Word: franco
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...that lie ahead for Spain, none is more baffling than the personage of Prince Juan Carlos Alphonso Victór Maria de Borbón y Borbón, grandson of King Alphonso XIII of Spain and great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria of England. He was chosen by Franco in 1969 to ascend the throne after his death, in the hope that the royal scion would assure an orderly succession and maintain the stern, one-party system that the dictator had created. Whether the enigmatic Prince, 36, can meet these hopes is as problematical as the currents of suppressed...
...Portugal. Some liberals and radicals would rather have no monarchy at all. Only the army is solidly behind the Prince's accession-but it would abandon him if he should show signs of disturbing the status quo. Prince Juan Carlos himself, hovering last week over Franco's sickbed, remained an inscrutable figure...
Born amid the bloody chaos of the Spanish Civil War, he was shuttled with his family from one place of exile to another. At the age of ten the Prince was sent to Spain for the first time, alone, to be groomed for the throne by Franco...
Juan Carlos' education consisted of rigorous training in military academies and indoctrination in Franco's authoritarian philosophy. When the Caudillo officially selected him over Don Juan as the future King, his father's resentment increased the Prince's isolation. Franco has made Juan Carlos keep a low political profile. His few official functions, like cutting ribbons and dedicating projects, have been largely ceremonial. His public utterances have revealed little of his ideas about ruling Spain and his future role as King...
Virdiana is the co-feature at the Brattle this week, playing with La Guerre Est Finie. Luis Bunuel made this film in 1961, his first in Spain since Franco threw him out at the end of the Civil War. Franco's generosity was not too long-lasting. The dictator, who is about to go to his just deserts, so disapproved of Bunuel's anti-clericism that he banned the film from his country's movie houses. Anything Franco doesn't like can't be too bad; this is actually quite good...