‘To talk specifically about erotic cinema in Spain borders almost on the ridiculous’, wrote Nuevo Fotogramas’ film commentator Mr Belvedere (1969: 6) in an article entitled ‘Espana 69: la lenta escalada del erotismo’ (‘Spain 69: the slow rise of eroticism’). At a time when erotic and pornographic films were becoming an important industrial trend and recognised genre category in film industries such as the sexploitation movie circuit in the US (Schaefer 1999, 2014) and the sex films in Scandinavian countries (Larsonn 2010), Mr Belvedere attempted to chart a provisional history of the erotic in Spanish films as a more liberal censorship was establishing itself. ‘[T]he slow rise of eroticism’ therefore must be considered vis-a-vis the political and cultural apertura (‘opening up’) of the 1960s, which in the case of cinema was reflected in the changes to the censorship policies of the Junta de Clasificación y Censura de Películas Cinematográficas (Board of Classification and Censorship) in 1962 and in the screening of themes in domestic and international productions that were deemed to be morally controversial (for example, adultery). What might be deemed erotic (or not) by Spanish audiences in late-1960s Spain, Mr Belvedere speculated? ‘[A] dazzling music hall starlet? An extreme close-up of [Sara] Montiel's lips while singing? Rita Hayworth removing her famous glove in Gilda? The ineffable “Helga” [in the 1967 German sex-documentary] giving birth amidst blood, sweat and tears?’ (1969: 6). The examples offered by Mr Belvedere place female protagonists as the erotic objects of male desire, and, by extension, presume a male reader and spectator, though of course the forms of popular entertainment, the titles and the names invoked here also lend themselves to camp appropriations and readings. Mr Belvedere surveyed a body of erotic landmarks: before the 1960s, Juan Antonio Bardem's Muerte de un ciclista/Death of a Cyclist (1955) and Calle Mayor/Main Street (1956). These films told stories of adultery and sexual repression with foreign female leads (Italian Lucia Bosé in the former and American Betsy Blair in the latter). The historic 1962 Bahía de Palma/Bay of Palma (dir. Juan Bosch) revealed for Spanish audiences the bikini-clad figure of foreign actress Elke Sommer. The works of young directors associated with the Nuevo Cine Español of the mid-1960s such as Miguel Picazo's La tía Tula/Aunt Tula (1964) and Carlos Saura's Peppermint frappé (1967) dealt with ‘serious adult topics’ (1969: 7).