Declaration of War

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23381, 24 June 1939, Page 18 (Supplement)

Declaration of War

Hollywood's Frontal Attack on The Present Regime In Germany USE OF FILMS AS POLITICAL PROPAGANDA By PAUL HOLT

Hollywood has declared war on Nazi Germany. There are two offensives in preparation this spring. One is a direct frontal attack, using shock methods of propaganda. The other is more subtle, embodying the full meaning of the word Herr Hitler and the Duke of Windsor both hate—encirclement. Offensive No. 1 is rowdy and vulgar and snarling. Nazis become despoilers of womanhood. Their faces are scarred; their heads are bullet cropped; their ears are barely anthropoid. Their tight-fitting clothes bulge with suggestions of rubber truncheons. Their finger-tips are spatulate and their knuckles knobbly from constant usage. They are cartoon characters„

FIRST batch of these new villains comes to life in a film just completed by the brothers Warner, called "Confessions of a Nazi Spy." The film was made behind guarded doors, almost like a Garbo photo-play. Nobody was allowed in or out without a special pass, and the cast walked around in an embarrassing gloom of anonymity. I only know of ono sight more helpless than an .actor not allowed to, use :his name. That would be a tortoise on its back. • The first bunch of still pictures from "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" have arrived in England. They show the film for what it is. Old Style Drama , It's just an old piece of hokum: The Clutching Hand has a swastika branded on it. That is the only difference. Essentially Hollywood has been making this picture sinco the days of the Perils of Paulino. With uniform and without. With uniform Erich von Stroheim was the villain. He wore a monocle and licked his lips around foot-long Russian cigarettes. Out of uniform Edward G. Robinson was generally the Federal man and Charles Bickford the big boy in the back room. "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" is not, as you will note, a uniform "arammer. But Edward G. Robinson is there as tho cop. And Henry Victor (the gent with the scar) and Paul Lukas ably represent the Herren von Stroheim and von. Seifferitz . . . you remember Gustav von Seifferitz? Such a delicately evil nose. And such a name! The film is 'tecs and robbers and nothing more. More in the Offing It is not the only one. In the making or in tiio offing there aro "Concentration Camp" and "Heil America." And recently Metro-Gold wyn-Mayer paid £II,OOO for Remarque's now novel, "Heroes," tale of German-Jewish refugees. The film will have Spencer

July to send the company to Hollywood, led by Raymond Massey, to make a film. Doing that, he'll lose £20,000, but he thinks that time is short. I was talking to Sherwood some days ago. He said: "I want to put the stor\' of Abo Lincoln on the screens of tho world, so that his words can tell the neoples of the world before it is too late. If America should lose democracy, that would be the greatest tragedy this world has ever seen." Anger at Swastika 1 put great store by this film. If it is a success throughout the world, then the screen will come into action to become a potent factor in the great propaganda game the nations are now playing. But if it should fail ... (it has no Gary Cooper, and the people who sell you your films are apt to think of Abe Lincoln not as the world's greatest democrat, but as an oldish man with a pimple and a nannygoat beard) then we must go back to von Stroheim and his hollow cigarettes and the eating of codes in emergencies. Because Hollywood is a city of realists their present anger at the swastika is prompted by two things:— 1. Their customers are getting angry about swastikas. 2. That emblem and the fasces cost them £2,600,000 in lost European markets last year.

! ] VWaimiiaiMiirtiiiiinnfnmimmmifiriiMnnftiif-tma/ Tracy, Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavafi. They sound as'though they might offer a more genuine technique. And, of course, Lionel Barrymore is getting ready to be the old editor in Sinclair Lewis' fine anti-dictator fant&sy; "It Can't Happen Here." Those films may be 1 good, but I fear for them. I do not believe that the cinema public will accept/direct propaganda. It makes them hot and embarrassed. Because, for some reason a psychologist could explain to you, the pretty escape tales and boy-meets-girlies of the screen are real to audiences; but the semblance of reality that is the secret of propaganda is false. Second Offensive The second Hollywood offensive is the one that will succeed. It takes no notice of Nazism. It simply glorifies democracy. The leader of this movement, which I believe to be an honest one, is playwright, Robert Sherwood, a tall, mournful-looking, slow-speaking Canadian. In the Great War he fought in Franco iu kilts. Ever since he has been an earnest believer in democracy. He wrote "Idiot's Delight" to show what he thinks of war. lie then wrote "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" to show what he thinks of peace. The 'play is now a Broadway hit, but hp i« tnkinjr it off all stages in