Back in the 1980’s, I saw a film clip on the local PBS station (KQED in San Francisco) where Francisco Franco and his wife & daughter were speaking to the people of the United States.
I don’t know when it was filmed, but Franco looked like he was in his 40’s or 50’s and his daughter in her early teens.
Similar to my other posts, I can’t figure out how to find this (or any information about it) on the web.
Perversely as it sounds, I remember Franco’s eyes being wide-open.
He reminded me a lot of Andy Kauffman’s “Foreign Man” / Latka Gravas character.
Given Kauffman’s twisted sense of humor, it would not surprise me if Franco had been the inspiration for the characterization.
Or try emailing RTVE. They’re in the process of digitizing everything they could get hands on including NODO (the newsreels which used to play before movies).
Per their contacto page, translation mine:
*Can I access a document from the archives?
RTVE does not sell its content to individuals, but does make it available for research or teaching purposes. The email for these requests is atencion.instituciones@rtve.es
On the other hand, users of RTVE.es can watch in TVE a la Carta our latest shows and the page www.rtve.es/archivo includes some old programs as they get digitized.*
They may at least be willing to provide you some information on when that speech would have taken place, if they can figure it out. I doubt it will be available in a la carta.
PS: it kills me that English wiki feels the need to explicitly mention that Franco’s mother was a Roman Catholic. No shit! So was his Dad, genius… (at the time there were non-Catholics in Spain but they were definitely in the minority, and those didn’t tend to marry into the military).
Carmencita was born in '26, so if she was in her early teens that would mean c. 1940 rather than late '40s. Might be close in time to the end of the Spanish Civil War (May 19 1939).