Give Us This Day is a 1949

1949 in film

The year 1949 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello...

 British film, directed by Edward Dmytryk

Edward Dmytryk

Edward Dmytryk was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.-Early life:Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada,...

. It was released in the United States as Christ in Concrete. Another alternate title was Salt and the Devil.

The film was based on the 1939 novel Christ in Concrete

Christ in Concrete

Christ in Concrete is a 1939 novel by Pietro Di Donato about Italian-American construction workers. The book, which made Di Donato famous, was originally published by Esquire Magazine as a short story and was expanded into a novel by Di Donato....

by Pietro Di Donato

Pietro Di Donato

Pietro Di Donato was an American writer and bricklayer best known for his novel, Christ in Concrete, which recounts of the life and times of his bricklayer father, Geremio, who was killed in 1923 in a building collapse...

. The title is taken from the Lord's Prayer

Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...

.

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

Brooklyn

Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...

 during the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

.

Cast

• Sam Wanamaker.....Geremio
• Lea Padovani.....Annunziata
• Kathleen Ryan.....Kathleen
• Charles Goldner.....Luigi
• Bonar Colleano
  Bonar Colleano
  Bonar Colleano was an American-born British stage and motion-picture performer.-Early life:Colleano was born Bonar Sullivan in New York City. Following childhood experiences with the Ringling Brothers Circus and in his family's famous circus, he entered films in 1944...
  
  .....Julio
• William Sylvester
  William Sylvester
  William Sylvester was an American television and film actor. His most famous film credit was Dr. Heywood Floyd in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey...
  
  .....Giovanni
• George Pastell
  George Pastell
  George Pastell was a Cypriot character actor in British films and television programmes. His real name was George Pastellides....
  
  .....The Lucy (as Nino Pastellides)
• Philo Hauser.....Head of Pig
• Sid James
  Sid James
  Sid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...
  
  .....Murdin
• Karel Stepanek
  Karel Štěpánek
  Karel Štěpánek was a Czech actor who spent many years in Austria and generally played German roles onscreen. In 1940 he fled to Britain and spent much of the rest of his career acting there.-Selected filmography:...
  
  .....Jaroslav
• Ina De La Haye.....Dame Katarina
• Rosalie Crutchley
  Rosalie Crutchley
  Rosalie Crutchley was an English actress. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music, Crutchley was best known for her television performances, but had a long and successful career in the theatre and in films, making her stage debut at least as early as 1932 and her screen debut in 1947...
  
  .....Julio's wife

Red Scare

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

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 due to Dmytryk and Wanamaker's negative perception in the United States at the time.

Reception

The film received a mixed review from New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

. He 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."