LGM Film Club, Part 557: Portugal, 1950

I’ve been profiling full films I’ve seen for this series over the last several months and that’s cool, but I kind of miss the random stuff you can find on YouTube. I do like a good old travel film with all their cheesiness. I just bought tickets to visit Portugal (I’ve been before but all the way back in 2008, which was my first trip to Europe). So I thought I’d see what we could find in this genre about visiting Portugal. Here’s an example from 1950. It has subtitling that is horrible, probably AI slop. On the other hand, the voiceover sounds like Troy McClure. You may remember him from such films as France: I Was in Her Underpants and Where’s the Chili in Chile?

The film talks a lot about the order of Portugal. Gee, I wonder why in the Salazar era? But really, as silly as this film is, what’s the difference between then and now except that the real differences between countries have been increasingly erased by globalized capitalism. Am I going to see fado when I am there? Yes. Is fado mostly for tourists these days? Probably. It’s the same combination of modernism and old timey ways that attracts people all over the world to see “exotic” things while also having air conditioning.