ABSTRACT
The creation of national cinemas in the first years of sound suggests the need of different countries in the Spanish-speaking region to show the world their own idiosyncrasies in the light of the interest generated in other prevailing cinematographies, especially Hollywood. In the Spanish case a new kind of genre emerged, inspired mainly by an Andalusian style of folklore that drew on the stars of the time. These films are commonly known as musicales folklóricos (folkloric musicals). Usually dressed in Flamenco attire, these women artists performed new popular numbers based on folkloric traditions that became commercial hits in the region. Music became the articulating axis of this transnational and transmedial commercial process and arose as a key element in the negotiation of stereotypes and commonplaces.
The main author of the genre was Florián Rey who, together with his muse and then wife Imperio Argentina, directed the most successful trilogy in Spanish cinema: La hermana San Sulpicio ([Sister San Sulpicio], 1934), Nobleza baturra ([Aragonese nobility], 1935) and Morena clara ([Clara, the Brunette], 1936), coinciding with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Franco did not object to a genre that had the support of the public and that continued to reap success well into the 1950s. The new regime adapted these musicals to the new ‘needs’ of the state. In this chapter, I address the Spanish folkloric musical in the early years of sound films, analyzing Morena Clara and the performances by Imperio Argentina, the most successful artist in Spanish cinema.
