Billy Wilder is more popular and glorified in Spain than anywhere else. Estados de Gracia traces this remarkable fact back to Wilder's key role in renewing the film repertoire under Franco. Even though Wilder's films were rewritten and censored in Francoist Spain, many viewers still found them far more exciting than most domestic productions. Drawing on a wealth of censorship files, reviews and dubbings, Estados de Gracia illuminates this paradoxical process of canonization despite censorship. Vandaele studies the censors and their activities, the manipulative translations, and...