"Owing perhaps to the importance of the Church within the regime's nationalist ideology, religious films, dealing with the lives of real or fictitious saints, priests or nuns, became a staple of the Spanish cinema. Undoubtedly the most successful example of this genre was the charming Marcelino, Bread and Wine, directed by Hungarian exile Ladislao Vajda. Six-year-old orphaned Marcelino (Pablito Calvo) is taken in by a monastery, where he grows up in virtual solitude. When Marcelino discovers an old image of Jesus Christ in the attic, he makes it his imaginary friend, spending time talking to it and bringing it daily rations of food-which always mysteriously disappear. With an extraordinary, deliriously supernatural ending, Marcelino, Bread and Wine softened the catechistic tendencies of the genre by delving into sequences which could only be regarded as pure fantasy. The film also made its young star a major box office attraction, and launched a wave of child-centered films which would last another ten years." -Richard Peña