This paper focuses on Los Hombres de Cristal (Fernando Delgado, 1966), a free adaptation of El Licenciado Vidriera, fifth one of the Novelas Ejemplares (1613) by Miguel de Cervantes. Written by Pedro Gil Paradela, the five episodes of this miniseries were broadcasted by Television Espanola within the classical show Novela (1963-1978) from June 13 to 17, 1966. This peculiar revision set the original plot in Cape Kennedy (NASA) in the sixties, transforming it significantly. However, it preserved the main conflict: after a traumatic event, a man passionate for science starts believing that his bones are made of glass. This text analyzes the rewriting (Ropars, Pardo Garcia) process tackled by Delgado and Gil Paradela in Los Hombres de Cristal. I will do that from both a narratological and historicist perspective. From the first one, I will underline the metafictional inclusion of the exemplary novel inside the TV adaptation (reencuadramiento ficcionalizante, according to Saint-Gelais), which will work as a cure for the glass illness. This way, on the one hand, I will examine the Cervantine heritage of the miniseries, paying special attention to its main character: Thomas Wheel, the American version of Tomas Rueda. On the other hand, from the historicist point of view, I will delve into the framework of the Space Race and into the Spanish context of production. Furthermore, I will go over those film trends than influenced this Television Espanola transposition: science fiction, class B, film noir, Hitchcock thrillers, postwar drama and psychologist films of Freudian echoes.
