Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

The documentary is about America in the years of the Great Depression. It is built from archive material throughout. Songs of the period, film clips and newsreel footage are set next to one another. The editing makes that material talk to itself. The entertainment on the screen is put up against the poverty in the street. The cheer the studios were producing stands on one side. Unemployment, queues and migration stand on the other. The title comes from a song of the time. The song is a line asking a passer by for money. What the entertainment business was good for in those years is left as an open question. The archive footage speaks for itself. The viewer assembles the comment. The stars of the period appear inside that footage as well. The hundred and seven minute documentary was compiled entirely from archive. It is a British production Philippe Mora finished in 1975.