Inspired by the following excellent but never answered question: Despite being a Reactionary Authoritarian Government with a Catholic national character, how were so many often violent and sexually explicit horror films made from 1962 until the death of Franco?: AskHistorians (reddit.com) (thanks for the inspiration, u/OmnivorousWelles!).
To say the least, letting such films pass the censors seems antithetical to the character of Franco's rule, which I had understood to be iron-handed, even quasi-fascist, and rooted in a highly reactionary and authoritarian variety of Catholicism. Did Franco go soft with old age? Or were younger, more liberal Falangists carrying out most of the day-to-day governance while Franco himself became more of a figurehead? Help me understand!
Oh the answer is pretty easy.
Spanish censor only rated a movie for the version that was to be released in Spain and in the cases of films like say "The awful Dr.Orloff", different cuts of the movie would be made for different audiences.
So a movie made in Spain would have 2 or 3 different official cuts. A spanish one, sometimes an extra british one and an international one.
Francoist Spain despite being born and mostly supported by catholic and fascist reactionaries tried to keep amicable relationships with the rest of Europe(since you trying to still be Hitler and Mussolini's friend after both have died and lost was suicide) and in order to benefit from economic agreements or economic aids like the Marshall Plan liberalized the economy, including the movie industry.
But there were certainly lines directors couldnt cross and some of them had workarounds. For example no piece of media could damage the reputation of Spain, and/or Franco, so most movies made by Spanish teams and shooting in Spain would be set in other countries in the movie(like, again, Dr.Orloff being set in France).
If you wish to know more in detail how said censoring and liberalization of the movie industry looked like, I would recommend reading the paper "Spanish Horror Film" by Antonio Lázaro-Reboll, as ir covers specifically the horror boom of the 60s and 70s and the current revival movement and most inportantly, their cultural and historical context.