The Spanish Earth (1937)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Joris Ivens

Writers:

John Dos Passos (English narration) (part one)
Ernest Hemingway (English narration) (part two)

Release Date:

20 August 1937 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | War

Plot:

A documentary showing the struggle of the Spanish Republican government against a rebellion by ultra-right-wing forces led by Gen. Francisco Franco and backed by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. |

Plot Keywords:

Italy | Germany | Francisco Franco | Peasantry | Irrigation

Cast

Manuel Azaña	...	Himself (President of Spain)
José Díaz	...	Himself (Parliamentarian)
Dolores Ibárruri	...	Herself (as La Pasionaria)
Enrique Lister	...	Himself (Republican Army)
Commander Martinez de Aragón	...	Himself (Republican Army)
Gustav Regler	...	Himself (German writer)
Orson Welles	...	Narrator (English version) (later replaced by Ernest Hemingway) (voice)

Also Known As:

This Spanish Earth

Runtime:

52 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Spanish | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Brazil:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:A | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid, Spain

Company:

Contemporary Historians Inc.

Trivia:

Twenty-year-old Orson Welles recorded the commentary written by Ernest Hemingway and receives onscreen credit, but Hemingway decided to use his own voice instead.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Allemaal film: Zoeken naar de werkelijkheid (#1.8)" (2007)

Interesting, if shaded, documentary

The Spanish Civil War remains as one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts involving a major country, and it's impossible to sum up its many nuances. You'll get one view of the conflict here with incredible footage of war and glimpses of rural Spanish life.

This, however, isn't a documentary as much as it is straight Soviet-style propaganda. The style of the film, from the poor farmers bettering themselves with a homemade concrete irrigation system to the election of soldiers to hear impassioned political pep talks from movement leaders, s straight from the Stalnist manual of Lifestyles of the Glorious Peoples. This isn't meant to Red-bait any of the participants -- they truly believed in a "free" Spain, and fascist-backed Francisco Franco's regime wasn't the answer, either -- but the reality was far different and is only now coming to light after 70 years.

The Spanish Civil War was also very much a fascist/Soviet proxy war, and the Soviet Union had a not-so-hidden hand in its direction. Look carefully at the fighting sequences, and you'll see very atypical people in different-style uniforms guiding artillery and directing troops.

As a historical insight -- despite what now appears to be a ham-fisted approach in propaganda -- the film is priceless. And many thanks for TCM and its ever-expanding programming efforts in broadcasting the film in July 2007; hopefully, we'll always have somebody unwilling to slice, dice and crop something and still call it a classic, ala AMC.