Editing Spain in Flames

{{Infobox film
| name           = Spain in Flames
| director       = [[Helen van Dongen]]
| producer       = 
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| released       = {{Film date|1937|02||[[New York City]], US}}
| runtime        = 65 minutes
| country        = United States
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}}
'''''Spain in Flames''''' is a 1937 [[compilation film]] made by [[Helen van Dongen]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref name=obituary>{{cite news |last=Mastrangelo |first=Bob |title=Helen van Dongen Obituary |work=The Guardian |date=10 November 2006 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/nov/10/guardianobituaries.obituaries}}</ref> [[Hal Erickson (author)|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 [[Republican faction (Spanish Civil War)|Loyalists]]."<ref name=allmovie>{{cite web |last=Erickson |first=Hal |title=Spain in Flames |publisher=allmovie.com |url=http://www.allmovie.com/work/spain-in-flames-235752 }}</ref> 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''.<ref name=Schoots>{{cite book |title=Living Dangerously: a Biography of Joris Ivens |last=Schoots |first=Hans |publisher=Amsterdam University Press |year=2000 |page=116 |isbn=978-90-5356-433-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JlcfbzDx9HEC&pg=PA116}}</ref>  A foreword by the then Spanish Ambassador to the United States, [[Fernando de los Ríos]], began one of the film's screenings in New York in 1937.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1937/01/28/archives/news-of-thescreen-plough-and-the-stars-opens-todayhelen-jepson.html|title=NEWS OF THE-SCREEN; ' Plough and the Stars' Opens Today-Helen Jepson Signed by Goldwyn-Return of Constance Bennett News From Hollywood|date=1937-01-28|work=The New York Times|access-date=2020-02-06|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

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.<ref name=obituary /><ref name=allmovie /><ref name=Schoots /> [[John Dos Passos]] narrated parts of the film,<ref name=obituary /> and the commentary was written by Dos Passos, [[Ernest Hemingway]], [[Archibald MacLeish]], and Prudencio de Pareda.<ref name=Schoots /><ref>{{cite web |title=Hemingway:War in Spain and the Fifth Column |url=http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/amlit/hemingway/hem6.html |last1=Scott |first1=Patrick |last2=Bruccoli |first2=Mathew J. |publisher=University of South Carolina |year=2002 }} Webpages based on the catalog for the Speiser and Easterling-Hallman Collection of Ernest Hemingway at the University of South Carolina.</ref> 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."<ref name=allmovie />

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.

''Spain in Flames'' was banned in New Brunswick, New Jersey and Waterbury, Connecticut.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1937/03/25/archives/film-on-spain-banned-new-brunswick-bars-showing-as-red-propaganda.html|title=FILM ON SPAIN BANNED; New Brunswick Bars Showing as Red Propaganda|work=New York Times|date=25 March 1937 |page=27}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1937/07/21/archives/waterbury-bars-spain-in-flames.html|title=Waterbury Bars 'Spain in Flames'|date=July 21, 1937|work=New York Times|page=12}}</ref> A screening of the film, accompanied by a speech from [[Granville Hicks]], was also banned in Provincetown, Massachusetts.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Spanish War Movie and Speech by Granville Hicks Banned on Cape|date=July 16, 1938|work=Boston Globe|page=1}}</ref>

==See also==
*''[[The Spanish Earth]]'' (1937)
*''[[España 1936 (film)|España 1936]]'' (1937)

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{refbegin}}
*{{cite book|last=Carr|first=Virginia Spencer|author-link=Virginia Spencer Carr|title=Dos Passos: A Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bOLB5nbNiGsC|access-date=8 December 2013|year=2004|publisher=Northwestern University Press|isbn=978-0-8101-2200-0}}
*{{cite book|last=Donaldson|first=Scott|title=Fitzgerald and Hemingway: Works and Days|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=l50d0FeQlvEC|access-date=8 December 2013|year=2011|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-14817-7}}
*{{cite book|last=Doherty|first=Thomas|author-link=Tom Doherty|title=Hollywood and Hitler, 1933–1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=maYe2lApDMgC|access-date=8 December 2013|year=2013|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-53514-4}}
*{{cite book|last=Vernon|first=Alex|title=Hemingway's Second War: Bearing Witness to the Spanish Civil War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lWviC0YmkqIC|access-date=8 December 2013|year=2011|publisher=University of Iowa Press|isbn=978-1-58729-981-0}}
{{refend}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Spain In Flames}}
[[Category:1937 films]]
[[Category:Anti-fascist propaganda films]]
[[Category:Spanish Civil War films]]
[[Category:Compilation films]]
[[Category:American anthology films]]
[[Category:Features based on short films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:American propaganda films about Spain]]


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