POWERFUL FILM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 73, 23 September 1939, Page 7

POWERFUL FILM

NAZISM EXPOSED

"Professor Mamlock," the Russianmade film of the Nazi terror in Germany, which is to be screened at the Opera House from the end of next week, is certainly one of the most remarkable of the past decade. It is at once a dramatic, highly-exciting story, a piece of history, and an indictment. As an indictment it is so strong that it was forbidden public exhibition in Britain, r. ban which has been removed within the last few weeks. For in this film, naked and ruthless, arei the things for which Nazi Germany stands, and the things which the forces of Britain and France are now gathered to crush. In the experiences of one Jewish family you see the meaning of the Nazi Revolution, the gangsters and scum who form the Brown Shirts, the refusal of the German workers to be stampeded into supporting Hitler, because, they say, Hitlerism means another war. and the way in which the burning of the Reichstag was used to attack the opposition, kill men. hustle them into concentration camps, plunder, and destroy. Dr. Mamlock is a Jewish doctor of the highest standing, the head of a clinic in Berlin, politically detached, a man honoured for his gallantry at Verdun, and concerned only to serve humanity by his skill. His son, a brilliant young scientist, is on the eve of a discovery which will benefit all mankind. But the son is swept up in the stormy currents of German politics; his father does not understand the situation which is being created, and bitterly resents this political activity by one of his family. Only after the election, when by trickery and force the Nazis have won power, and when one of the Aryan doctors at the clinic appears in the swastika-ed uniform, does it begin to appear just what Hitler's ruthless and violent philosophy means. The doctor is dismissed and degraded, is hastily summoned back again when it appears that his skill is needed to save one of the leading Na2is, and then is driven to attempt suicide by trickery. The son, striving to reach his father, is carried off by the Black Guards and beaten and tortured. His escape, and the father's realisation that the Germany he knew and loved has passed away, that a new and alien Germany, filled with hatred, with violence, and cruelty, has arisen. are strikingly shown on the screen, and the final speech of the professor is a masterpiece of invective and telling condemnation, so powerfully delivered that one is not conscious that it is in a foreign language. Indeed. in the whole film the action is so rapid, the story so clear, and the differentiation of characters so marked that it is with difficulty that one realises that it is not real. The Russians are adept at obtaining players who can fit neatiy into their roles and give them just that amount of difference which wnl make them fresh and new. And the cast of this movie, though names mean nothing here, is full of distinguished stars. This film has force. It makes other films one thought were strong ones—"l Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang," or "The Big House."' or "Confessions of a Nazi Spy"—seem pallid. It swings along with the strength and tempo of a revolution, stamps the Nazis as liars and murderers, ana shows even those who sympathise witn them revolted by their brutality. You see a nation in the grip of the terror, the panic activity which came after the first seizure of power, the swift and orderly way in which the Brown Shirt squads went into action to mop up their now defenceless foes witn the regular police looking on, _ the merciless character of Hitler's justice," and the sullen and resentful way in which the mass of the people took it all. That this film should have been made by the. State which has since agreed to write off Nazism is one of the ironies of our time. But despite its lost purpose, and its mild glorification of the Communists, it is a film not to be missed, an experience of the first rank, and a drama as thrilling as any yet presented on the screen.