Bo Widerberg's excellent 1971 biopic, 'Joe Hill', has been unavailable for many years. This has been very frustrating for people wishing to watch this very important and largely forgotten piece of labour history. As can be seen from other reviews here, the film is excellent and very memorable.
It is currently viewable on YouTube, but this is a very poor quality copy. The image is blurry and the sound is very poor and scratchy; I suspect it has been uploaded from a bootleg copy.
Interestingly, 19 November 2015 will be the 100th anniversary of Joe Hill's execution in Utah, USA, and many labour history groups around the world (including US, UK, Australia and Sweden) are planning to stage centenary celebrations. It would be great if the film were available for screening at these events.
Anyway, the GOOD NEWS is that a Swedish producer and filmmaker, Tomas Ehrnborg, is currently preparing a digitally remastered version of 'Joe Hill' and other films by Bo Widerberg (including 'Elvira Madigan') and is planning to release them as a boxed set later this year. At this stage (25/4/15) no release date has been confirmed.
For further information, please contact Tomas at Tomas.Ehrnborg@kb.se. I can be contacted at t.pitt@live.com.au
Teresa Pitt, Melbourne, Australia
