Directed by Helen van Dongen Country United States Director Helen van Dongen | Running time 65 minutes Initial release February 1937 (USA) Cast John Dos Passos | |
Release date February 1937 (1937-02) (New York City, USA) Screenplay Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish, Prudencio de Pereda Similar The Spanish Earth, The Old Man and the Sea, Louisiana Story, The 400 Million, Misère au Borinage | ||
Spain in Flames is a 1937 compilation film made by Helen van Dongen during the Spanish Civil War. Hal Erickson has written that the film "... is remarkable in its willingness to offer both sides of the conflict -- though its sympathies are firmly with the Loyalists." The film consists of two parts. The first, "The Fight for Freedom", was based on film footage from a Spanish government documentary Spain and the Fight for Freedom.
The second part, "They Shalt Not Pass", was based on a short film No Pasaran! done by the Artkino Film Company of the Soviet Union, where van Dongen was working at the time the film was made. John Dos Passos narrated parts of the film, and the commentary was written by Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, Archibald MacLeish, and Prudencio de Pareda. Erickson writes that, "The horrendous images of battlefield carnage, not to mention the close-ups of suffering and dying Spanish children, still pack a wallop when seen today."
Later, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Lillian Hellman and others founded the company Contemporary Historians, which produced another film called The Spanish Earth (1937), directed by Joris Ivens and edited by van Dongen.