GERMAN WAR FILMS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 128, 3 June 1927, Page 3

GERMAN WAR FILMS

PROPAGANADA PROBLEMS

OFFICIAL PICTURES OF 1914

lho long-awaited "official" film of tho Great War, based on archives of the German Foreign Office and put together by tho Ufa Film Company under the supervision of both military and civil ex-ports, were released in Berlin (luring April, states tho "Observer " This series of pictures claims to give a truo and absolutoly unbiased review of the events botween 1914 and 1918 that led to Germany's downfall. Diagrams and trick pictures are -''lterspersed with films taken on tho spot of events as thoy occurred, which nave reposed till now in Government keeping. A comparison of tho accompanying trick pictures, with plans published in British and other war histories, as far as thoy aro obtainablo in Berlin, tends to support the claim of a genuinely objective and unbiased story of events fit for exhibition, not only before Germail school nudiences, but in other countries as well. The diagrams fade out to show the actual troops attacking or being attacked. It is perhaps a doubtful moment to give such pictures to tho world, when tho controlling interest of the Ufa Company has passed into tho hands of Nationalist publicists. Yet several red-hot Republicans havo thoroughly approved it, after giving some sound advico on cutting those scenes which bear upon the personal glory of William tho Second in acts of exhortation or taking temporary possession of another monarch's favourites home. Only the first part of tho war, to the citd of 1014, will bo shown as yet; the war in tho I ranches and the last phase havo been treated in two separate films, and will nol; bo ready for some months. This film is released in Germany at a moment when the whole question of national propaganda on the screen is well to the fore. The Polish Government at Warsaw has sent an official protest to Berlin on account of tho tfppor Silcsian film, '"A Country under a Cross," which gives a highly artistic but very ono-sided view of tho whole Upper Silesian problem. Pictures of Germans forced to desert their homes aro poignantly reminiscent of scenes in Belgium in 1914. • A Danish film, "Frontier Folk," has also created much acerbity in the German Press, dealing as it does with the vexed question that was settled by tho war of over half a century ago, and not being entirely objective in the relative merits of Germans and Danes. These are films based on more or less accurately depicted actual events. When it conies to the unadulterated imagination of a creative artist, as in tho films, "Mare Nostrum," "The Four Horsemen of tho Apocalypse," tho national standpoint is naturally one of irritation. But Germans protest not only against "The Big Parade," but against "Shoulder Arms" as well, and think it an unfriendly act that any nation to-day should still enjoy such pictures. How far tho rest of the world will bo justified in making official war on commercial films, as well as these ontirely unofficial ones, must be judged i after this German attempt. .