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After that Marcelino went to see the Lord every day. When it thundered, he went to calm the Lord's fears; when it was cold, he brought him a blanket. One day the Lord came down from the cross and sat in a chair, and took the boy on his lap. "What are mothers like?" Marcelino asked. And the Lord said, ''They give, Marcelino, all the time. Everything, in full measure." Then Marcelino said, "I want to see my mother . . . and yours too, afterwards." And the Lord replied, "You will have to go to sleep. Go to sleep, Marcelino." And the child slept in the Lord, and the light of the world blazed in the simple attic, and all the brothers coming in fell down on their knees and worshiped what they saw. And from that day forward, the people came from the length and breadth of the land to adore the miracle of Marcelino Pan y Vino.
In 1953 this tender story was revived by a Spanish author, José Maria Sanchez-Silva, in the form of a novel not yet published in the U.S. Now it has been converted by Ladislao Vajda, a Hungarian director working in Spain, into a film as simple and sincere as a child's tear. The actors, especially Marcelino (Pablito Calvo) and Brother Cookie (Juan Calvo), play with an easy matter-of-factness that makes the transition from natural to supernatural almost disappear. The hard Spanish land and the bare Spanish sky clamp the mystical theme between them, as in a vise of physical reality. And the musical score has an earthy beat and heat that might almost warm the coldest doubter to that spiritual ignition point at which miracles come to pass, and the soul knows them for what they are.