Although it failed, this coup d'état was the trigger for a bloody civil war that Frédéric Rossif documents in To Die in Madrid.

The film is a formidable piece of archival research on the Spanish Civil War, drawing on documents from the Soviet Union, the United States, France, Germany and Spain.

Rossif is not a historian, but he teaches us the essential fact that the war was won thanks to the massive support of the Germans and Italians.

The French government, in order to please the Spanish dictator Franco, delayed the release of the film for more than a month and asked to cut some scenes[citation needed].

According to Nicole Stéphane's testimony in 2006, the Spanish government asked for twenty-five cuts and the French censors finally made six.