Brother Can You Spare A Dime

Brother, can you spare a dime? is the chronicle of an unforgettable period in American history twelve painful years from the Wall Street crash to Pearl Harbour. By juxtaposing contemporary news and documentary footage with Hollywood film classics, Philippe Mora, Sandy Lieberson and David Puttnam create an evocative film scrapbook of America during the Depression. Songs and images stick in the mind: whilst Bessie Smith sings Nobody loves you when you re down and out, a ragged child huddles against the bleak landscape. Fortunes dwindle, the small man s savings disappear, men lose their jobs and the banks go bust. Two American heroes emerge: James Cagney, Hollywood s little man who won t be beaten, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, stepping into the breach as America s new President. Only Hollywood offers an escape from the Depression s reality, for these are the Golden Years of Bogart, Gable, Leigh, Cooper and Dietrich. Whilst families starve, Busby Berkeley fills the screen with his lavish musical extravaganzas… as Ginger Rogers says: It s the depression, dearie!