Bahía de Palma/Palma Bay (Bosch 1962): An allegory of late Francoism

Abstract

Famous for having been the first Spanish film to feature the Franco-banned bikinis, Bahía de Palma/Palma Bay (Bosch 1962) is generally seen as a frivolous footnote in the history of Spanish cinema, but it is also a pioneering aperturista film, that deserves closer examination as the blue print for late Francoist cultural productions of the 1960s and beyond. This article argues that Bahía de Palma is a veiled allegorical representation of the social and political contradictions that characterized Spain’s reintegration into the international world order after the dark and disastrous period of international isolation during the 1940s and early 1950s.