Because of its political alliances with Nazi Germany and fascist
Italy, after the Axis defeat in 1945 Spain became a pariah in
democratized Europe. The reactionary tendencies in Spanish
culture that resulted from this isolation changed with the US
binational treaty of 1951, which coincided with the
reorganization of Franco's cabinet that established a film
office in the Ministry of Information and Tourism. The office's
director, José María García Escudero, championed José Antonio
Nieves Conde's film Surcos ( Furrows , 1951), granting it a
"special interest" subsidy, only to find the voices of old-guard
conservatism condemning the film's "sordid" neorealist visual
style and social content. Opponents argued that Juan de Orduña's
historical epic of Columbus's journeys to the New World, Alba de
América (American Dawn, 1951), was a more appropriate reflection
of national values. The scandal eventually led to García
Ecudero's departure from his post. The rest of the decade was,
in fact, a replay of the clash betwee