It was released in Spain on 6 May 1957. It was immensely popular domestically and it had a wide international release making it the worldwide highest-grossing Spanish-language film made up to that point. The film's soundtrack album had also a wide international release.
The filming took place in Barcelona between November 1956 and January 1957. Montiel accepted to star in the film as a deference to its director Juan de Orduña and during a vacation in Spain in between her Hollywood filmings Serenade and Run of the Arrow.[2] The film was filmed with a very low budget. Initially, the songs in the film were going to be sung by a professional singer who would dub Montiel, but due to the low budget, she eventually sang the songs herself.[3] Orduña had to sell the distribution rights to Cifesa to finance the completion of the filming.[4]
Release
The Last Torch Song opened on 6 May 1957 in Spain. The film was running at the 1,400-seat Rialto Theatre for forty-seven weeks,[5] making it the highest grossing film in Madrid in the 1950s.[a] The film was there for so long that, as a result of the rain and the wind, the large billboard announcing the film had to be replaced by another, something unusual in the history of film exhibition in Spain.[8] The film soundtrack album also became a hit.
The film had a wide international release with the dialogues dubbed or subtitled into other languages in non-Spanish speaking countries, while the songs kept in their original version. It was the worldwide highest-grossing Spanish-language film made up to that point, only surpassed in the 1950s–60s by her next film The Violet Seller, and catapulting Montiel's career as an actress and a singer.[9]
Notes
^Back then in Spain, boxoffice grosses were a secret kept by exhibitors for tax reasons. The only guide to estimate them was the length of the first-run and the capacity of the venue.[6] It was not made mandatory to officially communicate the number of tickets sold until 1 January 1965.[7]
