carner Ribalta, “¡Por fin la noche!,” in Armero, Una aventura americana, 121–122. 64. “Un dólar por carta,” Cinelandia letter from Isabel Prout, Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 1930, 4; Cinelandia letter from Roberto Lucci, São Paulo, Brazil, December 1930, 4; Cinelandia letter from Felipe Silva León, Valparaiso, Chile, December 1930, 70.

NOTES TO PAGES 55–63

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65. Juan Piqueras, “Las versions españolas en hispanoamérica,” Nuestro Cinema (Paris), no. 3, August 1932, 90; “Historiografía,” Nuestro Cinema, no. 6, November 1932, 177–178. 66. L. Linares Lorca, “Del ‘Talkie,’” Mudo y sonoro (Barcelona), October 9, 1930, 6–7. 67. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 115–120. 68. “Mythical Sylvania Great for Versions,” Variety, November 19, 1930, 6. 69. The Studio Relations Committee, the group within the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association that vetted scripts for possible problem areas in terms of international distribution, had spent considerable time on the English Call of the Flesh in early 1930. They called MGM’s attention to numerous areas that might offend Spain, Catholics, or other Latin countries, including matters of religion, morality, and cultural accuracy. See Call of the Flesh file, Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Archive, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (hereafter cited as PCA/MHL). 70. Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 133–134; Juan J. Moreno, “Cinelándicas,” Cinelandia, December 1930, 4. 71. Baltasar Fernández Cue, “Hollywood y las películas en español,” El Ilustrado, August 6, 1931, reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 245–246. 72. “Coast’s Sexy Versions,” Variety, October 8, 1930, 3. 73. “Foreign Talk Censor Proof,” Variety, June 18, 1930, 7. 74. For several specific cases, see Vincendeau, “Hollywood Babel,” 218–219. 75. The Boudoir Diplomat file, PCA/MHL; Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 117. 76. The changes to the script (including the insertion of the direction “Magda, wearing lace pajamas, climbs into bed”) are in Gente Alegre/“Spanish Musical” file, PPF/MHL. See also a still from the film featuring those lace pajamas in Álvaro Armero, “Rosita Moreno,” in his Una aventura americana, 144. 77. Gente Alegre/“Spanish Musical” file, PPF/MHL. 78. “Noticias de Hollywood,” A.R.S. Programa de los Espectáculos de S.A.G.E. (Madrid) 5, no. 91 (May 1, 1931): 3; Vera Zouroff, “Crónicas de Hollywood,” Arte y Cinematografía, no. 358 (1931) (unpaginated). 79. Luz Alba, “Los remedios que se aplicaron,” El Ilustrado, June 4, 1931; Fernando Rendón, “La tremenda verdad de las películas en español,” El Ilustrado, May 14, 1931; and Gaby Rivas, “Algo sobre la labor parlante del último año,” El Ilustrado, June 4, 1931, all reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 231–235. 80. Waldman, Paramount in Paris, 121–140. CHAPTER 3

LANGUAGE CONTROVERSIES, 1930– 1931

1. Juan Piqueras, “Historiografía: Panorama del Cinema Hispánico,” Nuestro Cinema (Paris), no. 6, November 1932, 176. On Piqueras’s ideas and importance as an intellectual in pre–Civil War Spain, see Llopis, Juan Piqueras. 2. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 115–122. 3. For an account of the language debate from a local perspective, see Gunckel, “The War of the Accents,” 325–343. 4. Crafton, The Talkies, 447–459. 5. Ibid., 462–463. 6. Variety, June 5, 1935.

NOTES TO PAGES 63–67

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7. Nacify, An Accented Cinema, 22–25. 8. “Demand Looming for Native Talkers,” New York Times, December 16, 1929, 5:1. 9. Richard Maltby and Ruth Vasey, “‘Temporary American Citizens’: Cultural Anxieties and Industrial Strategies in the Americanisation of European Cinema,” in “Film Europe” and “Film America,” ed. Higson and Maltby, 32–34, 43. 10. Sarah Madsen Hardy and Kelly Thomas, “Listening to Race: Voice, Mixing, and Technological ‘Miscegenation’ in Early Sound Film,” in Classic Hollywood, ed. Bernardi, 415–441. 11. Press Book, no date, The Bad Man production file, Warner Brothers Archive, University of Southern California (hereafter cited as WBA). 12. García Riera, México visto por el cine extranjero, 172–174. 13. In the 1940s and 1950s, Carmen Miranda became perhaps the best known “Latin” performer whose character was defined by remarks such as “Best I known ten English werds: Men, Men, Men, Men, Men and Monnee, Monnee, Monnee, Monnee, Monnee.” Keller, Hispanics and United States Film, 78–80, 122, 125. 14. Letter, Luis E. Feliú-H., Consul General of Chile, to Will Hays, March 28, 1930, Motion Picture Association of American (hereafter cited as MPAA), General Correspondence Files, reel 2 of 21, Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (hereafter cited as MPPDA) Archive, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 15. “Cos. Concerned on Export Prints,” Variety, November 6, 1929, 4; “Faked Spanish Dialog Gets Razzed in S.A.,” Variety, November 27, 1929, 3; “More Spanish Dialog Brodies,” Variety, December 11, 1929, 4. 16. In some Latin American countries, “coger” is an obscene slang verb denoting sex. “Argentine Musicians Squawking on Sound,” Variety, November 6, 1929, 4, 28. 17. “Coast Worrying Over Spanish Accent in Talkers,” Variety, December 4, 1929, 4. 18. “Spanish Film Actors Poorly Paid; Producers Advertise for Casts,” Variety, January 1, 1930, 4. 19. “U Can’t See Returns for Foreign Tongue Shorts” Variety, December 15, 1929, 4. 20. Harry E. Goldflam, “Argentine,” Variety , February 5, 1930, 7; L. Linares Lorca, “Del ‘Talkie,’” Mudo y Sonoro (Barcelona), October 2, 1930, 6–7; “Etc.,” La Película (Buenos Aires), December 5, 1929, 9. 21. “Carta Especial pa el Director: Sombras Charlatanas,” Cinelandia, April 1930, 4, 72. 22. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 5–9; Richard Maltby, “The Production Code and the Hays Office,” in Grand Design, ed. Balio, 49–64. 23. Delpar, “Goodbye to the ‘Greaser,’” 37–39. 24. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 80–84. 25. Ibid., 80. 26. “Colonel Joy’s Resume,” November 21, 1929, In Gay Madrid file, MPPA, Production Code Administration Archive, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (hereafter cited as PCA/MHL). Discussions with the Spanish Embassy are described in an exchange of telegrams between Jason Joy and Maucrice McKenzie, November 12 and 13, 1929. See In Gay Madrid, PCA/MHL. 27. “Colonel Joy’s Resume,” April 4, 1930; and letter, Joy to Irving Thalberg (MGM), April 5, 1930, both in In Gay Madrid file, PCA/MHL. After the screening, de la Riva wrote a lengthy letter describing points he believed might offend or put off Spanish

NOTES TO PAGES 67–68

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audiences, but it is unclear whether his advice was used by the studio to make changes. Letter, de la Riva to John Wilson (SRC), April 8, 1930, In Gay Madrid file, PCA/MHL. 28. In a later letter from de la Riva to Cowan, de la Riva recalls suggesting setting up such a business sometime “about the middle of last January.” De la Riva makes sure to stake his prior claim in the face of possible competition from a man named Guillermo Prieto-Yeme, who had contacted the Academy about setting up a consulting business for Spanish-language films. Letter, de la Riva to Lester Cowan (Academy), June 26, 1930, “Foreign Language Problems: Foreign Language Committee” file, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (hereafter cited as FLC). 29. Letter, Cowan to Paul Kohner (Universal), Heinz Blanke and DeLeon Anthony (WB/FN), Geoffrey Shurlock (Paramount), Leon D’Usseau (RKO), John Stone (Fox), and Frank Davis, Tom Kilpatrick, Jerome Lachenbuch, Salvador de Alberich, and Unity Pegues (MGM), February 3, 1930, FLC. 30. Letter, Cowan to Hal Wallis (FN), Sol Wurtzel (Fox), Irving Thalberg (MGM), B. P. Schulberg (Paramount), C. E. Sullivan (Pathe), William LeBaron (RKO), John Considine (United Artists), Carl Laemmle Jr. (Universal), and Jack Warner (WB), February 6, 1930, FLC. 31. Ibid. 32. Press Release, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Office of Frank Woods, Secretary, February 7, 1930, FLC. The committee was called both the Foreign Language Committee and the Committee on Foreign Production in documents in the file (FLC). 33. Meeting Minutes, February 20, 1930, FLC; letter, Frank Woods to studio executives (see note 30 for list), February 15, 1930, Minutes of Conferences file, FLC. The Association of Motion Picture Producers (AMPP) was a West Coast organization closely linked to the MPPDA and existed as a separate legal entity to satisfy antimonopoly laws. The AMPP housed both the Studio Relations Committee and its successor, the Production Code Administration. However, both were under the direction of the MPPDA, which had its main offices in New York. (See Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 47, 241n56.) It is not clear whether the committee continued to meet. 34. Cornelio Dircio, “Impresiones de Hollywood,” Cinelandia, February 1930, 59. See also Cornelio Dircio, “Impresiones,” Cinelandia, May 1930, 37; Juan J. Moreno, “Cinelándicas,” Cinelandia, March 1930, 7. 35. Juan J. Moreno, “Cinelándicas,” Cinelandia, May 1930, 7. One can find a similar description of the desperation of Spanish-speaking actors to break into Hollywood films and of the negative consequences on the quality of these films in a Spanish film magazine article from the same month: “Escasean los actores en Hollywood,” Arte y Cinematografía (Madrid), May 1930, 25. 36. See, for example, Juan J. Moreno, “Cinelándicas,” Cinelandia, March 1930, 7. Henry Blanke, head of Warner Brothers’ Foreign Department, asked his superiors on several occasion for permission to offer contracts to well-known theater performers. Blanke, in response to a review of a Warner Brothers Spanish-language film that described the acting in the film as amateurish, wrote that there was little he could do since this was what was available. Letter, Henry Blanke to H. A. Bandy, October 23, 1930, Blanke/Bandy correspondence files, Warner Brothers Archive at the University of Southern California (hereafter cited as BL/BA). Other studios did make a point of hiring well-known stage actors.

NOTES TO PAGES 69–73

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37. Undated Press Release, FLC. The committee’s meeting minutes of February 20, 1930, confirm that only one more registration session was held. However, after these two, the committee decided that each studio should register Spanish-speaking actors individually, but then circulate the information to other studios. I have found no indication of whether or not studios did this. Meeting Minutes, February 20, 1930, Minutes of Conferences file, FLC. 38. Undated Press Release, FLC. The committee’s meeting minutes make clear it was drafted in early February and likely released shortly thereafter. Meeting Minutes, February 12, 1930, FLC. For Spanish reactions to this press release, see Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República, 47. 39. Meeting Minutes, February 12, 1930, Minutes of Conferences file, FLC. 40. Undated document entitled “Spanish Language Problems,” Meeting Minutes, February 5, 1930, Minutes of Conferences file, FLC. 41. “TO THE MOTION PICTURE PRODUCERS” 3/?/30 [sic], Proceedings file, FLC. 42. “Spanish in the Talkies,” New York Times, May 25, 1930, X, 4:2. 43. “TO THE MOTION PICTURE PRODUCERS” 3/?/30 [sic]. 44. “Etc.” and “Carta al director,” Cinelandia, March 1930, 4. 45. “Spanish in the Talkies.” 46. “Spanish Language Problems.” 47. Meeting Minutes, May 7, 1930, Proceedings File, FLC. 48. Letter, John Wilson (AMPP) to Lester Cowan (AMPAS), July 22, 1930, Proceedings File, FLC. 49. De Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 189. 50. The committee consulted with Lucio Villegas, a Chilean actor, journalist, and former diplomat who worked on numerous Spanish versions, and with Francisco Moré de la Torre, a dialogue writer for Fox Film and (according to documents in the file) a friend of Douglas Fairbanks. Meeting Minutes, February 10, 1930, Proceedings File, FLC; and letter, Cowan to G. Shurlock (Paramount), February 14, 1930, Proceedings File, FLC. 51. Letter, Henry Blanke to H. A. Bandy, October 23, 1930, BL/BA. 52. They also planned to make six French and German versions of the same scripts to the extent possible. A French Bad Man, López, le Bandit, was also made, although a German version was not. 53. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, January 16, 1930, BL/BA. Bandy was right to point out that it was an extraordinary opportunity for Blanke, who went on to become one of the studio’s most important producers. 54. The foreign production unit was based at the First National studios, while the foreign adaptations unit was at the Warner Brothers lot. Blanke ran both. See letter, Blanke to Karl G. Macdonald, May 10, 1930, BL/BA. 55. Silent versions of sound films were intended for markets where many theaters had not yet wired for sound. Warner Brothers continued to make these for the domestic market through April 1930. They phased out these completely silent versions for foreign markets by the end of 1930. Letter, Jack Warner to Blanke, April 16, 1930, BL/BA. 56. Letter, H. A. Bandy to J. L. Warner, February 20, 1930, BL/BA. In a memo to Blanke, Jack Warner passed on a wire from Sam Morris reminding him of the original decision on Spanish versions: “DONT KNOW HOW MANY WE WILL MAKE PROCEED SLOWLY SEE

NOTES TO PAGES 73–77

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WHAT SUCCESS BAD MAN HAS YOU AND I AGREED TO THIS.” Memo, Jack Warner to Blanke, July 2, 1930, BL/BA. 57. See letter, H. A. Bandy to J. L. Warner, February 20, 1930, BL/BA; and exchange of wire and letter between Blanke and Bandy, June 27, 1930, BL/BA. 58. Although Warner Brothers garnered immense profits from its successful gamble on introducing sound, those profits started to drop off dramatically by mid-1929 and turned into losses by early 1931. The number of features the studio produced annually also declined markedly from 1929 to 1931, before leveling off. See Roddick, A New Deal in Entertainment, 20–21; Schatz, The Genius of the System, 86, 142. 59. Schatz, The Genius of the System, 66, 136. 60. On the activities of all studios in the foreign field in the early 1930s, see Crafton, The Talkies, 424–431. On pressure felt by Warner Brothers to keep up with other studios in the foreign field, see letters, Blanke to Bandy, July 22, 1930, and October 23, 1930, BL/BA. 61. The English original was shot in April and May of 1930 at a cost of $226,394 and starred Walter Huston. “Estimated Negative Cost Report,” The Bad Man production file, WBA. 62. This is how one Warner Brothers executive remembered the events in 1930. At a later date, another WB executive recalled that it was a different 1923 First National film, Girl of the Golden West, which provoked the Mexican ban of First National films. See Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 170, 265n37. 63. Delpar, “Goodbye to the ‘Greaser,’” 35. 64. Ibid., 34–41. 65. Memo, J. V. Wilson to Hutchings, October 7, 1929, The Bad Man file, PCA/MHL. 66. Both Paramount and MGM considered buying the property in late 1929 or early 1930. The Bad Man file, PCA/MHL. 67. Memo, J. V. Wilson to Hutchings, October 7, 1929, PCA/MHL. 68. Letter, Bandy to Warner, February 20, 1930, BL/BA. 69. Letter Blanke to Macdonald, March 29, 1930, BL/BA. 70. Letter Blanke to Macdonald, May 10, 1930, BL/BA. 71. Translation of article of El Universal, enclosure in letter, Felipe Mier to Bandy, May 19, 1930, BL/BA. 72. Letter, Graham Baker to Jack Warner, May 26, 1930, BL/BA. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid.; letter, Blanke to Karl MacDonald, May 10, 1930, BL/BA. In this letter, Blanke refers to a letter from Felipe Mier, branch manager for Warner Brothers in Mexico, who supposedly suggested the Castilian/Mexican split between the two groups in a letter of February 1, 1930. No copy of this letter was in the Blanke files. See also Blanke’s letter to John V. Wilson, June 9, 1930, The Bad Man file, PCA/MHL. 75. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 93. 76. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, May 28, 1930, and June 17, 1930, BL/BA. 77. Letter, Blanke to John V. Wilson, June 9, 1930, The Bad Man file, PCA/MHL. 78. Letter, Baker to Warner, May 26, 1930, BL/BA. 79. Letter, Blanke to Macdonald, March 29, 1930, BL/BA. 80. Letter, Blanke to John V. Wilson, June 9, 1930, The Bad Man file, PCA/MHL. 81. Letter, Baker to Warner, May 26, 1930, BL/BA.

NOTES TO PAGES 77–81

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82. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, May 14, 1930, BL/BA. 83. Letters, Blanke to Bandy, May 28, 29, June 6, 1930, BL/BA; letters, Bandy to Blanke, June 3, July 8, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Bandy to Warner, July 16, 1930, BL/BA. 84. Letters, Blanke to Bandy, June 23, 28, 30, 1930, BL/BA; wire, Blanke to Bandy, June 28, 1930, BL/BA. 85. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, June 30, 1930, BL/BA. 86. Letters, Bandy to Blanke, June 20, July 8, 16, and August 13, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Bandy, June 28, 1930, BL/BA; wire, Cedric Hart to Jack Warner, June 30, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Voight to Blanke, July 17, 1930, BL/BA. 87. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, June 3, 1930, BL/BA. 88. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, May 14, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to John V. Wilson, June 9, 1930, The Bad Man file, PCA/MHL. 89. Letter, Bandy to Warner, June 14, 1930, BL/BA. 90. For costs and grosses, see wire, Blanke to Bandy, June 27, 1930, BL/BA; letters, Bandy to Blanke, July 17, 25, August 26, September 23, 1930, and January 22, 1931, BL/BA. For grosses of El hombre malo in Mexico through 1934, see De Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 91. 91. Letters, Bandy to Blanke, September 23, 1930, October 27, 1930, and January 22, 1931, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Bandy, October 23, 1930, BL/BA. 92. Letters, Bandy to Warner, June 14, 1930, July 25, 1930, BL/BA; letters, Bandy to Blanke, July 8, 1930, August 26, 1930, September 23, 1930, BL/BA. 93. “The Bad Man: The BAD MAN was not so bad, but oh the film!,” El Mundo, September 15, 1930. English translation of article included as attachment to letter, Bandy to Blanke, [no day] October 1930, BL/BA. 94. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 171. 95. Ibid., 159. 96. Ibid., 227. 97. Letter, Baker to Warner, May 26, 1930, BL/BA. 98. Letters, Bandy to Blanke, June 3, 5, 1930, BL/BA. 99. Letter, Bandy to Warner, July 25, 1930, BL/BA. 100. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, [no day] October 1930, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Bandy, October 23, 1930, BL/BA. 101. Letter, Felipe Mier to H. A. Bandy, May 19, 1930, BL/BA. 102. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, June 3, 1930, BL/BA. 103. Arthur Kelly, vice president of the United Artists Company, quoted in de Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 130. 104. In a study conducted in 1940 by the Office of Public Opinion Research, respondents throughout the United States were given a list of nineteen characteristics from which to choose to best describe Latin Americans. Although “sensitive” was not given as an option, two closely related characteristics, “quick-tempered” and “emotional,” were the second and third most often chosen (about half of all respondents) qualities. (“Dark-skinned” ranked first.) “Proud” was picked by one-fourth of respondents. Study described in Skidmore and Smith, Modern Latin America, 2. 105. Letter, Ted Herron (MPPDA) to Jason Joy (SRC), December 22, 1931, The Cuban Love Song, PCA/MHL.

NOTES TO PAGES 81–90

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106. Letter, Herron to Joseph Breen (SRC), January 7, 1935, Storm over the Andes, PCA/MHL. 107. Alejandro Aragón, “¡Muera Villa!,” El Ilustrado (Mexico), April 26, 1934.

CHAPTER 4

THE START OF NATIONAL COMPETITION, 1931– 1932

1. Another account from the same time period confirms that films from Spain and Argentina had recently done very well in New York City. See Roberto Cantu Robert, “Cerca de nuestras estrellas,” Filmográfico 3, no. 34 (January 1935): 12. 2. Mariano Viamonte Fernández, “El ocaso de Hollywood,” Mundo Cinematográfico, November 1934, 1. 3. Borge, Latin American Writers, 106–138. 4. “Our ‘Imperialistic’ Movies,” New York Times, March 17, 1930, 22:4. 5. See Edmund G. Lowry, “Certain Factors and Considerations Affecting the European Market,” Internal MPPDA memorandum, October 25, 1928, reprinted in Higson and Maltby, “Film Europe” and “Film America,” 353–355. 6. Trumpbour, Selling Hollywood to the World, 226–229. 7. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 151; Trumpbour, Selling Hollywood to the World, 70; Shohat and Stam, “The Imperial Imaginary,” 374. 8. Pike, Hispanismo; Ricardo Pérez Montfor, “Indigenismo, hispanismo y panamericanismo en la cultura popular mexicana de 1920 a 1940,” in Cultura e identidad nacional, ed. Blancarte, 343–383. 9. Pike, Hispanismo, 226–228. 10. Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión, Boletín de Información, 9. 11. Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República, 45–47. 12. Viola, quoted in Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión, Boletín de información, 10–11. 13. Ibid., 14–15. 14. Ibid., 16. 15. According to the Film Daily Year Book, the following countries sent representatives (either diplomatic or consular) to the congress: Mexico, Paraguay, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Cuba, Costa Rica, Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile. Representatives from the Spanish Chambers of Commerce in Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, Costa Rica, Argentina, Peru, Puerto Rico, the United States, and the Philippines also attended. According to the congress’s organizing committee, representatives from Colombia, Argentina, and Panama had also committed to attending the congress. “The World in Motion Pictures,” in Film Daily Year Book (New York: Film Daily, 1932), 1046–1047; Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión, Boletín de Información, 24. 16. “I Congreso Hispanoamericano de Cinematografía” [complete text of the measures adopted by the congress], Arte y Cinematografía (Barcelona, Spain) 22, no. 367 (November 1931). 17. Richard Maltby and Andrew Higson, introduction to “Film Europe” and “Film America,” ed. Higson and Maltby, 1–31, quotations on 17–18. 18. Vallés Copeiro del Villar, Historia de la política de fomento del cine español, 37–39. 19. Ibid. 20. Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República, 55–58, 62–68. 21. The announcement and complete text of this treaty can be found in “México y España contra las películas denigrantes,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), October 1933, 8, 28.

NOTES TO PAGES 90–96

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22. See section titled “Censura cinematográfica” in “I Congreso Hispanoamericano de Cinematografía.” 23. Vasey, The World According to Hollywood, 156; Hawley, World-Wide Influences, 302. 24. Hawley, World-Wide Influences, 262, 264. 25. Film Daily Year Book (1932), 1007. 26. “Tax Increased 15 Times: Argentine High Is Prohibitive,” Variety, March 4, 1931, 15; “En tiempos de miseria,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), June 1931, 4. 27. Ortiz Rubio, quoted in “Mexico’s Tax Not Invoked until Mexico Making Own Film Talkers,” Variety, October 27, 1931, 15. 28. Fein, “Hollywood and United States–Mexico Relations,” 62–65. 29. See Fredrick B. Pike, “Weaknesses and Strengths: A Concluding Assessment,” in his Hispanismo, 311–331. 30. Pike, Hispanismo, 1–2. 31. Simón Bolívar, “Reply of a South American to a Gentleman of This Island [Jamaica],” in his Selected Writings, 103–122; José Martí, “Our America,” in his Selected Writings, 288–296. 32. Mar-Molinero, The Politics of Language, 31–33. 33. Barry Velleman, “Linguistic Anti-Academicism and Hispanic Community,” in The Battle over Spanish, ed. del Valle and Gabriel-Stheeman, 15–19. 34. José del Valle, “Menéndez Pidal,” in The Battle over Spanish, ed. del Valle and GabrielStheeman, 78–105. 35. José del Valle, “Historical Linguistics and Cultural History,” in The Battle over Spanish, ed. del Valle and Gabriel-Stheeman, 65–6. 36. Francos Rodríguez, “Esfuerzo necesario,” ABC (Madrid), January 29, 1930, reprinted in Ministerio de Trabajo y Previsión, Boletín de información, 19. 37. Quoted in Navarro y Tomás, El idioma español, 9. 38. Ibid., 10–11, 46. 39. Ibid., 13, 45. 40. Ibid., 44–45 41. Ibid., 12–13. 42. “Un acuerdo de los Cónsules en San Francisco,” Arte y Cinematografía (Madrid), no. 358 (1931): 11. 43. Victoriano Salado Alvarez, “Hispanistas de pega y sentencia baldía,” Exclesior (Mexico), reprinted in Mundo Cinematográfico, February 1931, 27–28. 44. See, for instance, “Nuestros maestros de Spanish,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), June 1931, 4. 45. See “Intemperancias de la prensa española,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), November 1930, 8; and “Un grave error,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), December 1930, 4. 46. “Problemas fundamentals: Aspecto exterior,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), November 1930, 9. 47. Juan Piqueras, “Panorama del cinema hispánico,” Nuestro Cinema (Paris), October 1932, 150. 48. Santos, quoted in Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República, 55. 49. Pike, Hispanismo, 294–310.

NOTES TO PAGES 96–101

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50. Earlier sound films had been made in each of these countries, but the technical quality of these films was so poor that none had received any significant commercial distribution. 51. García Riera, Historia documental del cine mexicano, 25. 52. Ibid., 26. 53. Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 28, 264–265. 54. Baltasar Fernández Cue, “Hollywood y las películas en español,” El Ilustrado (Mexico), August 6, 1931, reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 246. Although the version published in El Ilustrado makes it sound as if Fernández Cue is suggesting that Mexico can take the lead over Hollywood, an article in the Mexican film trade magazine Mundo Cinematográfico demonstrates that he had something else in mind. Fernández Cue had been sent by Columbia Studios to travel from California to Argentina to study the reception of Spanish-language films and the possibilities for future production. “In the opinion of Sr. Fernández Cue, Mexico turns out to be ideal for making Spanish-language sound films, because of its proximity to Hollywood, its natural resources, it climate and its geographic location relative to other countries [that could] consume [these films]. This opinion, which is the result of very careful investigation, has been communicated by Sr. Fernández Cue to North American producers who will surely know how to take advantage of it if it is convenient for them to do so.” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), August 1931, 16. 55. Adolfo Fernández Bustamante, “Eisenstein el magnífico,” El Ilustrado (Mexico), June 11, 18, 25, and July 16, 1931; Roberto Cantú Robert, “La cinematografía, industria de porvenir para México,” El Ilustrado, February 4, 1932; and “Cineastas de Hollywood en México,” El Ilustrado, March 24, 1932, all reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 236–243, 259–261, 263, respectively. 56. “Nuestro huésped Antonio Moreno,” El Ilustrado (Mexico), November 12, 1931, reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 248. 57. Roberto Cantú Robert, “De aquellos días,” Filmópolis (Mexico), 1935, 18–9. 58. King, Magical Reels, 42. 59. García Riera, Historia documental del cine mexicano, 26. 60. Cantú Robert, “De aquellos días,” 18–19. 61. A. Nuñéz Alonso, “Hacia un mismo punto,” April 14, 1932. See also Luz Alba, “Santa,” April 7, 1932, El Ilustrado, reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 267–269. 62. García Riera, Historia documental del cine mexicano, 27. See also Ramírez Berg’s comments on the film’s reception in his Cinema of Solitude, 13–14. 63. Letter (unsigned), Director to Jack Lustberg, September 9, 1932, Santa File, State of New York Education Department, Motion Picture Division, New York State Archives, Albany (hereafter cited as NYED). 64. Letter, Erwin Esmond, Director, to the Cinexport Distributing Company, December 31, 1935, La mujer del puerto/The Woman of the Port File, NYED. 65. Gerarado del Valle, “El cine hispano americano,” Filmópolis (Cuba), no. 47 (1932): 8. 66. Carlos Noriega Hope (writing under the pseudonym Silvestre Bonnard), “Los tiburones de la cinematografía nacional y el raro caso de Santa,” El Ilustrado (Mexico), March 31, 1932, reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 267. 67. Translation of Rubén Darío’s “A Roosevelt” by E. C. Hills, reprinted in Warshaw, The New Latin America, 271. 68. Larrain, Identity and Modernity,

NOTES TO PAGES 102–109 CHAPTER 5

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MODES OF TRANSLATING HOLLYWOOD FILMS, 1930– 1935

1. Jorge Luis Borges, “Sobre el doblaje,” Sur, 1945, translated by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu and reprinted in Subtitles, ed. Egoyan and Balfour, 119. 2. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, July 6, 1930, in Henry Blanke/H. A. Bandy correspondence files, Warner Brothers Archive at the University of Southern California (hereafter cited as BL/BA). 3. The most recent and thorough study of the history and implications of film translation is Nornes, Cinema Babel. 4. Natasa Durovicová, “Local Ghosts: The Human Body and Early Sound Cinema,” in Il film et suoi multipli, ed. A. Antonini (Udine: Forum, 2003). See online edition at http://epa.oszk.hu/00300/00375/00001/durovicova.htm (accessed August 25, 2009). 5. Pilcher, Cantinflas and the Chaos of Mexican Modernity, xviii; Simon Romero, “A U.S. Rebirth for Mexico’s Comic Legend,” New York Times, October 28, 2003. 6. Pilcher, Cantinflas and the Chaos, 65–78, 89. 7. Memo, H. A. Bandy to [“Bill”] Starr, undated [first item in Blanke’s file of correspondence with Bandy—probably predates Blanke’s employment], BL/BA. 8. Memo, H. A. Bandy to Jack Warner, November 27, 1929, BL/BA; letter, Bandy to Blanke, January 16, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Karl MacDonald to Blanke, March 27, 1930, BL/BA. 9. Memo, H. A. Bandy to Warner, November 27, 1929. 10. Ibid., see also letter, DeLeon Anthony to Bandy, January 10, 1930, BL/BA. 11. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, January 16, 1930, BL/BA. 12. Letter 1, MacDonald to Blanke, April 1, 1930, BL/BA. 13. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, January 18, 1930, BL/BA. 14. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, January 16, 1930, BL/BA. 15. There was precedent for this practice from the silent period when American studios had sometimes cut different versions of their films to suit the tastes of key European markets. Joseph Garncarz, “Made in Germany: Multiple Language Versions and the Early German Sound Cinema,” in “Film Europe” and “Film America,” ed. Higson and Maltby, 261–262. 16. Bordwell, Staiger, and Thompson, The Classical Hollywood Cinema, 304–308. 17. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, March 4, 1931, BL/BA. At another moment, Bandy also reminded Jack Warner that the work of Blanke’s department on a film was not a mechanical process but equivalent to the work that film directors did. Letter, Bandy to Jack Warner, November 18, 1930, BL/BA. 18. Letter, Blanke to Macdonald, April 1, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Bandy, January 18, 1930, BL/BA. 19. Letter 1, MacDonald to Blanke, April 1, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Bandy to Blanke, October 27, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Jack Warner, November 18 1930, BL/BA. 20. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, May 21, 1930, BL/BA. 21. Letter 2, MacDonald to Blanke, April 1, 1930, BL/BA. 22. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, September 15, 1930, BL/BA. 23. Letter, Anthony to Macdonald, March 16, 1931, BL/BA. 24. Film Daily Year Book’s year-end summary of the motion picture industry’s activities and outlook for the coming year emphasizes this point in numerous short pieces

NOTES TO PAGES 109–112

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written by studio executives who headed foreign distribution branches. See “Outlook for 1932 in the Foreign Field” and “Outlook for 1933 in the Foreign Field,” in Film Daily Year Book (New York: Film Daily, 1931 and 1932), 995–999 and 953–957, respectively. 25. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, October 21, 1930, BL/BA. 26. “Synced Silents Instead of Talkers for Foreign Market Probably General U.S. Policy,” Variety, February 11, 1931, 13. 27. According to one account, this kind of subtitling machine was invented and first employed in Norway sometime in 1930. Karamitroglou, Towards a Methodology, 7. 28. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, September 11, 1931, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Bandy, September 23, 1931, BL/BA. 29. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, October 16, 1931, BL/BA. 30. Letter, Anthony to Macdonald, November 17, 1931, BL/BA. 31. Richard Maltby and Ruth Vasey, “Temporary American Citizens’ Cultural Anxieties and Industrial Strategies in the Americanisation of European Cinema,” in “Film Europe” and “Film America,” ed. Higson and Maltby, 48. For a discussion of some of the difficulties on the road to effective methods of post-synchronization, see “Patented ‘Dubbing’ Device Makes Foreign Films 100% Synchronized,” Variety, June 11, 1930, 4. 32. Maltby and Vasey, “Temporary American Citizens’ Cultural Anxieties”; de Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 95; Vallés Copeiro del Villar, Historia de la política, 39–40. 33. “Foreign Language Bans Halt Hollywood Dubbing,” Variety, January 15, 1930, 7. 34. “Rule Against English All-Talkers Abroad,” Variety, February 26, 1930, 4; “Argentine Fears U.S. Screen, [illegible] Spain Anti-American on Talkies,” Variety, April 30, 1930, 7. 35. “Europe Off ‘Dubbed’ Film,” Variety, April 9, 1930, 7; letter, Bandy to Blanke, July 24, 1930, BL/BA. 36. “Dubbing’s Comeback on Coast; Sound Men Assure Results as Desired,” Variety, August 6, 1930, 4. 37. Fox Films dubbed some of José Mojica’s pictures into Italian. MGM had plans to dub Italian onto its Spanish versions as well. Blanke and Bandy discussed it for their Spanish versions but ultimately decided the cost was not worth the potential returns. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, August 12, 1930, BL/BA; “Metro’s Test Favors Dubbing of Foreigns,” Variety, September 10, 1930, 6. 38. Letter, Blanke to Macdonald, March 29, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Bandy, June 18, 1930, BL/BA; letter, Bandy to Jack Warner, November 18, 1930, BL/BA; “Dubbing Wins Out Abroad,” Variety, November 3, 1931, 15. 39. Letter, Blanke to Bandy, [no date] 1932, BL/BA. While Blanke learned more details from his indiscreet colleague, this information actually only confirmed published reports of MGM’s plans for 1932. See “M-G-M Planning 20 Foreigns, All Dubbed,” Variety, November 3, 1931, 15. 40. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, January 1, 1932, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Macdonald, May 23, 1932, BL/BA. 41. “Imposed Titles to Rule All U.S. Product Made for Latin America,” Variety, November 10, 1931, 19. 42. See, for instance, plans for dubbing and titling announced by Fox Films in 1935. “All productions released in Spain, Italy, Germany and France are to be dubbed in the language of those countries. Whereas, in other countries, the native language will be superimposed on the film in the form of subtitles.” “Fox Clinching Foreign,” Hollywood

NOTES TO PAGES 112–115

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Reporter, May 31, 1935, 7. An article published a short while later announced that Hungary planned to impose mandatory in-country dubbing laws on 10 percent of American films. The writer stated that the higher costs of dubbing over superimposing titles would mean that the Hungarian market would lose its value for American producers. “Hungary Will Insist 10 P.C. of Imports Be Dubbed There,” Hollywood Reporter, July 6, 1935, 10. 43. Ballester Casado, Traducción y nacionalismo, 105–106; Ávila, La historia del doblaje cinematográfico, 68–72. 44. Ávila, La historia del doblaje cinematográfico, 81–120. 45. For a summary of these views, see Ballester Casado, Traducción y nacionalismo, 119–120. 46. Ibid., 116. 47. Antonio Barbero, “La producción nacional,” ABC (Madrid), May 16, 1934, 12–15. 48. “American Pictures Losing Out in Spain and Portugal,” Hollywood Reporter, June 15, 1935, 6. 49. “Bulletin from Department of Commerce, June 15, 1936,” “Argentine—Local Production,” Black Books: Argentina, General Files, United Artists Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society (hereafter cited as UAC). 50. Golden, Review of Foreign Film Markets during 1937, 13, 51, 64, 66, 96, 197, 233, 238. 51. “Bulletin from Department of Commerce, June 15, 1936,” UAC. 52. Segrave, American Films Abroad, 116, 124–125. 53. “Motivos actuales del ‘doblaje’ en español,” El mundo, April 25, 1945, clipping in Sam Cohen Papers, “Dubbing” file, Box 11, File 15, UAC. 54. “Dubbing (Foreign Languages) Misc File,” Warner Brothers Archives at the University of Southern California; Nick Caistor, Octavio Paz (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), 56. 55. “Dubbing,” file in the Sam Cohen papers, Box 11, File 15, UAC; de Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 187–190. 56. The U.S. film industry continues to try to use dubbing as a means of increasing its market share. In 2000, several U.S. film distribution companies won a suit in Mexico’s Supreme Court that declared unconstitutional a law requiring that most feature films be dubbed. “Hollywood majors claimed the statute discriminated against the estimated 20 million illiterate Mexicans, as well as the elderly and poor-sighted.” Simeon Tegel, “Hollywood Gets Last Word in Mexican Dubs Dispute,” Variety, March 13, 2000, 16. 57. Joaquín de la Horia, “Los rodajes,” Cinelandia, July 1934, quoted in Armero, Una adventura americana, 274. 58. For views from historians of Spanish-language cinemas, see Eduardo de la Vega Álfaro, “Origins, Development, and Crisis of the Sound Cinema (1929–64),” in Mexican Cinema, ed. Paranaguá, 79; Gubern et al., Historia del cine español, 126; among others. On the American industry, important examples are Crafton, The Talkies, 441; and Gomery, “Economic Struggle and Hollywood Imperialism,” 84. 59. Balio, Grand Design, 13–18, 21–26. 60. “Foreign Market Loss of $4,000,000 Yearly to Am. Cos. May Bring More Economy Cuts in N.Y. Home Offices,” Variety, New York, October 10, 1931, 4; “Foreign Sales Must Increase 40% to Cover Exchange Loss for Am. Distribs,” Variety, October 13, 1931, 11; “Foreign Countries Ban on Exporting Money Can Turn into Embargo on U.S. Films,” Variety, October 20, 1931, 15.

NOTES TO PAGES 116–121

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61. “General Report,” Argentina and Chile, 1936, Black Books, UAC. 62. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, January 30, 1931, BL/BA. 63. Letter, Anthony to Macdonald, April 29, 1931, BL/BA; letter, Blanke to Macdonald, June 20, 1931, BL/BA. 64. Letter, Blanke to Koenig, October 3, 1931, BL/BA. 65. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, October 16, 1931, BL/BA. 66. Letter, Bandy to Blanke, September 23, 1931, BL/BA. 67. Letter, MacDonald to Blanke, April 21, 1932, BL/BA. 68. “Sad Outlook on Foreigns: U.S. Producers See No Profits,” Variety, October 15, 1930, 7. 69. “Retitled Originals Satisfy Brazil When Spanish Versions Are Cold,” Variety, New York, October 20, 1931, 5; “Imposed Titles to Rule All U.S. Product Made for Latin America,” Variety, November 10, 1931, 7; “U.S. Producers Must Revise Foreign Production,” Variety, January 1, 1931, 11. 70. See table in Peredo Castro, Cine y propaganda para latinoamérica, 478 (table from information in de Usabel, The High Noon of American Films in Latin America). 71. “US Capital Seeks French Allies in Its Foreign Language Versions,” Variety, February 26, 1930, 5. 72. “Expect Spain as Next Boom Center on Sound,” Variety, January 15, 1930, 4; “2,800 Film Houses in Spain’s Provinces,” Variety. November 19, 1930, 6. 73. By 1932, about 25 percent of extant theaters had wired for sound, with significant variations between countries. De Usabel, The High Noon of American Films in Latin America, 81. 74. Agents of the United Artists Company in Latin America frequently reported such developments back to their bosses in the United States. See general country reports (1935, 1936, 1937) in Black Books: Argentina, Brazil, Cristobal, Mexico, in General Files, UAC. As one trade press article explained about Argentina, “The domestic product is finding a cool reception in the larger cities, where a large percentage of people either understand English or are satisfied with subtitles, but in the smaller towns the income derived compares favorably to that earned by the more important American features.” “Argentine Sticks Boosts Domestics,” Hollywood Reporter, August 24, 1936, 8. 75. “Majors Demand Castilian in Pictures, But Spain Buys Under 20% of Product,” Variety, New York, September 4, 1934, 13; “All Hot for Spanish Dialog Prod., But Loew Cables M-G to Forget It,” Variety, December 4, 1934, 11; “Spanish-Language Pictures Hurting U.S. Production in Cuba; Printed Titles No Use to Illiterates,” Hollywood Reporter, July 27, 1935, 6. 76. Carlos F. Borcosque, “La producción hispano parlante de 1931,” Cinelandia 6, no. 3 (March 1932): 23, 50–51. 77. Juan Piqueras, “Campañas a destiempo: Versiones, sincronizaciones, subtítulos,” Nuestro Cinema (Paris) 1, no. 1 (June 1932): 7.

CHAPTER 6

FOX FILM’S PRESTIGIOUS SPANISH PRODUCTIONS, 1932– 1935

1. Cinemundial, New York, June 1933, 370; Mojica, Yo Pecador, 306. See also reports from United Artists agents in Argentina, such as letter, Morgan to Kelly, June 12, 1936, “Argentina—General,” Black Books, General Correspondence Files, United Artists Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society.

NOTES TO PAGES 121–128

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2. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 128–144. 3. Ibid., 245–247, 267. 4. Ibid., 172; “José Mojica,” FX-LR 200, Fox Legal Files, Arts Library Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles (hereafter cited as FLF). 5. Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 98–100; Mojica, Yo Pecador, 277–278. 6. Production details on Fox Film’s Spanish-language films are detailed in Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood. 7. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 281. 8. Alfredo Le Pera, quoted in Finkielman, The Film Industry, 190. 9. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 282–283. 10. “Dos películas parlantes en español,” Cinelandia (Los Angeles) 4, no. 8 (August 1932): 32. 11. Luz Alba, “El precio de un beso,” El Ilustrado, September 11, 1930, reprinted in Reyes de la Maza, El cine sonoro en México, 222. 12. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 283–284. 13. “José Mojica,” FX-LR 200, FLF. 14. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 290. 15. “Retitled Originals.” Variety, 1931. 16. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 294. 17. Ibid., 313. 18. Ibid., 58–61, 77–84, 302. 19. Compare Mojica, Yo Pecador, 272, 294, 300, with Mojica, I, a Sinner, 288, 304, 306–307. 20. Weber, The Spanish Frontier, 342–345. 21. Martínez Sierra, quoted in Mojica, Yo Pecador, 307. 22. The Cristeros, so named for their rallying cry “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” (Long live Christ the King), were devout Catholics in Mexico who took up arms during the late 1920s against the revolutionary governments that were attempting to secularize the country. The movement first exploded in Mojica’s native state of Jalisco. 23. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 293. 24. “Cross and the Sword,” Fox Scripts—Produced, File 11, Arts Special Collections, University of California at Los Angeles. 25. In his autobiography, he describes one teacher as “la india exaltada” who recounted the horrible deeds of the Spaniards and how the priests had collaborated with the conquistadors in the oppression of the Indians. Mojica dismissed these as her “personal phobias.” Mojica, Yo Pecador, 61. 26. Mojica, Yo Pecador, 301. According to a Mexican correspondent in Cuba, Cruz was considered Mojica’s best film and was a smash at the box office. “Un Interesante Reportaje de Nuestro Corresponsal en Cuba,” Mundo Cinematográfico, Mexico City, January 1935, 12. 27. “So. Americans Replace Fox Spanish Talent,” Variety, New York, October 6, 1931, 15; “Fox Has Trouble Buying Off Its Spanish Crew,” Variety, October 13, 1931, 11; “Fox Last of Majors to Check Separate Language Filmings,” Variety, November 24, 1931, 7; “Mr. John Stone . . . se encuentra en México,” Mundo Cinematográfico, Mexico City, January 1934, 8. 28. “Por los hispanoamericanos,” Cine-Mundial, New York, May 1934, 281. 29. “Da su fallo el jurado de nuestro concurso,” Cine-Mundial, November 1934, 624–625.

NOTES TO PAGES 129–135

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30. English translation by Robin Moore, in Nationalizing Blackness: Afrocubanismo and Artistic Revolution in Havana (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), 236. Reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. 31. Singerman, Mis dos vidas, 61. 32. Ibid., 321; Mascato Rey, “Valle-Inclán y Berta Singerman,” 73–93. 33. Artundo, Vargas, and Segall, A aventura modernista de Berta Singerman. 34. Singerman, Mis dos vidas, 103. 35. Her younger sister, Paulina, was still working in the theater at this time. Although she later became a major star in the Argentine cinema, Paulina Singerman’s first film appearance was in 1938. 36. Gabriel Novarro, “Quienes creyeron encontrar en ella a una recitadora, se llevaron un chasco el sabado,” La Opinión, April 1, 1934. 37. Singerman says it was Wurtzel who was in the audience, other sources say it was Louis Moore or John Stone (both producers from Fox’s Spanish Department) who was there. 38. “Berta Singerman” file, FX-LR 890, FLF. 39. Singerman, Mis dos vidas, 197–198. 40. “‘A Lost Lady’ Has Appeal; ‘Pursued’ Hopeless Drivel,” Hollywood Reporter, August 25, 1934, 4. 41. Press book, “Nada más que una mujer,” Billy Rose Theater Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 42. Document titled “Spanish poems,” in “Berta Singerman” file, FX-LR 890, FLF. 43. “Pantallas de Barcelona: Nada más que una mujer,” Popular Film 443 (February 14, 1935). 44. “Nada más que una mujer, primera cinta de Berta Singerman,” La Prensa (Buenos Aires), March 8, 1935. 45. Alberto Rondon, “La última producción Fox en español: Berta Singerman: Actriz Excelsa,” El Ilustrado (Mexico City) 18, no. 910 (October 17, 1934): 27, 47. 46. Singerman, Mis dos vidas, 198. 47. Torrijos, José López Rubio, 31–35, 135–163. 48. O’Connor, Gregorio y Maria Martínez Sierra; Rodrigo, María Lejárraga; Gubern et al., Benito Perojo; Armero, Una aventura americana, 212–214. 49. Gubern et al., Benito Perojo, 201, 205–207; “Las versiones españolas en hispanoamerica,” Nuestro Cinema 1, no. 3 (August 1932): 90. 50. See J. J. Gain to Geo. Wasson, August 11, 1934, “SPANISH ARTISTS,” FXLR-890 Berta Singerman, FLF. 51. López Rubio, interview with Florentino Hernández Girbal, originally printed in Cinegramas, no. 91, July 19, 1936, reprinted in Hernández Girbal, Heinink, and Dickson, Los que pasaron por Hollywood, 124–125. 52. Ibid. 53. Armero, Una aventura americana, 146–147. 54. Letter of October 25, 1934, to his family in Madrid, reproduced in Evangelina Jardiel Poncela, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, 106. 55. Evangelina Jardiel Poncela, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, 95–97. 56. Enrique Jardiel Poncela, Usted tiene ojos de mujer fatal, 199–200. 57. John Stone, quoted in Benet, “Jardiel en los dominios,” 46.

NOTES TO PAGES 136–145

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58. Armero, Una aventura americana, 164. 59. Arturo Despouey, “‘Angelina’ o ‘El honor de un brigadier’ deliciosa caricatura de los dramones finiseculares,” Cine Radio Actualidad 1, no. 11 (August 29, 1936). 60. “Jardiel Poncela Retorna de Hollywood,” Popular Film, no. 448, March 21, 1935. 61. Aurelio Pego, “Catalina se va,” Popular Film, no. 447, March 14, 1935. 62. Letter from Jardiel to his family, March 17, 1935, reproduced in Evangelina Jardiel Poncela, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, 115–117; “Fox–20th Century Merge,” Hollywood Reporter, May 28, 1935, 1. 63. “Fox May Quit All Spanish Pictures,” Hollywood Reporter, July 11, 1935, 1, 7.

CHAPTER 7

EXAGGERATING THE NATIONAL, 1934– 1939

1. De Usabel, The High Noon of American Films, 127–131. 2. Arthur Kelly, quoted in ibid., 128. 3. Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro, “Origins, Development, and Crisis of the Sound Cinema (1929–64),” in Mexican Cinema, ed. Paranaguá, 84. 4. “Por otras tierras: México,” Cinelandia, February 1936, 59. 5. Lorenzo Martínez, “La cinematografía en México,” Cinelandia, December 1934, 47. 6. Carlos F. Borcosque, “La cinematografía en la Argentina,” Cinelandia, September 1934, 46. 7. For production records of Gardel’s films at Paramount, see Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 192, 196, 210–211, 229, 232, 242, 246. On Argentine sound films, see Jorge Finkielman, “Argentine Films at the Beginning of the Golden Age,” in his The Film Industry in Argentina, 198–249; Mahieu, Breve historia del cine nacional, 26–32. 8. “Juan de Landa, presidario de honor,” Popular Film 9, no. 388 (January 18, 1934). 9. Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República, 181; García Riera, Historia documental del cine mexicano, 60, 89, 108, 111, 138. 10. Triana-Toribio, Spanish National Cinema, 30. 11. Peredo Castro, Cine y propaganda para latinoamérica, 477. 12. Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República, 78–79. 13. Ibid., 117–120, 133–139, 143–145. 14. Ortega, “La Españolada y España,” 1–11. 15. Arroyo, “Queering the Folklore,” 71–72. 16. Rey, quoted in Gubern, El cine sonoro en la II República, 135. For a discussion of Rey’s career and the polemics over his “españoladas,” see Sánchez Vidal, El cine de Florián Rey, 241–243. 17. “Las españoladas,” in “Un dólar por carta,” Cinelandia, August 1933, 6; Antonio Gúzman, “La españolada,” Popular Film (Barcelona) 9, no. 392 (February 15, 1934). 18. Critics on both the left and right wanted a more markedly “national” Spanish cinema, although they differed on what this meant. See Holguin, “Taming the Seventh Art,” 852–881. 19. “La hermana San Sulpicio,” Popular Film 438 (January 10, 1935); Antonio Guzmán Merino, “¡Se acabó la paciencia!,” Popular Film 439 (January 17, 1935). 20. Román Gubern, “1930–1936, II República,” in Spanish Cinema: 1896–1983, ed. Augusto M. Torres (Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 1986), 32–45.

NOTES TO PAGES 145–150

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21. Collier, The Life, Music, and Times of Carlos Gardel, 173–183, 200–201, 218–226, 237–244; Finkielman, The Film Industry in Argentina, 184–197. 22. Collier, The Life, Music, and Times of Carlos Gardel, 236, 274; “Scenes of Dead Star in Spanish ‘Big Broadcast,’” Hollywood Reporter, September 12, 1935, 6; Finkielman, The Film Industry in Argentina, 196. 23. King, Magical Reels, 37–39; Finkielman, The Film Industry in Argentina, 156–159. 24. García Riera, Fernando de Fuentes, 46. 25. For production records on the Spanish-language films of these years, see Heinink and Dickson, Cita en Hollywood, 226–260. 26. “20th May Re-enter Spanish Market,” Hollywood Reporter, September 4, 1935, 16; “20th Will Buy Spanish Product for Two Years,” Hollywood Reporter, September 23, 1935, 1. 27. “Independents Mark Time on Rush into Production: Indies Going in for Spanish Talkies,” Hollywood Reporter, August 5, 1935, 3. 28. “Majors Demand Castilian in Pictures, But Spain Buys Under 20% of Product,” Variety, September 4, 1934, 13. 29. “All Hot for Spanish Dialog Prod., But Loew Cables M-G-M to Forget It,” Variety, December 4, 1934, 11. 30. “Tango Team Filmers Nix 6 Mo. Metro Deal,” Variety, April 3, 1934, 12. 31. “Home Made Pix Dominate Madrid Cinemas; 1st Time,” Variety, May 1, 1934, 12. 32. “Spanish Pic Production Booms; Fifty Features for Next Season,” Variety, July 10, 1935, 12. Enrique Jardiel Poncela also noted in a letter of 1935 that Fox Films was studying the possibility of producing Spanish-language films in Spain. Evangelina Jardiel Poncela, Enrique Jardiel Poncela, 117. 33. “Spanish-Language Pictures Hurting U.S. Product in Cuba: Printed Titles No Use to Illiterates,” Hollywood Reporter, July 27, 1935, 6. One such article reported, “American pictures, which, until recently, dominated the Cuban market, are rapidly losing ground to Spanish language films.” It was projected that for 1935, eighteen films from Mexico, twelve from Spain, and three from Argentina would be shown in Cuba. “Boom Expected in Spanish Pictures,” Hollywood Reporter, August 20, 1935, 6. 34. “Argentine—General (As of February 13, 1935)” [report based on Department of Commerce memo], in Black Books, General Correspondence Files, United Artists Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society (hereafter cited as UAC). 35. “Argentine—General Review 1936,” Black Books, General Correspondence Files, UAC. 36. “Argentine—Local Production (Bulletin from Department of Commerce, June 15, 1936),” Black Books, General Correspondence Files, UAC. 37. “Argentine—Local Production (Bulletin from Department of Commerce, April 1, 1937),” Black Books, General Correspondence Files, UAC. 38. Report from “Dr. A. H. Giannini,” November 10, 1936, in Argentina—Black Books, General Correspondence Files, UAC. 39. Underlining in the original. Copy of letters from Mr. Morgan to Mr. Kelly (June 12, 1936) and Mr. Gould, in “Argentina—General,” Black Books, General Correspondence Files, UAC. 40. “10% Tax on All Foreign Income May Chase Yanks Out of Paris,” Variety, March 6, 1934, 13; “Frenchmen Think Up a New One; They Want to Tax All American Films,” Variety, May 1, 1934, 12; “German Pix on U.S. Coin: Yanks Helping to Beat Selves,” Variety, June

NOTES TO PAGES 150–154

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26, 1934, 21; “France to Hit U.S. Again: New Regulations Will Place Even Heavier Restrictions on All American Pictures,” Hollywood Reporter, July 11, 1935, 1. 41. “Continent in Jeopardy: Contingents, Quotas, Taxes, Ignoring of Foreign Market Needs, Ruin European Trade,” Hollywood Reporter, May 1, 1935, 1. 42. “PIX EYE LATIN AMERICA: Spanish-Speaking Markets Sought to Hold Up Grosses Lost in European Nations,” Hollywood Reporter, November 19, 1937, 1. 43. Ibid. 44. “Mexico Will Institute Ten-to-One Film Quota,” Hollywood Reporter, August 21, 1935, 1; “Spain, Guatemala Sign U.S. Ban Pact,” Hollywood Reporter, September 21, 1935, 7. The article also reported that “similar pacts are . . . being considered between all Spanish-speaking countries.” 45. Fein, “Hollywood and United States–Mexico Relations,” 74–79. 46. “INDUSTRY BANS MEXICO: Companies to Withhold Films and Close Theaters There Unless Taxes Are Rescinded,” Hollywood Reporter, September 7, 1935, 1. 47. “Copy of S. L. Seidelman’s Letter of August 21, 1935,” Mexico—General, Box 3, Mexico, F1, UAC. 48. Fein, “Hollywood and United States–Mexico Relations,” 80–112. 49. “Bulletin from Department of Commerce, April 1, 1937,” in Argentina, Black Books, UAC; “Argentine Will Offer Cash Prizes to Spur Production,” Hollywood Reporter, November 11, 1937, 7;Golden, Review of Foreign Film Markets during 1936, 3. 50. “Spanish Film Turmoil: Nationalization of Industry Whether Left or Right Win; MGM House Managers Ousted,” Hollywood Reporter, August 12, 1936, 1; “Spain’s Film Rackets: Radical Gov’t Leaders Take Complete Picture Control in Several Key Territories,” Hollywood Reporter, August 24, 1936, 1. 51. Llopis, Juan Piqueras; Gubern, “1930–1936, II República,” 39; Gubern et al., El cine sonoro en la II República, 94; Fórez, Mio Jardiel, 237–250; J. Rodríguez, “La aportación del exilio republicano,” 197–224. 52. See Jarvinen and Peredo Castro, “Nazi Attempts to Penetrate the Spanish-Speaking Film Markets.” 53. Letter to Thomas L. Walker, December 5, 1936, O’Brien Legal Files, Box 145, File 9, UAC. 54. See comments on “Distribution Methods” in Argentina, in “Bulletin from Department of Commerce, April 1, 1937,” Argentina, Black Books, UAC; J. F. Berndes, “Hacia una major distribución mundial,” Mundo Cinematográfico (Mexico), February 1935, 27; “Clasa Closing for U.S. Major Release on Mexican Films,” Hollywood Reporter, September 28, 1936, 4. 55. Only Charlie Chaplin’s hit Modern Times and David Selznick’s Garden of Allah did better. See de Usabel, The High Noon of American FIlms, 140–141. 56. Emilio García Riera, “The Impact of Rancho Grande,” in Mexican Cinema, ed. Paranaguá, 128–132. 57. Memo, Walter Gould to Harry Buckley, December 1, 1936, O’Brien Legal Files, Box 145, File 9, UAC. 58. García Riera, Fernando de Fuentes, 43. 59. Both contemporary and later critical reviews of the film are collected in García Riera, Fernando de Fuentes, 136–140. 60. Pacheco, Los hijos de la noche, 201–212.

NOTES TO PAGES 154–164

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61. News about his personal life got reported in the trade press: “Tito Guízar Gives Wife a Home Here,” Hollywood Reporter, April 18, 1935, 2. 62. García Riera, Fernando de Fuentes, 137; “Allá en el rancho grande,” New York Times, November 23, 1936, 17. 63. Delpar, The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican; Carreño King, “El charro”; Poole, “An Image of ‘Our Indian,’” 37–82. 64. Memo, Walter Gould to Harry Buckley, December 1, 1936, O’Brien Legal Files, Box 145, File 9, UAC. 65. Letter, Morgan to Kelly, June 12, 1936, “Argentina—General,” Black Books, General Correspondence Files, UAC. 66. “Para to Continue Argentine Prod’n,” Hollywood Reporter, October 29, 1934, 8; “Columbia Expands Plan for Latin Production,” Hollywood Reporter, December 1, 1937. 67. O’Neil, “Yankee Invasion of Mexico,” 79–105. 68. Harry Waldman, Hollywood and the Foreign Touch: A Dictionary of Foreign Filmmakers and Their Films from America, 1910–1995 (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1996), 222. 69. Guízar, quoted in O’Neil, “Yankee Invasion of Mexico.” 70. Egan, America’s Film Legacy, 284–285. 71. Golden, Review of Foreign Film Markets during 1938, 1123, quoted in Beer, “From the Bronx to Brooklyn,” 45. 72. “La producción en español” and “Honores al cine argentino,” Cinelandia 12, no. 10 (1938): 40–41 and 44; “Mala traducciones,” “Competenica latinoamericana,” and “Dí que me quieres,” Cinelandia 12, no. 12 (1938): 4, 5, 22 (quotation on 22). CONCLUSION

1. Juan J. Moreno, “Cinelándicas,” Cinelandia, December 1930, 7. 2. Miró, Hollywood, 206. 3. “Boom Expected in Spanish Pictures,” Hollywood Reporter, August 20, 1935, 6. 4. El-Mazzaoui, “Film in Egypt,” 245–250; Sklar, Film, 210–211; Fu and Desser, The Cinema of Hong Kong; Finlon Dajani, “Cairo,” 89–98; Bose, Bollywood. 5. Yau, At Full Speed; Armbrust, “New Cinema,” 81–129; Rinnawi, Instant Nationalism. 6. King, Magical Reels, 31–40. 7. Labanyi, “Race, Gender, and Disavowal in Spanish Cinema of the Early Franco Period,” 215–231. 8. López, “Cinema for a Continent,” 7. 9. Abad-Izquierdo, “The Cultural and Political Economy,” 93–110; Abad-Izquierdo, “A Melodramatic Miracle”; Rêgo, “Novelas, Novelinhas, Novelões.” 10. Sinclair, Latin American Television. 11. Miles, Al-Jazeera; Kavoori and Punathambekar, Global Bollywood; Yau, At Full Speed; Bielby and Harrington, “Opening America,” 79–92. 12. Michael Curtin analyzes the similar case of Chinese film and television production and uses the concept “media capital” to describe “the spatial logics of capital, creativity, culture and polity without privileging one among the four.” This approach, like the one I use here, draws from the insights of media scholars and cultural geographers who describe the “geography of talent” and its intersections with creative industries. Curtin, Playing to the World’s Biggest Audience, 10–23; Lo, Chinese Face/Off; Lu, China,

NOTES TO PAGES 165–166

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Transnational Visuality; Florida, Cities and the Creative Class; Scott, On Hollywood; Michael Storper and Susan Christopherson, “Flexible Specialization and Regional Industrial Agglomerations: The Case of the U.S. Motion Picture Industry,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 77, no. 1 (1987): 104–117. 13. “Films and World Unity,” New York Times, May 21, 1930, 26:3; Storper, “The Transition to Flexible Specialization,” 195–226. 14. Miller et al., Global Hollywood, 83–109. 15. Selznick, Global Television, 3, 132–145; Larry Rohter, “How Do You Say ‘Desperate’ in Spanish?,” New York Times, August 13, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/13/ arts/television/13roht.html# (accessed June 20, 2011); Brooks Barnes, “Lionsgate and Televisa Unite on Films,” New York Times, September 13, 2010, http://www.nytimes .com/2010/09/14/business/media/14hispanic.html (accessed June 20, 2011). Chiara Ferrari has recently shown that voice dubbing of television has been used to accomplish similar purposes in her study of how a show such as The Nanny was adapted for Italian audiences by making the main character Italian American rather than Jewish. Ferrari, Since When Is Fran Dresher Jewish? 16. Thussu, Media on the Move; Straubhaar, World Television.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVES

United States Arts Library, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles Twentieth Century–Fox Film Scripts Collection and Legal Files Cinema-TV Library, Doheny Library, University of Southern California, Los Angeles Special Collections Film and Television Archive, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills Academy Committee on Foreign Production Files Motion Picture Association of America, General Correspondence Files Motion Picture Association of America, Production Code Administration Records Paramount Pictures Production and Script Files Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Moving Image Collections Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles Academy Film Archive New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, New York Billy Rose Theater Collection State of New York Education Department, Motion Picture Division, New York State Archives, Albany Film Scripts and Censorship Files Warner Brothers Archive, University of Southern California, Los Angeles Correspondence, Production, and Script Files Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison United Artists Collection

Spain Filmoteca Española, Madrid Hemeroteca Municipal, Madrid

Mexico Cineteca Nacional, Mexico City Filmoteca de la UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), Mexico City

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Arte y cinematograf ía (Spain) Arte y cinematograf ía (Dominican Republic) Blanco y negro (Mexico) Cinelandia (United States) Cine-Mundial (United States) Cine Radio Actualidad (Uruguay) Film Daily (United States) Filmográfico (Mexico) Filmópolis (Cuba) Hollywood Reporter (United States) El Ilustrado (Mexico) Imparcial film (Argentina) Mensajero Paramount (Spain) Movie Age (United States) Mudo y sonoro (Spain) Mundo cinematográfico (Mexico) New York Times (United States) Nuestro Cinema (France) La Película (Argentina) Popular Film (Spain) El rugido del león [MGM] (Spain) Variety (United States) PUBLISHED SOURCES

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INDEX

Blanke, Henry (Heinz), 72–78, 105–111, 116, 176n36 Blaze o’ Glory (Spanish version). See Sombras de gloria Bohr, José, 11, 17–20, 26, 27, 33, 140–141 Boliche (1933), 143, 148 Bonanova, Fortunio, 32 Borcosque, Carlos, 11, 53, 57, 66, 118, 141 Borges, Jorge Luis, 102–103, 105 Boytler, Arcady, 11, 30, 32–33 Broadway Melody, The (1929), 26 Browning, Tod, 37 Buñuel, Luis, 58, 113

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Committee on Foreign Production, 65–71, 104 Ahí está el detalle (1940), 104 Alas sobre el Chaco (1935), 81 Alba, Luz, 124 Alba, María, 9, 44 Allá en el rancho grande (1936), 146–147, 152–156, 155 Alma de gaucho (1930), 28, 30 Alonso, Luis. See Roland, Gilbert Alton, John, 141–142 Álvarez Rubio, Pablo, 37 Angelina, o el honor de un brigadier (1935), 120, 135–137, 136 anti-Americanism, 20, 101 Arabian Knights (Spanish version), See tenorio del Harem, El Argentina, 90, 113, 117, 132, 147, 148–149; film industry, 15, 139–143, 157, 162–163, 186n74; protectionism (of film industry), 151 Argentina, Imperio, 58, 143, 144, 146, 152 Argentina Sono Film, 141 Arias, Pepe, 146 Asegure a su mujer (1934), 123, 135 Así es la vida (1930), 18, 28 Association of Motion Picture Producers, 68, 71 audiences. See Spanish-language version films: audience responses to

Callejo, María Luz, 47 Call of the Flesh (Spanish version). See Sevilla de mis amores canción del día, La (1930), 47 Canciones típicas (1929), 26 Cantinflas (Mario Moreno), 33, 103–104, 153, 156 Cárdenas, Lázaro, 150–151, 154 Cardona, René, 11, 30, 31–32, 155 Carne de cabaret (1931), 31 Carner Ribalta, Josep, 49, 54 Carrillo, Leo, 77 Cascarrabias (1930), 48 Cat Creeps, The (Spanish version). See voluntad del muerto, La Chaplin, Charles, 22, 32, 102, 133 Charlie Chan Carries On (Spanish version). See Eran trece Charros, gauchos, y manolas (1930), 28, 30 Chickens Come Home (Spanish version). See Politiquerías código penal, El (1931), 52 Columbia, 44, 147, 157 Common Clay (Spanish version). See Del mismo barro Compadre Mendoza, El, 131 Compañía Industrial Film Español S.A. (CIFESA, Spain), 152 Compañía Nacional Productora de Películas (Mexico), 97 Congreso Hispanoamericano de Cinematografía, See Spanish American Film Congress Cowan, Lester, 67

Bad Man, The (original version, 1930), 63, 73, 75 Bad Man, The (Spanish version). See hombre malo, El Baker, Graham, 74–77, 80 Ballesteros, Rosita, 42 Bandy, H. A., 72–81, 105–111, 116 Barcelata, Lorenzo, 155 Bárcena, Catalina, 11, 39, 44, 134 Beery, Wallace, 49, 81 Benson Murder Case, The (Spanish version), See cuerpo del delito, El B films, 27 Big Broadcast of 1936, The (1936), 145 Big House, The (Spanish version). See presidio, El

207

208

INDEX

Crespo, José, 9, 49, 53 Criminal Code, The (Spanish version). See código penal, El Crisis mundial (1934), 145 cruz y la espada, La (1933), 120, 121, 126–127, 136 Cuando canta la ley (1939), 157 Cuban Love Song (1931), 52, 81 cuerpo del delito, El (1930), 44, 52, 54 Cuervo, José Rufino, 93 cultural imperialism, 84–86 dama atrevida, La (1931), 52 Darío, Rubén, 100 Dávila, Arlene, 7 De Forest, Lee, 18 ¡De frente . . . marchen! (1930), 40 de la Cruz Alarcón, Juan, 96–97, 99 de Landa, Juan, 49, 142 de la Riva, Francisco (Marqués de Villa de Alcázar), 66–67, 176n28 del Diestro, Alfredo, 131, 141 Del mismo barro (1930), 45, 52 del Río, Dolores, 42 dia que me quieras, El (1935), 124 Díaz Gimeno, Rosita, 135–136, 152, 158 dios del mar, El (1930), 47 Doughboys (Spanish version). See ¡De frente . . . marchen! Drácula (1931), 36–38, 38, 53, 170n4 Dressler, Marie, 49 Drexel, Nancy, 17, 27 dubbing, 3, 8, 14, 102–105, 110–114, 118, 184n37, 184n42, 185n56, 193n15; legislation concerning, 110–111, 112 East Is West (Spanish version). See Oriente y occidente Eisenstein, Sergei, 32 El 113 (1935), 143 Ellis, Paul, 30, 31 En cada puerto un amor (1930), 49, 52, 133 English: accents in, 62–63; anti-English legislation, 20, 22–23, 107, 110; “broken English,” 63–64, 75–76; English-language film market, 106, 162 Eran trece (1931), 123, 124, 170n4 españoladas, 125, 144, 152 Estrellados (1930), 40 ethnicity. See Hispanics: ethnic stereotyping of Fábregas, Virginia, 39, 49 Fernández, Emilio, 33, 155 Fernández Cue, Baltasar, 77, 97, 182n54 Figueroa, Gabriel, 147, 154 “Film Europe,” 3, 89 Flying Down to Rio (1933), 123 foreign versions. See multiple-language versions (MLVs) Fox Films, 10, 14, 44, 119–138, 147, 149, 157 Free and Easy (Spanish version). See Estrellados

Friends of Latin America, 69–70 fronteras del amor, Las (1934), 126 fruta amarga, La (1931), 49, 58 Galas de la Paramount (1930), 48 Gamboa, Federico, 20, 97 Gardel, Carlos, 10, 44, 58, 124, 126, 141–142, 145–146, 146 “Generation of ’27,” 133 genio alegre, El (1936), 152 Gente alegre (1931), 57, 174n76 Gilbert, John, 49 Golden, Nathan, 158–159 Granaderos del amor (1935), 123 Great Depression, 7–8, 115–116 Grumpy (Spanish version). See Cascarrabias Guerrero, Carmen, 31–32 Guillén, Ernesto, 98 Guízar, Tito, 154–155, 155, 157–158 Hardy, Oliver, 39–40, 41 Harlan, Richard, 58 Hays, Will H., 73 hermana San Sulpicio, La (1934), 144 Herrera, Luis Bayón, 58 Her Wedding Night (Spanish version). See Su noche de bodas His Glorious Night (Spanish version), See Olimpia Hispanic, definition of, 6, 138 Hispanics: ethnic stereotyping of, 61, 63–65, 68, 75–76, 79–82, 123–124, 137, 145, 174n69; “sensitivity” of, 79–82, 148, 179n104 hispanismo, 86, 91, 92 Hispano-Film-Produktion (Germany-Spain), 152 Hollywood. See United States, film industry Hollywood, ciudad de ensueño (1931), 17–18, 20, 27, 33 hombre malo, El (1930), 14, 72–81, 75, 76, 104, 116; profits, 78 Honeymoon Hate (Spanish version), See príncipe gondolero, El imperialism, 85–86 In Gay Madrid (1930), 56 inmaculada, La (1939), 32, 158 Jardiel Poncela, Enrique, 10, 131, 133, 134–135, 135–137, 152 Jazz Singer, The (1927), 21 Joinville [France], Paramount Studios at, 45–46, 47, 112, 135, 141–142 Jolson, Al, 21, 22 Joy, Jason, 66–67, 81 Kane, Robert, 45 Keaton, Buster, 40 Kelly, Arthur, 139, 152 Kohner, Paul, 37, 49–50, 67

INDEX

Lachman, Harry, 131 Ladrones (1930), 40 Lady Who Dared, The (Spanish version), See dama atrevida, La Lamarque, Libertad, 146 language, 4, 13, 61, 67; language markets for films, 1, 3, 23–25, 162. See also English; Spanish; Spanish-language film market; Spanish-language version films Last Man on Earth, The (Spanish version). See Último varón sobre la tierra, El Latin America, 91–94, 102, 108, 110, 113, 117–118, 128, 130, 150, 163, 164 Latinos, 5–7, 157–159; New York, 83 Laurel, Stan, 39–40, 41 Laurel and Hardy Murder Case (Spanish version). See Noche de duendes Le Pera, Alfredo, 58, 124 llama sagrada, La (1931), 52 López Rubio, José, 10, 120, 133, 134–135, 136, 137, 152 Los que danzan (1930), 52 luces de Buenos Aires, Las (1931), 58, 145 Lugosi, Bela, 37 Luisardo, Tito, 149 Lumiton (Argentina), 141 Madame X (Spanish version). See mujer X, La Magaña, Delia, 77 Mamá (1931), 120, 134 Mandelstamm, Baron Valentin, 66 María de la O (1936), 143 Maris, Mona, 52 Martínez Sierra, Gregorio, 10, 120, 122, 133–134, 152 Maté, Rudolph, 131 Melford, George, 37 Melodía de arrabal (1933), 146 Men of the North (original and foreign versions, 1930), 40–41, 42 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 40, 44, 49, 112, 134, 148 Mexico, 90–91, 113, 117, 120, 125, 127, 132, 147, 153–156, 187n22, 187n25; conflict with MPPDA, 73–74, 185n56; conflict with Spain, 94–95; film industry, 15, 139–143, 157, 162–164, 182n54; first sound film (Santa), 96–100; protectionism (of film industry), 150–151 Mier, Felipe, 80–81, 153 milagro de la calle mayor, El (1939), 158 Millar, Adelqui, 142 Min and Bill (Spanish version). See fruta amarga, La Miracle on Main Street, The (Spanish version). See milagro de la calle mayor, El Miró, César, 160 Mis dos amores (1938), 157 Mojica, José, 10, 44, 119, 121–127, 122, 136, 153, 169n22 Monsieur le fox (1930), 42 Morena clara (1936), 144 Moreno, Antonio, 11, 39, 43, 44, 53, 54, 74, 75, 76, 77, 97–98, 142–143

209

Moreno, Juan J., 160 Moreno, Mario. See Cantinflas Moreno, Rosita, 46, 57 Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), 77, 89, 111; conflict with Mexico, 73–74; Production Code Administration (PCA), 66; Studio Relations Committee (SRC), 66–67, 174n69 Mr. Wu (Spanish version). See Wu-Li-Chang muchachada de a bordo, La (1936), 149 mujer del puerto, La (1934), 33, 100 mujer X, La (1931), 45, 49, 52, 57 multiple-language versions (MLVs), 3, 8, 38–39, 43, 56, 104, 106, 116–117, 167n7; different censorship standards in, 56–57 Muñoz Seca, Pedro, 47 musicals, 10, 25–26, 57–58, 119–120, 124,140, 143–145, 146, 152, 157 Nada más que una mujer (1934), 2, 120, 128–129, 130, 131–132 Navarro y Tomás, Tomás, 93–94 Neville, Edgar, 10, 133 New Latin American Cinema, 15, 163 Night Owls (Spanish version), See Ladrones Nobleza baturra (1935), 144 Noche de duendes (1930), 40 Noches de Buenos Aires (1935), 149 Noriega Hope, Carlos, 22, 97, 100 Norton, Barry, 37, 141 Novarro, Ramón, 11, 39, 43, 56 Olimpia (1930), 9, 49 O’Neil, Brian, 157 One Mad Kiss (Spanish version). See precio de un beso, El Oriente y occidente (1930), 50 Otro soy yo, El (1939), 157–158 Papá Soltero (1939), 157 Paramount, 44, 48, 49, 109, 112, 125, 145, 147, 149, 157. See also Joinville Paramount on Parade (original and foreign versions, 1930), 26, 48 Pereda, Ramón, 11, 31–32, 44, 57, 141 Perojo, Benito, 11, 47, 134, 142, 143, 144–145, 152 Phillips, Alex, 98 Piqueras, Juan, 60, 118, 152 Pirrín, Chevo (Don Catarino), 57 Pointed Heels (Spanish version), See Gente alegre Politíquerias (1931), 41 precio de un beso, El (1930), 52, 122–123, 144 presidio, El (1930), 49, 52, 53, 133, 142 príncipe gondolero, El (1931), 46 proceso de Mary Dugan, El (1931), 45, 49, 52 Production Code Administration (PCA). See under Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America Pursued (Spanish version). See Nada más que una mujer

210

INDEX

¡Que viva México! (1931–1932; released 1979), 32 Resurreción (1931), 50 Rey, Florián, 11, 58, 142, 143–145, 152 Rey, Roberto, 47, 57 RKO, 44, 157 Roach, Hal, 39–40 Roach Studios, 40 Rodríguez, Joselito, 98 Rodríguez, Roberto, 98 Rogue of the Rio Grande (1930), 18 Roland, Gilbert, 11, 40–43, 42, 44, 158 Romero, Manuel, 11, 58, 142, 149 Rosa de Francia (1935), 137 rosa de fuego, La (1930), 28 Roulien, Raúl, 120, 123, 124, 135 Sacred Flame, The (Spanish version). See llama sagrada, La Sandrini, Luis, 146, 149 Santa (1932), 20, 84–85, 95–100, 98, 140 Santos, Mateo, 95 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 92 Sea God, The (Spanish version). See dios del mar, El See, See Señorita (1935), 154 Se ha fugado un preso (1934), 142 Sevilla de mis amores (1930), 11, 52, 56, 144, 174n69 Shurlock, Geoffrey, 46 silent film, 22 Singerman, Berta, 2, 120, 128–132, 130 Singing Fool, The (1929), 20 Soler, Fernando, 158 Sombras de gloria (1929), 18, 19, 28, 30, 65 Sombras habaneras (1929), 28, 29, 30, 65 Sombra vengadora (1929), 28 Sono Art Films, 18 sound, film, 22, 62–63, 108, 161–162; adaptation of for export, 106–109, 177n55; rate of wiring theaters for, 117; transition to, 1–3, 12, 20–21, 62, 89, 103, 160, 178n58 Spain, 86–88, 90–91, 102, 113, 125, 134, 137, 147, 164; Civil War, 151–152, 163; dubbing, legislation of, 112; empire, 5, 91–93, 127, 138; film industry, 15, 139–143, 157; protectionism (of film industry), 151 Spanish (language), 4, 5, 17, 91–94; accents in, 64–65, 148; use in films, 75–76, 77, 88–89. See also Spanish-language film market; Spanish-language version films; “war of the accents” Spanish American Cultural Association, 69–71 Spanish American Film Congress, 84, 85, 90 Spanish-language film market, 5, 8, 12, 24–25, 87, 95–96, 104, 112, 119–120, 138, 139, 147–152, 158–159, 162, 164–165, 167n3, 182n54

Spanish-language version films, 8–10, 28, 35–36, 104, 123, 124–126, 134, 140; audience responses to, 50–51, 53–55, 114–115; characteristics of, 44–45, 55–56; language use in, 54, 60–61, 68–71, 75–76; original productions (made in Hollywood), 119–120; profits, 51–52; reduction of, after 1931, 114–118 stars, 35–36, 38–39, 163 Stone, John, 122, 135 Storm over the Andes (Spanish version). See Alas sobre el Chaco subtitling, 3, 8, 14, 103–105, 106–110, 116, 184n42 Summerville, Slim, 50 Su noche de bodas (1930), 52, 58 Tallet, José Zacarías, 129, 130 Tango (1933), 146 telenovelas, 15, 164 Ten Cents a Dance (Spanish version). See Carne de cabaret tenorio del Harem, El (1931), 50 Those Who Dance (Spanish version). See Los que danzan Tirado, Romualdo, 39 Torena, Juan, 31 Tovar, Lupita, 31–32, 37, 38, 50, 96–98, 98, 99, 143 transition to sound. See sound, film: transition to translation, in film, 23. See also dubbing; subtitling Trial of Mary Dugan, The (Spanish version). See proceso de Mary Dugan, El trovador de la radio, La (1938), 157 último varón sobre la tierra, El (1932), 123 Under a Pampas Moon (1935), 62–63, 154 Un hombre de suerte (1930), 47 United Artists Company (UAC), 44, 51, 115–116, 139, 148–149, 152, 157, 186n74, 186n74 United States, film industry, 12–14, 16–17, 20–21, 23, 35–36, 61, 90–91, 102–105, 115–118, 139, 147–152, 153, 162; coproductions (with Spanish-speaking countries), 149–150, 156–157, 159, 165. See also Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America; individual film studios Universal, 44, 49, 147 Valera, Juan, 93 Valle Inclan, Ramón del, 130 Vasey, Ruth, 4, 79 Vélez, Lupe, 39, 50 Verbena de la paloma, La (1935), 145 Verbena trágica (1938), 158 vida bohemia, La (1937), 158 Vidas rotas (1935), 143 Vilches, Ernesto, 11, 31–32, 39, 44, 48–49, 143, 172n41

INDEX

211

Villarías, Carlos, 37, 52, 141 Viola, Fernando, 86–87 Viva Villa! (1934), 81 voluntad del muerto, La (1930), 50

What a Man (Spanish version). See Así es la vida Wilson, John, 68, 71, 77 Wu-Li-Chang (1930), 48

Warner Brothers, 2, 44, 72–81, 104, 105–111, 116, 126, 147, 178n58 “war of the accents,” 14, 60–61, 120 Way for a Sailor (Spanish version). See En cada puerto un amor

Zanuck, Darryl, 138 Zárraga, Miguel de, 122, 126–127, 128, 133

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

LISA JARVINEN is an assistant professor of history at La Salle University in

Philadelphia. She specializes in modern U.S., Latin American, and film history. She holds an MA in cinema studies from New York University and a PhD in history from Syracuse University.