Give Us This Day

United Kingdom

1949

120 Min

Black and White

1.37:1

English

Currently 3.2/5 Stars.
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PROD Edward Dmytryk, Nat A. Bronstein, Rod E. Geiger

SCR Ben Barzman, John Penn, Pietro Di Donato

CAST Sam Wanamaker, Lea Padovani, Charles Goldner, Kathleen Ryan, Bonar Colleano, William Sylvester, George Pastell, Philo Hauser, Sid James, Karel Stepanek, Ina De La Haye, Rosalie Crutchley, Ronan O'Casey, Robert Rietty, Charles Moffat

PROD DES Alex Vetchinsky, Arthur Taksen

One of the few (if any at the time this film was made) films shot in England with New York City’s ‘Little Italy’ as the locale. This was Edward Dmytryk’s first film after he had refused to tell a Congressional Committee whether or not he was, or had ever been, a member of the Communist Party. This is a ‘runaway production’ shot in England for political reasons and not for the usual USA tax-break reasons. Geremio, a young Italian immigrant to New York City, works as a bricklayer and is courting an Italian girl, Annunziata, by mail. He lies to her that he owns his own home and, after they are married, has to rent one for their three-day honeymoon. The years pass and they are unable to save enough money to get out of their slum tenement, and the 1929 depression brings even harder times to the family that now includes three children. Geremio, in order to make enough money to care for his family, exploits his “comrades” in dangerous construction work. This practice leads to the accidental death of his best friend, and, in grief, Geremio also becomes unfaithful to his wife. The messages of the film — life is aimless and no man can judge the true worth of another man — are pounded on for most of the two-hour running time. —IMDb

Director

Edward Dmytryk

A messenger boy at Paramount in the mid 1920s, Edward Dmytryk became an editor in the 1930s and began directing in 1935. By the mid ‘40s he had such impressive credits as The Devil Commands (1941) with Boris Karloff; the anti-fascist Hitler’s Children (1943); the noirs Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Cornered (1945), starring Dick Powell; and Crossfire (1947), one of the first Hollywood films to confront anti-Semitism. In 1948 Dmytryk became one of the “Hollywood Ten” when he was accused of having ties to the communist party and was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt of Congress. Following his imprisonment, Dmytryk was blacklisted in the U.S., so he directed three films in England, but returned to the States in 1951. Upon his return he went before the House Un-American Activities Committee again, this time as a “friendly” witness, and his name was dropped from the blacklist. He then resumed his American career and directed four films for producer Stanley Kramer, most notably The… read more