The Spanish Earth

Joris Ivens’s advocacy documentary for the Republican cause intercuts a besieged Madrid with a nearby village digging an irrigation canal, linking the war to bread, land, and survival. Produced by the writers’ collective Contemporary Historians, edited by Helen van Dongen, scored by Marc Blitzstein, and narrated in its U.S. version by Ernest Hemingway (after an initial Orson Welles track), it blends frontline reportage with persuasion against Franco’s forces and their German–Italian backers.

Director

Joris Ivens

Writers

Prudencio de Pereda, John Dos Passos, Joris Ivens, Archibald Macleish, Lillian Hellman, Ernest Hemingway

Released

July 10, 1937

Language

English