Cinema: The New Pictures: Oct. 14, 1940

Power and the Land (RKO Radio). Dutch-born Joris Ivens (pronounced eevuns) is a sturdy pioneer in the neglected art of documentary films. Since 1928 he has been lugging his camera far & wide, cranking away on scenes of commercial fishing in Holland (The Breakers), mining in Belgium (Borinage), fighting in Spain and China (Spanish Earth, The 400,000,000). Trying to sell his product in competition with the fast freight from Hollywood has taught Ivens he must unwind his factual, sometimes statistical, accounts without making his reel resemble a Fitz-Patrick Travelogue or a photostatic copy...