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

Cast: Manuel Azaña, José Díaz, Dolores Ibárruri, Enrique Lister, Commander Martinez de Aragón, Gustav Regler, Orson Welles, Ernest Hemingway

Audience-only score — full critic data not yet in the ReelXO vault.