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.

Screenplay

Prudencio de Pereda

Screenplay

John Dos Passos

Screenplay

Archibald Macleish

Screenplay

Ernest Hemingway

Status

Released

Release date

10/07/1937

Original language

English