USA,
1984, 98 min
Shown in 1984
CREDITS
- dir
-
Noel Buckner, Mary Dore, Sam Sills
- cam
-
Stephen Lighthill, Peter Rosen, Joe Vitagliano, Renner Wunderlich
- editor
-
Noel Buckner
- mus
-
Wendy Blackstone, Bernardo Palombo
- prod co
-
First Run Features, PO Box 686, Cooper Station, New York, NY 10276
- source
-
First Run Features, PO Box 686, Cooper Station, New York, NY 10276
OTHER
The Spanish Civil War, one of the most tragic struggles of modern history, has been the subject of many films both narrative (Malraux's Man's Hope, Walter Wanger's production of Blockade, Sam Wood's film of Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls) and documentary (Joris Ivens' The Spanish Earth, Frederic Rossif's To Die in Madrid). Not until The Good Fight, however, has a film recounted in depth the role of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the band of 3200 Americans who went to Spain to fight against the armies of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. They were part of an international brigade of 40,000 volunteers from around the world who joined to fight against fascism in one of history's most dramatic expressions of international solidarity. Narrated by Studs Terkel, The Good Fight is a rousing, funny, sad and moving tribute to those Depression-era Americans—whether labor organizers, Communists or plain idealists—who joined the fight in which some 900 of them would lose their lives. The film features eleven remarkable veterans, all of whom have retained the passion, commitment and idealism of their youth. Filmmakers Noel Buckner, Mary Dore and Sam Sills have culled a magnificent array of archival materials from five countries: rare films (including footage of these eleven vets), radio broadcasts from the period, newsreels and songs, Henry Fonda as a Spanish peasant in Blockade, Hemingway's prose and La Pasionaria's farewell speech (spoken by Colleen Dewhurst). The Good Fight is a film that celebrates Whites and Blacks, men and women and a half century of American idealism.
—Mel Novikoff
FACTOID #65
The combined running time for all the films in the Festival is approximately 310,000 minutes. Or to put it another way, 5,167 hours. That’s about 215 days of viewing, 24 hours a day, with no breaks.
