Plot

This is a musical drama featuring a tragic love story that relates a torch singer's rise to fame, and then her downfall because of her lover's death. She manages to return to the stage, but after only one public performance, she passes away.—Anonymous

Barcelona 1950s. María Luján (Sara Montiel), a singing superstar from the 1920s is now forgotten, broke and alone. Juan Contreras (Armando Calvo), her ex-manager and lover, find her singing at a modest theater in a variety show where people ignore how great she was. María and Juan have an emotional reunion in her dressing room and start reminiscing about a glorious and turbulent past.

(Flashback) They first met over forty years earlier in Madrid when Juan was an influential show business promoter and Maria just a chorus girl dreaming of stardom. She lived modestly with her aunt Paca (Matilde Muñoz Sampedro) and was engaged to Cándido Chamorro (José Moreno) who worked at a watch repair shop. Cándido doesn't approve of María's singing aspirations and crashes constantly with Paca who is convinced that María's voice is their ticket out of poverty. Meanwhile, Juan has noticed María in the chorus line and offers to finance her career as a cuplé singer but she refuses the offer in order to please Cándido. Besides, María hates the cuplés which are the pop songs of the day, most of them full of double meanings and sex references. When María and Paca can't pay the rent of their humble flat, Cándido steals money from the shop and lands in jail. Desperate, María asks Juan to bail him out and in exchange commits to a cuplé singing contract with him. Cándido is released but soon realizes that he has nothing to offer María so he volunteers for the Army. The day of her singing debut, María receives a farewell letter from Cándido along with his Army sign-in bonus to repay Juan. Masking her broken heart with a sexy happy tune, María goes on stage and has a tremendous success.

As time passes María conquers every city in Spain becoming the singing sensation of the time. The cuplés in her voice seem to gain a respectability that was never there before. Soon she is singing in Paris where she is received like a goddess. The masses adore her and the men are all at her feet including a drunken Russian noble (Alfredo Mayo) who tries to force himself upon her. Juan intervenes and ends up wounded in a duel with the Russian. María realizes that Juan truly loves her and, moved with gratitude, swears eternal love to him. The couple tours America where María continues her triumphant career performing in the best venues from Buenos Aires to New York.

A few years later María and Juan are back in Madrid. She is now wealthy and world famous but somewhat bored. At a street fair she encounters Pepe Molina, (Enrique Vera) an aspiring bullfighter and there's an instant attraction between the two. It doesn't matter that María is a 30-something mature woman while Pepe is barely 19 years old. They fall in love and start a torrid romance that is soon the scandal of the day. Maria uses her money and influence to advance Pepe's career and he soon becomes a famous bullfighter. Both Juan and Aunt Paca are disgusted by this turn of events but Maria sees this as her last chance for true love and happiness. She is willing to fight everybody including Pepe's childhood sweetheart Trini (Juanita Martínez) who begs her to leave him alone. María pays no attention even when it is obvious that Pepe is playing with both women.

Destiny puts an end to it all when the bullfighter is killed in the arena as María watches. The tragedy marks her forever and she breaks down while performing. She is diagnosed with heart disease and her doctors recommend an extensive rest . María takes the advise and retires from show business moving to Paris where she starts drinking and gambling. Soon her fortune is gone and the world has forgotten her. She finds herself destitute and returns to her homeland..

(Back from flashback) Remembering the past has been hard for María and Juan but he is not about to let her sink back into obscurity. He organizes and promotes a big come back for her as a tribute to the greatest cuplé singer ever. Opening night the theater is sold out and Juan introduces María to thunderous applause. María Lujan is finally back in the big time. She sings a cuplé about a love cut short by death and gets visibly emotional. At the end of the song, while the public applauds wildly, she collapses in Juans arms. Backstage he tries to revive her but Maria is dead. He faces the public, a broken man, and announces that the great María Lujan has just sang her last "cuplé." The End.