Miracle of Marcelino | |
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Spanish film poster
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Directed by | Ladislao Vajda |
Written by |
José Maria Sanchez-Silva Ladislao Vajda |
Starring |
Rafael Rivelles Antonio Vico Juan Calvo José Marco Davó |
Music by | Pablo Sorozábal |
Cinematography | Enrique Guerner |
Edited by | Julio Peña |
Distributed by |
Chamartín (Spain) United Motion Pictures Organization (U.S.) |
Release date
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Running time
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91 minutes |
Country | Spain |
Language | Spanish |
Box office | ESP 97,053,127 |
Miracle of Marcelino (Spanish: Marcelino, pan y vino, "Marcelino, bread and wine") is a 1955 Spanish film. It was a success, and other countries have produced versions of it. The 1955 film was written by José Maria Sanchez-Silva, who based it on his novel, and directed by Ladislao Vajda. Its stars were Rafael Rivelles, Juan Calvo (who also starred together as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the 1947 Spanish film version of Cervantes's Don Quixote and the young child star Pablito Calvo (no relation to Juan) as Marcelino. The musical score and theme song - sung in full during the action, rather than at the start of the film - are by Pablo Sorozábal.
The story, revised and modernised in both the book and film, dates back to a medieval legend, one of many gathered together in a volume by Alfonso el Sabio.
The story revolves around Marcelino, an orphan abandoned as a baby on the steps of a monastery in nineteenth-century Spain. The monks raise the child, and Marcelino grows into a rowdy young boy. He has been warned by the monks not to visit the monastery attic, where a "very big man who will take him away" lives, but he ventures upstairs anyway, sees the man and tears off back down the stairs.
At a festival, Marcelino causes havoc when he accidentally lets some animals loose, and the new local mayor, a blacksmith whom the monks would not let adopt Marcelino because of his coarse behavior, uses the incident as an excuse to try to shut down the monastery.
Given the silent treatment by the monks, Marcelino gathers up the courage to once again enter the attic, where he sees not a bogeyman, but a beautiful statue of Christ on the Cross. Remarking that the statue looks hungry, Marcelino steals some bread and wine and offers it to the statue, which comes to life, descends from the Cross, and eats and drinks what the boy has brought him. The statue becomes Marcelino's best friend and confidant, and begins to give him religious instruction. For his part, Marcelino realizes that the statue is Christ.