Review

 

Perhaps because of my own minor role in the controversy that engulfed Thomas Doherty's vivid, compelling, and expertly researched survey of Hollywood's response to the rise of Nazism, it is hard to avoid mention of Ben Urwand's The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler.  Joel Rosenberg's excellent review of Urwand's book appearing in this journal last fall conversely could not avoid mention of Doherty's book.  Now that the controversy has appeared to die down, I find Rosenberg's points identifying the commonalities between the two works particularly illuminating.

 

Doherty's book has its weaknesses, as Rosenberg observes, but between the two titles, Hollywood and Hitler maintains the more nuanced if unsurprising historical perspective covering the 1933 to 1939 period.  The key to Doherty's success is that his book ultimately stays grounded within a solid understanding of the many moving parts making up the film industry.  "Hollywood" incorporated not just the familiar names of major studios, but also smaller independently financed and now mostly forgotten outfits that had the freedom to tackle the threat of Nazism more forthrightly.  Unfortunately, a lack of meaningful distribution significantly marred their ability to galvanize the public. Poor production values made these films look amateurish and more like vanity projects than the hard-hitting exposes they promised to be, virtually assuring them a place at the bottom of the historical dustheap.  Newsreels and foreign films, especially the Soviet Professor Mamlock (Amkino, 1938), fared better, mostly because they already had built-in audiences and operated at the relative margins of the studios' self-regulatory apparatus, the Production Code Administration.  Even these films, at best, reached mostly urban audiences and still faced local and state censorship restrictions.  Doherty does a nice job of situating conflicts and controversies over the films that got made and did not get made against a backdrop of lurching domestic and international politics.  It is difficult to weigh the importance of an anti-Nazi film like Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Warner Bros., 1939) without considering pitched four- and five-way battles between anti-communists, Nazi sympathizers, troubled liberals, and ardent leftists, the latter of which frequently could not agree among themselves.  Sometimes these conflicts spilled over when Hollywood tried to depict the Spanish Civil War in a film like Blockade (United Artists, 1938).  More often, they erupted when foreign dignitaries like the son of a fascist dictator Vittorio Mussolini or the director of the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (UFA, 1935) Leni Riefenstahl visited Hollywood.  Hollywood's anti-Nazi politics, as it turned out, thrived not in films but in what Doherty astutely deemed "celebrity activism".

 

The basic flaw of Urwand's book and for some critics, the fatal one, is how its flattened and one-note historical perspective mistakes archival documents depicting how the Nazis wanted Hollywood to see them, as evidence for how Hollywood actually saw the Nazis.  In the aftermath of a strident and ham-fisted attempt to discredit Doherty's work, it is easy to overlook the groundbreaking nature of Urwand's work with primary historical documents as depicting perceptions of Hollywood from abroad.  Compared to Urwand, Doherty treads much more familiar terrain, relying heavily on day-to-day accounts in industry trade papers like Variety, Hollywood Reporter as well as others, and, to a lesser extent, some familiar archival sources in the U.S..  Although Doherty, like Urwand, never fully explores how his selection of source materials might reflect deeper dispositions of its collective authorship, his reliance upon these trade publications provides rich and nuanced insights into how the industry's image of itself fluctuated and evolved in relation to the growing global threat of Nazism.

 

Rosenberg's review hints that both Urwand and Doherty may have more in common in the historical narratives they each have crafted than either might care to admit.  Urwand charges "collaboration" between Hollywood and Nazi Germany.  But Doherty's premise is that "a great art-industry confronted a profound moral quandary," first by "cooperating with," then by "looking away from," and then "ultimately facing up to a menace beyond its imagination" (373).  So Doherty too sees incipient industry-Nazi cooperation, as well as turning a blind eye to the rising threat of Nazi anti-Semitism.  But crucially, he also perceives an eventual, lumbering, and at times inept collective industrial shift to mobilize against Nazism, and, to a weaker extent, Nazi anti-Semitism.

 

Here too, both Doherty and Urwand's arguments have something in common: a refurbishing of the long-lived and familiar critique, emanating from across a wide spectrum from left to right and from religious to secular, that railed against Tinseltown greed and indolence in both commerce and politics.  Because Doherty understands Hollywood's response to Nazism as gradual progression rather than as deus ex machina, his account nudges some of the more tone-deaf aspects of the critique toward a more sophisticated film history, one that at least can account for its mess and change.  Hollywood is as complex, paradoxical, and protean as any other major social institution scrambling to find ways to justify its aggregation of resources and thus maintain its cultural relevance.  As Marx observed, any social formation must first find a way to reproduce its conditions of production to survive.  Just as in evolution, reproduction hardly works either cleanly or efficiently.

 

The trade publications on which Doherty relies prove to be rich chroniclers of the twists and turns to this history.  There is ample documentation for how the industry reported the Nazi disruptions of the 1930 Berlin premiere for All Quiet on the Western Front; American disbelief, apathy and even acquiescence toward subsequent Nazi purges of the film industry; preoccupation with foreign markets and a concurrent vanishing of identifiably Jewish characters from the screen; and abortive attempts to make anti-Nazi films outside the mainline studio system and the purview of its self-censorship apparatus, the Production Code Administration.

 

One of Hollywood and Hitler's major strengths is how it brings together these familiar strands, recounted elsewhere in varying degrees of depth, into a coherent historical survey.  Doherty covers less familiar, though certainly traversed terrain, with his discussion of newsreels, foreign films, and screenings of Nazi propaganda in German theaters.  Conversely, even many recently published histories of this period are content to indict the cinematic record based only the fictional feature films made by the major studios.  A number of chapters from Hollywood and Hitler rightly examine Hollywood's extra-cinematic activism, for one was more likely to find studios tolerating anti-Nazi politics, so long as it remained well-insulated from the filmmaking process.  Doherty thus wisely devotes separate chapters to the activities of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, and to public protests in Los Angeles against visits from fascist personages like Vittorio Mussolini or Leni Riefenstahl.

 

While some reviews of Hollywood and Hitler have quibbled over including these and other details as historical tangents, the pressures upon Hollywood during this period are essential to understanding the big picture of how Hollywood did and did not respond to Nazism.  Including chapters on how Hollywood covered the Spanish Civil War, or how even the most tentative depictions of European fascism in American film incurred accusatory blasts of "radical propaganda" say something about how Hollywood's response to Nazism now seems so anemic to 21st century audiences.  Highly vocal protests from the Catholic Church and American right-wing groups against how films like Blockade depicted the Spanish Civil War provided early litmus tests for the headaches studios would face if they tried to make even the most tentative expose of what was occurring in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.  And charges of propaganda resonated, not just from abroad, but also within this country among those, such as the anti-New Deal Democrat Martin Dies, Jr., who were deeply suspicious of radical politics, Jews, and Hollywood.  For Dies and many another disgruntled citizen, these three words redundantly referred to a single threat, one that was a far greater danger to democracy than the iterations of new, organized, and home-grown right-wing anti-Semitic movements steadily emergent in this country at the time.

 

Two other criticisms of Doherty's history merit more serious attention: the breadth and depth of his source materials, and along with the sources he chose, a certain overall perspective on this history.  Doherty makes superb use of industry trade papers as historical documents, and having these documents carry the weight of the historical record reflects an important perspective upon on-the-ground accounts, though certainly not the only one.  Nonetheless, as others have pointed out, he might have made greater use of other archival sources, such as the Will H. Hays papers, U.S. State Department records, and the U.S. Department of Commerce records.  Correspondence from the Hays papers shows that far from having "no inkling of the horrors to come," a statement Doherty later made  in defense of his book and one that Rosenberg duly notes with skepticism, the president of the industry trade association the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA) Will H. Hays had at least some inkling of Kristallnacht by 1939.  After receiving early that year a detailed report documenting dozens of eyewitness accounts of anti-Jewish violence that had occurred in November 1938, Hays tried to mobilize his professional network, including this letter to "J.H.":

 

The attached material is a factual account of the brutal treatment of the Jews in Germany and Austria.  It pictures a people thrown into the streets, into concentration camps or into prison; a people robbed, beaten and outraged; a people with their savings confiscated, their businesses destroyed, their homes looted and demolished, their places of worship desecrated and burned.  It shows women and children receiving no more consideration than the men (30 Mar. 1939).

 

Hays also had copies of these materials sent to the State Department, and asked the MPPDA's European Representative in Paris Harold Smith to verify the authenticity of the reports.

 

Rather than undermine the basic trajectory of Doherty's account, such archival evidence ultimately corroborates it. I find Hays' expressed concerns over this situation more pragmatic than altruistic.  The political instability of mob violence and destruction could just as easily direct harm against Hollywood's overseas business interests as it could German Jews who might have worked for firms affiliated with those business interests.

 

That potential German profits could only inhibit a stronger response from Hays or the motion picture deserves greater historiographic scrutiny.  For example, U.S. Department of Commerce records from 1929 show that Great Britain, France, and Spain were far more lucrative European markets for Hollywood.   The volume of studio and MPPDA archival correspondence for this countries compared to Germany bear this out.  English, French, and Spanish markets had larger motion picture palaces in metropolitan areas capable of seating thousands of patrons for one show, which yielded greater revenues for ticket sales.  Germany, on the other hand, had the highest number of smaller theaters (seating 500 or less) of any of the major European countries.  Many of these were in rural areas, and at least in 1929, hadn't even been wired for sound (Canty qtd. in Carr).  Germany had potential for economic rewards and thus was certainly a concern for overseas business, but countries with greater numbers of theaters featuring the latest technology and seating greater numbers of patrons in large urban areas had to be of greater concern.   Moreover, concern for financial interests abroad was what motivated rather than inhibited the motion picture industry to press the State Department to act on its behalf.  When Col. Frederick L. Herron, foreign manager of the MPPDA, exhorted Assistant Secretary of State Breckenridge Long in September 1940 "to sustain the rights of American interests in Germany," he wasn't interested in retaliating against the German propaganda films playing at venues like the Yorkville Theatre in Manhattan.  Those films were "insignificant in importance as compared with the damage that had been caused by German action against the American moving picture interests in German-occupied territory" (Dept. of State 669).

 

Doherty has indeed written the most complete account of Hollywood's response to the growing threat of Nazism, but it is by no means the final word on this subject.  And here, the second criticism is not so much against Doherty's excellent volume per se, but against a growing body of scholarship for which both Hollywood and Hitler and The Collaboration now serve as vanguards.  "Hollywood and Nazis" has become the mainstream metonym for how America might have responded to the Holocaust.  At the very least, as Stuart Liebman has observed, the subject of Hollywood and the Holocaust encompasses much more than just Hitler or Nazism.  Obviously, Hitler and Nazism are essential to this history, but they are not exclusive of other historical agents.  Similarly, the film industry response to Nazism is not simply a matter of what films the Big Five and Little Three did or didn't make.  That response also involved close alliances working in concert, with varying degrees of success, with civic and governmental interests.  As Doherty rightly notes at the opening of his book, Hollywood did no worse or better than any other American industry caught in an awkward moment of foreign politics.  While there were inklings "of the horrors to come," there were also even darker implications that neither Hollywood, other industries, and government agencies could have fully understood or anticipated.  With his excellent Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, Doherty has laid important groundwork for further and much needed research into how Hollywood did and did not adequately respond to the Holocaust.

 

Works Cited

 

Carr, Steven Alan.  "Movies, Jews, and Profits to Lose: Hollywood and the European Market Before World War II."  Hollywood History / Jewish History: The Past and Future of a Popular Jewish Identity, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Westin Bonaventure, Los Angeles CA, 20 Mar 2010.  Internet.  http://stevenalancarr.pbworks.com.  Accessed 23 Nov. 2014.

H[ays], W[ill] H.  Memorandum to J. H.  30 Mar. 1939.  Box 54.  The Will Hays Papers.  Part II: Apr. 1929 - Sept. 1945.  Douglas Gomery, ed.  Cinema History Microfilm Series.  Frederick MD: U Publications of America, 1986.  Reel 22.

Rosenberg, Joel.  "The Good, the Bad, and the Fatal: Ben Urwand on the Hollywood Moguls and Hitler."  Rev. of The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler by Ben Urwand.  Jewish Film & New Media: An International Journal 1.2 (2013): 190-214.

United States.  Dept. of State.  "Memorandum of Conversation by the Assistant Secretary of State (Long)" by B[reckrenridge] L[ong].  11 Sep. 1940.  Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1940. General and Europe.  Vol II.  Washington DC: GPO, 1940. 669.  Internet.  http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1940v02.  Accessed 23 Nov. 2014.

 

 

Book Notes

 

Prologue: Judenfilm!

Doherty wisely opens by touching upon two aspects of film history often overlooked.  First, that throughout the Weimar era, Hollywood and Germany behaved as frenemies mutually ensnared by a set of economic and cultural ties that did not simply evaporate when one hardline and extremist political party gradually gained a foothold within a coalition government.  And second, that in terms of understanding the rise of Nazism, the reception of Hollywood films like All Quiet on the Western Front served as a bellwether for a rising tide of militarism abroad.  Indeed, one of the first decrees issued by the Nazis after winning democratic elections in 1932 was to seize control of film distribution in Germany.

 

Doherty also makes the important point that Nazis went after Hollywood films as Jewish films, not as American.  That "Jewishness" could at once designate the foreignness of the product and shore up the image of an Aryan nation destined for bigger things, if not under the jackboot of an occupying power.  Doherty's argument here is that Hollywood did no worse or better than any American industry caught in an awkward moment of foreign politics whose dark implications they could not possibility understand or anticipate.

 

Hollywood-Berlin-Hollywood

Intro: Makes argument (13-17) that Hollywood and German film industry had symbiotic relationship with one another.

 

"The Hitler Anti-Jew Thing" (18-24)

Discusses American disbelief at the irrationality of Nazi purges of the German film industry

 

The Aryanization of American Imports (24-31)

Discusses three-part Nazi censorship of American films, which the trade press and government officials recognized mostly as arbitrary and as enacting a byzantine process or reprisals against perceived cinematic slights against Nazi ideology.

 

The Aryanization of Hollywood's Payroll (31-39)

Discusses how major film studios acquiesced to Nazi demands to Aryanize the staff of their foreign subsidiaries and representative offices in Germany, although this appears mostly to be a misguided faith that things would eventually die down and they could return to business as usual.

 

Hitler, a "Blah Show Subject" (40-77)

Intro makes claim that Hollywood was more concerned about "the release of American pictures into Germany and the depiction of the new Germany in American cinema" than about "Jewish personnel in Germany," who "were a fungible commodity" (40).  Notes April 1933 meeting between Herron and State Dept. to develop this strategy - though discussions throughout 1933 and 34 reveal that these relations were more complex and disjointed.  See especially discussions about exhibition of Beast of Berlin in Chicago in 1934.  Makes claim that Hollywood films ignored Hitler, studios squashed anti-Nazi projects, or the ones that were made were so poorly done that they were "dead on arrival" (45).

 

The Disappearance of Jews Qua Jews (45-53)

Blames German market and Production Code for disappearance of Jews in film 1933-34 (45).  But... German market was not economically significant.  English, French, and Spanish markets much more important.  Also doesn't mention emergent pressure of American anti-Semitism as a factor.  Argues that only four minor films released in 1933 dealt with Nazi anti-Semitism allegorically, and only one of them, House of Rothschild, was from a major studio (46).  But... a number of films from this period dealt with Germany (Little Man What Now); and films from this period arguably could also function allegorically by substituting other characters for Jews (i.e. Gypsies as the Jewish surrogates in Hunchback of Notre Dame.

 

The Unmaking of The Mad Dog of Europe (54-59)

Argues that the film set a precedent for how Hollywood treated subsequent anti-Nazi films, emphasizing primary purpose of entertainment over propaganda (57-58).

 

"What About the Jews, Your Excellence?": Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr.'s Hitler's Reign of Terror (1934) (59-66)

Argues amateurish production did the film in, despite its sensationalized build-up.

 

The Story of Hollywood Girl in Naziland: I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany (1936) (66-77)

Makes case that this was "the only anti-Nazi feature film produced in America and granted a Code seal before 1939," but ignores many films like Three Comrades (1938); Life of Emile Zola (1937), etc. which clearly are meant to engage anti-Nazi sentiments by displacing their narrative settings.

 

The Nazis in the Newsreels (78-95)

Intro (78-85): argues that newsreels "were more lapdogs than watchdogs" (84) that fell short in exploiting their relative freedom from the PCA.

 

"The Swastika Man" (85-91)

Images of Hitler in the newsreels - Hitler became more of a cipher for New York audiences to express mostly anti-Nazi sentiments; notes consensus of "silent majority" (91) who hoped Roosevelt would keep US out of growing conflict in Europe.

 

"Naziganda" (91-95)

Argues that newsreel editors faced a "devil's bargain," either missing out on the "dazzling pageantry" of Nazi Germany, or accept tightly controlled pseudo-coverage from Nazis (92).  Also describes kontingentkasse system for spending blocked currency.  Good description here: alternative was to have blocked film profits go into a Nazi bank, or have opportunity to spend profits on production costs for footage shot in Germany (92).  Suggest that there was far less in the newsreels of Nazis than post-war documentaries suggest (95).

 

The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League (96-121)

Intro (96-100): argues HANL "exerted an influence far beyond its formal subscription list" that demonstrated "the merging of media and politics, celebrity status and social activism" (100). 

 

"Unheil Hitler!" (100-11)

Argues that HANL lacked success in bringing about "a single motion picture that bore, undeniably, the imprint of anti-Nazism" (110).  Instead, argues HANL turned to shaping the motion picture star into political entity (111).

 

The Politics of Celebrity (111-21)

HANL strategy emerged where big name stars and talent would appear in live galas that pioneered the pseudo-event, with American sympathies for anti-Nazism giving the organization "the wind at its back."  Here, Doherty gives the Popular Front too little credit.  Sees Marxism as primarily a political paradox for celebrities who were wealthy but who were attracted by political consciousness.  The whole point of the PF was to find ways to make popular culture politically relevant, not to redistribute wealth.  Also, Nazism seen as real threat, and Communist politics was a viable cipher through which liberals could organize against Hitler (which is what made the Soviet Non-Aggression Pact so devastating later).  Section ignores the ways in which red baiting was code for anti-Semitism, which would explain why studios reluctant to engage in more overtly anti-Nazi projects for fear of anti-Semitic backlash.  Think Doherty too quick to assume country behind anti-Nazism; growing public discontent with Roosevelt's push for intervention, sense that Hollywood pushing country into war because of large percentage of foreign workers, etc.  Finally, section plays down a different time and place where politics were indeed private and kept separate from professional obligations, which may explain why execs found the stars' politics so distasteful. 

 

Mussolini Jr. Goes to Hollywood (122-36)

Chapter about how Hollywood tried to woo Italian film industry, first Wanger and then Roach.  Roach brought over Vittorio Mussolini, son of Benito Mussolini, for an international co-production deal.  Some really great quotes, including an article by Red Kahn where he described a very ill-advised phone call Roach made after Kahn published an editorial critical of the visit (134-35).  But the chapter implicitly credits protests from industry personnel, with Benito Mussolini and Hitler meeting in Munich as only "ratcheting up the controversy" (134).  How do we know that the meeting turned the tide on the visit, with bad PR for the visit simply ratcheting up controversy over the visit?  Chapter indicates the pitfalls of over reliance on industry accounts, which are good indications of how the industry wanted to see itself as fighting Nazism, but not necessarily a good indicator of historical context.

 

The Spanish Civil War in Hollywood (137-73)

Intro (137-42): argues that Spanish Civil war was "dress rehearsal for the main event on the horizon," in terms of images coming out of the war, but unlike the visual arts and photography, Hollywood missed the boat because the industry placed entertainment above what it called propaganda.

 

"Censored Pap!" Walter Wanger's Blockade (142-58)

Discusses two films, Last Train from Madrid (1936) and Blockade (1938), both of which had to make compromises with their politics to get past the PCA.  More politics go through Blockade, especially with Fonda's final speech,  The latter film caused a firestorm of controversy, though after a week or two, public interest tapered off.  Wanger saw the loss of interest as a result of the compromised product ("censored pap!"), while industry execs saw it as vindication of public's interest in entertainment, and not sermonizing.

 

Loyalist Red Screen Propaganda (158-73)

Argues that short films and documentaries had very little impact on public opinion, but rather helped shore up support already there.  "Less a recruiting device for new converts than a ritual exhibition for true believers" (171).

 

Foreign Imports (174-206)

Intro (174-76) Mentions Der Kampf (1936) as offering "actual shots" of concentration camp.  However, argues that few ever saw the film, and that it appealed only to a "thin slice of the demographic undeterred by didactic melodrama, threadbare production values, and semi-legible subtitles.  At fault was a pair of familiar culprints [sic] - the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America and its enforcement arm, the Production Code Administration" (174).  Bullseye: "Some of the fiercest conflicts over Nazism on screen in the 1930s took place away from the main stage of American cinema, on the fringes, around films that did not even speak the native language" (176).

 

"German Tongue Talkers" (176-85) Notes that at 67 out of 141 titles, German imports were larger than even British films in 1932, though the films were screened in smaller neighborhood theaters in New York and the midwest (177).  Maedchen in Uniform (1931) first sound film mentioned, and "last of the crossover hits from the Weimar era" (177).  "As Nazi anti-Semitism flared, stateside / exhibitors of German cinema looked out over rows of empty seats" (177-78).  Notes concern throughout chapter that Jews working within the motion picture industry "warned that any boycott of German imports" would only hurt Jews working within motion picture industry in Germany (179).  Notes early flops, S.A.-Mann Brand (1934) and Hitlerjunge Quex (1934) at Yorkville Theatre, which was run by two Jewish house managers (179).  Discusses growing sophistication of Nazis in getting films to play in U.S., but countered by Untermeyer and Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights boycotts (180-81).  Argues that what mostly killed Nazi films in U.S. was their "poor quality" (185).

 

Anti-Nazism in the Arty Theaters (185-96) "American moviegoers shunned the Nazi imprint and the German tongue, but outside of a  small coterie of cinephiles with Popular Front affinities, anti-Nazism on screen was also a losing proposition (185).  In addition to Der Kampf (1936), entions Soviet films The Oppenheim Family (1939), Concentration Camp (1939), and Professor Mamlock (1938).  Notes the latter was the most successful of these, especially in its serendipitous timing with being distributed on the eve of Kristallnacht 7 Nov. 1938 (193).  Interesting Harmon memo on film making the distinction between "fair" and "sympathetic" treatment of foreign people and other nations (194).  Notes 1938 threat of anti-trust action against the industry as being one motivator for approving Mamlock (194-95).  That approval led to skirmishes at local and state level boards, which were far more likely to ban these films, as was the case in Chicago.

 

"Nazi Scrammers" (196-206) Note bombshell: studios had to submit form certifying any film headed for Germany was not made by "a Jewish emigrant."  Doherty observed "studios either lied outright on the official export forms or wiped the offending name from the credits prior to export" (197).  Notes "smoothest transition" of German filmmakers to Hollywood (198).  Overall, more of an inventory of various composers, directors, other personnel who made their way to Hollywood.  Not much here on backlash against Hollywood for hiring foreigners.

 

"The Blight of Radical Propaganda" (207-36)

Intro (207-11): suggests that by 1937, "after years of turning a blind eye, the major studios were facing up to the threat from Nazism - fitfully, allegorically, with concessions and compromises, but unmistakably and undeniably" (207).  Argues that Italian and German embargoes of Hollywood films emboldened studios to make anti-fascist pictures.  "When Hollywood fought back against 'the Hitler fist' with a few gentle jabs, it was hit with counterpunches from Rome, Berlin, and - in a shot very much below the belt - Washington DC" (211).

 

Trouble from Rome Over Idiot's Delight (1939) (211-17) Section depicts negotiations with fascist Italy over screen adaptation of Sherwood's play mostly for naught, as political ground kept shifting throughout the late 1930s.  Mussolini ended up nationalizing all film distribution (216), and by the time the film was released and Nazi aggression appeared as the world threat, it already had lost some of its power.

 

Trouble from Berlin Over The Road Back (1937) (217-26) Traces trajectory from Road Back to Three Comrades, which is really about how Gyssling got neutered after sending out threatening letter to stars of The Road Back.  Doherty argues that neither of these films were really successful, despite displacing narratives to post-WWI.

 

Trouble from Washington with the Dies Committee (226-36) Last section discusses Dies Committee, but under-emphasizes how that committee played into incipient anti-Semitism directed toward Hollywood, especially in what Doherty correctly notes as a precursor to HUAC.  Doherty makes Nazism equivalent with Communism - just as Dies sought to do - in terms of adherents of both being "engaged in deeply un-American activities" (227).  But simply attempting to put Communism at "the center of American political life" through Popular Front initiatives was not equivalent to fomenting anti-Semitism in America as a political wedge issue.  For many, Communism was viable mechanism to combat Nazism at the time, and attacking Communism as having Jewish motivations to combat Nazism was clearly an anti-Semitic ploy.  Doherty downplays Dies' own anti-Semitic inclinations, which became clear after the collapse of the hearings when he wrote the articles for Liberty tying Jews to a Communist threat, something Doherty doesn't mention.  "Hollywood has been completely duped by the Communists," Dies wrote in 17 Feb. 1940 for the magazine.  "The reason for this was apparent to me.  The Hollywood film producers are naturally and properly opposed to nazi activities and fearful of the growth of any anti-Semitic feeling throughout the country."  Dies offers a sympathetic appraisal of the rise of Jews in the industry, but he perpetuates the old canard that to oppose Nazism is to endorse Communism, and Jews are naturally inclined to Communism because of it.  "Most of the producers are Jews who have made a remarkable success in building the film industry," and thus are susceptible to "every professional liberal, racketeer, and Communist group" (48).

 

Inside Nazi Germany with The March of Time (237-58)

Discusses perils of releasing newsreel explicitly tackling Nazi Germany.  Clarifies how censorship of newsreels worked: newsreels and other short subjects not under purview of PCA because they weren't narratives, but were still subject to local and state censorship as in the case of Chicago.  Nice work at end of chapter where Doherty uses Hollywood Reporter account of exhibition of film at theater in New York.  Lots of audience responses, both anti- but also some pro-Nazi, to the film.  Wish there was more of this in the book.

 

"Grim Reaper Material" (259-92)

Intro (259-67) Meanders a bit in making case that before German invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, most newsreels focused on entertainment fluff like Dionne quintuplets, but that only gradually did newsreels begin to overcome their prior restraint and depict pre-WWII aggressions more explicitly.

 

History Unreels (267-81)

Discusses shift in newsreels, fueled in large part by radio coverage, in depicting Anchluss and takeover of Sudetenland.  Also notes growing public appetite for on-the-spot news coverage.  Most importantly, acknowledges significant Kline documentary Crisis in documenting Anschluss.

 

"The Present Persecutions in Germany" (281-92)

Coverage of Kristallnacht in November 1938.  Argues radio and press did more to cover it than newsreels, because there was no dramatic footage... only eyewitness testimony.  Relies heavily on Lipstadt account.  Event did quicken bolder statements against Nazi anti-Semitism, which imbued films at the time.  Notes that March of Time already had begun attacking Nazi anti-Semitism as early as 1935 with segments devoted to Palestine and in 1937 on Poland.

 

There is No Room for Leni Riefenstahl in Hollywood (293-310)

Bullseye: Triumph of the Will "often called a documentary, it is more akin to a concert film" (296).  Tracks Riefenstahl's visit to U.S., which fatefully coincided with Kristallnacht.  Argues that prior to that news, "Riefenstahl herself was often looked upon more as a curiosity than a villain" (303).  Some anti-Semitic anti-Hollywood quotes from Riefenstahl on page 310.  Chapter really devotes more time to detailing Hollywood's snubbing of Riefenstahl, which is very detailed.  However, we really don't get more than superficial understanding on the changing public response to the refugees from Nazism, which would seem to be different from the public response to Nazism.

 

"The Only Studio with Any Guts" (311-50)

Intro (311-19) "The ideological commitment of ... [Warner Bros.] helped make anti-Nazism synonymous with pro-Americanism.  Prior to 1939, the connection was not self-evident" (312).  Background on Warners relies heavily on Alger-like success narrative of moguls.  Makes no reference to Life of Emile Zola being a stand-in for indictment of Nazi anti-Semitism (313).  Argues that "Fox, Paramount, and MGM all hung on despite the fact that the financial compensations from the German market were steadily diminishing" (317).  Doherty makes argument that studios were hoping for regime change, and then to have a distribution infrastructure in place.  But Canty's figures show Germany's box office potential was pretty lame even before the Nazis came to power, with many houses in the early 30s not wired for sound.

 

The Warner Bros. Patriotic Shorts (319-29) discusses Warners' patriotic shorts, including "Sons of Liberty" (1939).  Idea was that these shorts would prove to be a hedge against Nazism by touting Americanism and American ideals.

 

The Activist Moguls (329-35) notes 1938 Harry Warner speech where he says "no sympathy with... any other ism except for Americanism" speech (334).  Mentions "Dies Committee hearings of August 1938 had given a congressional megaphone to what had long been whispered in country clubs and circulated in antisemitic leaflets" (331). This section discusses how Warner Bros. successfully cast anti-Nazism as full-throated Americanism, more so than Communists could do.

 

"The Picture That Calls a Swastika a Swastika!": Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) (335-50) compares production history of Confessions with Muni bio-pic Juarez (1939).  Both films moderately well-received, although Juarez seemed to get more accolades for being a political film audiences could interpret as an allegory for anti-Nazism. 

 

Hollywood Goes to War (351-64) discusses fallout from the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact and the splintering of the American left.  Argues that Hollywood films in production were now ahead of the anti-Nazi curve, even though the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League had changed its name and no longer advocated for anti-Nazi films (353-54).  Briefly discusses European profits and the dangers of distributing American films in Europe (354-55), newsreel coverage (355), and the lone New York theater still showing Nazi propaganda (356).  Rest of chapter devoted to other films more pronouncedly pro-interventionist (Fighting 69th and Sergeant York) or anti-Nazi (Mortal Storm).  Closes with brief recount of Propaganda Hearings and followups on both Laemmle and Gyssling.

 

Epilogue: The Motion Picture Memory of Nazism (365-73) starts by invoking Susan Sontag's "fascinating fascism" to make sense of how images of Nazis have imbued films, creating a "three-act dramaturgy of the Nazi empire - the Weimar buildup, the regime hegemonic, and the Götterdämmerung ending.  Much of the chapter devoted to Hollywood and television war films and documentaries.  Ends with Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds as an example of a film suffused with the trappings of Nazism but not the "real images of Nazism... no clips from Triumph of the Will or the newsreels of boycotts, book burnings, and concentration camps" (373).  Argues that the book considers "the emergence of those images before they were imprinted and all-pervasive," as well as "how a great art-industry confronted a profound moral quandary - cooperating with, looking away from, and ultimately facing put to a menace beyond its imagination" (373).