clanciai This film is extremely difficult to find anywhere, and still it's a major milestone in the history of film noir. Both Edward Dmytryk and Sam Wanamaker fled America for the McCarthy persecutions and made this unique film in London about Little Italy in New York. It's brutally expressionistic and realistic about the conditions of Italian building workers in New York and was forbidden in America - today you wonder why. Sam Wanamaker remained in Britain, made many films, was in 'Holocaust' and initiated the process of rebuilding the Globe theatre in London. Another of his major performances was in "The Voyage of the Damned" 1976, another great film of documentary character and a true story; but "Give Us This Day", also known as "Christ in Concrete" is his quest for immortality as a very ordinary Italian worker in Brooklyn with great foibles and weaknesses, and he is well supported by Kathleen Ryan (expert at such roles, like also in "Odd Man Out") and Lea Padovani as the sorely tried but heart-renderingly faithful wife. Perhaps the greatest credit of all in this film is due to the music of Benjamin Frankel, booming with beauty sand pathos all the way, while above all the story is without comparison in its very human and overwhelmingly true account of the conditions of Italian house-building workers in Brooklyn around the Great Depression. This film makes an unforgettable impression the first time, and you will always recall it with tears and return to it - a film indeed worth owning.

MARIO GAUCI It took me a long while to purchase this one (by which time, most of the output by DVD-producing company All Day Entertainment – with whose president, film historian David Kalat, I had the pleasure of corresponding on a number of occasions – had gone out-of-print) and some more before I actually sat down to check it out. Having finally watched this, I must say that the mainly gushing reviews which I had read on the Internet upon the DVD's first appearance – citing the film as a neglected masterwork (though not quite director Dmytryk's best, in my opinion) were very much accurate; incidentally, the main feature bears the official title given above rather than that attached to the DVD i.e. Christ IN CONCRETE, actually the name of Pietro Di Donato's original source novel. Knowing of its pedigree – Dmytryk having famously been one of The Hollywood Ten, jailed for refusing to appear before HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) in view of his alleged past Communist leanings – and its theme – the domestic and professional troubles of struggling Italian immigrants in the construction business with a 1920s New York setting – I had expected to be somewhat unenthused by it, but the reverse proved to be the case, thanks largely to Dmytryk's unerring eye for detail and a handful of naturalistic performances (an achievement which seems all the more remarkable when considering that it was entirely filmed in England with a mostly British cast!). That said, one of the two leads was a genuine Italian – Lea Padovani – and the other an American, fellow victim of the blacklist Sam Wanamaker: both of them are terrific playing husband and wife, though he remains attached to friendly Kathleen Ryan, and their consistently precarious economic situation (exacerbated by the Wall Street crash of 1929) shatters the wife's dream of owning her own home. Also appearing in the film are Charles Goldner (the old man who actually got the couple together), Bonar Colleano, William Sylvester and George Pastell as Wanamaker's team-mates at work, Sidney James(!) as another construction operative who harbors ambitions to start his own company and wants the hero to get in on the business with him, and Karel Stepanek as the elderly landlord of the protagonists' house. In view of its inherent grittiness, unusual compositions (employed during melodramatic passages) and doomed hero, the film has been rightfully likened to the then-prevalent noir style – in which, as it happens, Dmytryk had already proved himself several times while still employable on his home turf. Despite its generous length (115 minutes) and the occasional Marxist viewpoint (it is clearly stressed that Wanamaker's downfall transpires because he dared to stand out from the crowd, even if all he wanted was to improve his family's conditions), the proceedings compel attention all the way through – culminating in the unforgettably harrowing sequence of the hero's death, engulfed in cement after the weak structure he had been supervising gives out. Regrettably, I did not have time to look into the numerous extras featured on the double-sided "Special Edition" DVD – I had actually made a resolution in this regard at the beginning of the year, but which I am now finding myself increasingly unable to accommodate! In closing, I cannot fail to mention Benjamin Frankel's superb music score – no wonder that one is even given the option to listen to it in isolation on the All Day disc.

green4tom Have I seen this film?! Only every time I teach an urban sociology class, when I show it to my students! I can only echo the previous commentator--what a great film! The best scene--and there are many--is during the Great Depression, when the five bricklayers decides that it is Julio, who starving mouths to feed, should get half a day's work. Then, through a store window, Geremio catches one of the other bricklayers panhandling. "Heaven has forgotten us!" his workfellow says. This film, whose story was written by an Italian socialist (DiDonato) and made by socialists in London (couldn't make it in New York--it was the McCarthy period, may he rest in pieces!) is, besides being dramatically and emotionally rich, is sociologically rich. It's a brilliant portrayal of the conflict between the individualist version of the American Dream among immigrants--and the sordid reality they face. When they face it collectively, they are great men and women, in all their splendor. When they face it individually, they become alienated from themselves and each other. Though the DVD is entitled CHRIST IN CONCRETE, it is actually the prequel to the story in the novel. The last horrific scene is the first chapter of the novel, which detail's the life of Geremio's widow, Annunziata, and their son Paul, after Geremio dies. All the actors are great--but I especially like Lea Padavini--who had to learn the part phonetically, because when they hired her, she didn't speak a word of English! I also highly recommend this film

ebeckstr This rarely seen, hard-hitting film combines Depression-era melodrama with noir and social realist sensibilities. A Brooklyn bricklayer struggles to fulfill the American Dream, but his efforts seem increasingly futile in the face of modern capitalism's socioeconomic indifference. Features impressive acting, cinematography, and writing; unforgettable opening and closing sequences. Christ in Concrete was made in England by the exiled director Edward Dmytryk, one of the blacklisted Hollywood 10.