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statements, and I am sorry to say that some of the falsehoods have been deliberate ; that is to say, the persons who wrote the manifestos knew the truth, because I had told it to them.
The story is a long one, and a book would be needed to give all the details. Permit me to here summarize very briefly :
(1) Eisenstein's original proposition was to make a "non-political" picture. He said : "I realise that a political picture could not be made by a Russian in Mexico, nor could such a picture be shown in the United States." The money was raised on the basis of a non-political picture and a non-political picture was made.
(2) The so-called " mutilation " of the film was determined by one factor — the length of a feature picture which can be shown in an existing theatre. The entire material as outlined in Eisenstein's scenario would have taken six or seven hours to run.
(3) In making a selection the most " revolutionary " material was used and the most " proletarian " : That is to say, the so-called " Hacienda story," dealing with the oppression of the peons in the old Diaz days, was used. The story was cut in exact accord with the scenario and there was then added a prologue following the Eisenstein scenario, showing the ancient Mayan ruins and the coming of the Spanish influence. Also an epilogue dealing with modern Mexico, following the scenario, and using the least " Fascist " elements in that scenario.
(4) The material omitted consisted, in fact, as follows :
Tens of thousands of feet of a bullfight in Mexico City and other tens of thousands of feet of a bullfight in Yucatan ; a so-called Tehuantepec story, portraying a village wedding among the peasants, and, finally, some 50,000 feet of miscellaneous material of a travelogue character, dealing with the scenery, buildings, fiestas, religious celebrations, market scenes — in short, everything that a tourist wandering through Mexico might find picturesque and interesting. Having viewed all this material several times, each time representing from thirty-five to forty hours of my time at a cost of several dollars per hour, I pledge my good name and my good faith to the statement that there is nothing of the slightest degree " proletarian " in any of this material. How could there have been, when the Mexican Government officials inspected it and most of the time sent its official censor along for the explicit purpose of seeing that nothing of the kind was shot ?
(5) To make the record complete, I will state that in the Eisenstein scenario there was listed an episode of a revolutionary character, the so-called " Soldadere Story." The Mexican Government promised the use of the army for this purpose, but delayed too long to make the necessary arrangements, and not one foot of this Soldadere Story was ever shot. Needless to say, we cannot use material which we have not got.
One of the objectors to Thunder Over Mexico wrote in a New York newspaper as follows :
" At the wind-up we see Mexico concerned with industrial work, marshaling youth in sports, marches and parades . . . But then, knowing the theories of