The Spanish Earth (1937)

Name: The Spanish Earth
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1937-07-10
Duration: 53 min
Cast: Manuel Azaña, José Díaz, Dolores Ibárruri, Enrique Lister, Commander Martinez de Aragón

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.

Watch The Spanish Earth online

Released 1937-07-10 · 53 min · Documentary

Directed by Joris Ivens

Cast

Manuel Azaña as Himself (President of Spain)
José Díaz as Himself (Parliamentarian)
Dolores Ibárruri as Herself
Enrique Lister as Himself (Republican Army)
Commander Martinez de Aragón as Himself (Republican Army)
Gustav Regler as Himself (German writer)
Orson Welles as Narrator (voice)
Ernest Hemingway as Narrator (voice)
Jean Renoir as Narrator (voice)