The choice of dubbing or subtitling has traditionally been explained in economic terms: larger European countries (such as Spain, Italy, France, Germany) have been able to dub whereas smaller countries (Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands or the Scandinavian countries) are somehow forced to resort to subtitling for lack of sufficiently large markets. Had they been given a choice, defendants of this position argue, smaller countries would also prefer dubbing. The role linguistic policies have played in the choice for dubbing must also be taken into account. The aim of this paper is to look at the historical context that promoted Spain to choose dubbing as the major mode of film translation by analyzing its attitude towards the importation of foreign (basically American) films.