Comédia à portuguesa

The popular revue (teatro de revista), the national equivalent of the North American vaudeville or the British music hall, had a marked influence over the comédia à portuguesa, including the talents of the actors, writers, and musicians.

The Song of Lisbon ("A Canção de Lisboa", 1933), the first sound feature film fully produced in Portugal, is considered to be the first style-defining comédia à portuguesa.

The nascent comédia à portuguesa films — which drew much inspiration from the already popular revue (teatro de revista), as well as sharing the talents of actors and writers — were aimed at light-hearted entertainment for an audience that had been suffering from the social and economic upheaval of the interwar period, namely the unstable First Portuguese Republic and its ultimate failure and, later, the restrictions brought about by the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

In that regard, the comédia à portuguesa became something of a welcome ally for the nascent authoritarian regime: in a war-ravaged Europe, the picture of a safe, carefree, orderly Portugal that was always subliminally conveyed, corresponded to the ideas of the propaganda that promoted the dictator Salazar as a caring guarantee of peace and progress in a country rich in tradition that he had successfully kept out of the war.

Instead, the comédias à portuguesa are part of a "contextual or indirect" form of propaganda, as termed by historian Luís Reis Torgal, as they were conditioned by protectionist legislation, government subsidies and prizes and, most importantly, by the all-encompassing network of censorship services.