Give Us This Day (1949 film)

Give Us This Day (also known as Salt to the Devil;^[3] U.S. title: Christ in Concrete ^[4]) is a 1949 British film directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Sam Wanamaker, Lea Padovani and Kathleen Ryan.^[3] It was written by Ben Barzman from an adaptation by John Penn of the 1939 novel Christ in Concrete by Pietro Di Donato. The title is taken from the Lord's Prayer.

Give Us This Day
Italian theatrical poster
Directed by	Edward Dmytryk
Written by	Pietro di Donato (novel) Ben Barzman John Penn Hans Székely
Produced by	Rod E. Geiger
Starring	Sam Wanamaker Lea Padovani Kathleen Ryan Charles Goldner
Cinematography	C. M. Pennington-Richards
Edited by	John D. Guthridge
Music by	Benjamin Frankel
Distributed by	General Film Distributors Eagle-Lion Classics Parvisfilmi Gaumont Film Company
Release date	14 October 1949 (1949-10-14)
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Budget	$600,000[1] or £195,000[2]
Box office	£80,000[2]

Plot

Geremio is an Italian bricklayer living with his family. The film depicts how Geremio and his family endure the struggles of living in Brooklyn during the Great Depression.

Cast

• Sam Wanamaker as Geremio
• Lea Padovani as Annunziata
• Kathleen Ryan as Kathleen
• Charles Goldner as Luigi
• Bonar Colleano as Giulio
• William Sylvester as Giovanni
• George Pastell as The Lucy (as Nino Pastellides)
• Philo Hauser as Head of Pig
• Sid James as Murdin
• Karel Stepanek as Jaroslav
• Ina De La Haye as Dame Catarina
• Rosalie Crutchley as Giulio's wife

Production

At the time this movie was made, Dmytryk had been blacklisted as a member of the Hollywood Ten. Wanamaker had also been blacklisted. The movie was filmed entirely in London due to this.^[5]

Reception

Kine Weekly wrote: "Magnificent, compellingly realistic romantic melodrama, staged in the slums of Brooklyn during the turbulent twenties. ... Sam Wanamaker and Lea Padovani act with their hearts and their heads and put over perfectly timed and consummately natural portrayals as Geremio and Annunziata. Charles Goldner is a revelation as the philosophical Luigi, and Kathleen Ryan is more than adequate in the comparatively small role of Kathleen. The supporting players, like the stars, cannot be faulted. The picture is not only a great love story, but a powerful indictment of the sorry working-class conditions of its times. ... A work of art, as well as an outstanding box-office achievement, it proves that it is no longer necessary to go to Hollywood to make an American picture."^[6]

Picture Show wrote: "Here is a memorable though miserable film, strong yet delicate, passionate yet tender, its understanding tinctured with bitterness. Seeing that it was made in England, it is astonishing that the atmosphere and characters of a Brooklyn tenement populated chiefly by poverty-stricken Italian building workers should be so vividly and realistically etched."^[7]

The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther called it "a film drama of considerable graphicness but of oddly limited power." While praising the movie for its "careful and earnest attempt to capture the hard yet wistful quality of Mr. di Donato's tale", Crowther said that "the spirit and compulsion of this deeply distressing tale of poverty and frustration are absent from the film."^[8]

The film was a commercial failure in America.^[9]