Hollywood and Hitler

In a period in which propaganda has largely reduced the artistic and entertainment validity of the screen in many other countries, it is pleasant to report that American motion pictures continue to be free from any but the highest possible entertainment purpose . . . Propaganda disguised as entertainment has no place on the American screen.

In a period in which propaganda has largely reduced the artistic and entertainment validity of the screen in many other countries, it is pleasant to report that American motion pictures continue to be free from any but the highest possible entertainment purpose . . . Propaganda disguised as entertainment has no place on the American screen.

Such was the summation of William H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA, a.k.a. “The Hays Office”), in 1938. From 1934 until 1968 when the Motion Picture Association of America (the restructured MPPDA) established the ratings system (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17), domestic and foreign films adhered to The Motion Picture Production Code (“The Code”)—a list of behavior and avoidance techniques to be followed so as not to corrupt the audience. This is why Fred and Ginger never kissed except in a dream sequence or when playing a married couple, and great as Joan Crawford’s performance was, the onscreen Mildred Pierce is unrecognizable from the one in James M. Cain’s novel.

The Code is also responsible for the lingering distortion of history in American cinema of that era. Wild West towns were pristine settlements whose citizenry (cowboys sang, prostitutes had euphemistic job titles, Hispanics provided manual labor and comic relief) were perennially on the verge of attack from the ultimate non-White outsiders, the Indians. Dancing through the Great Depression was nicer than depicting it.

As for Hitler and the Nazis, their screen time came after the 1939 invasion of Poland and calculating moves from Hollywood insiders. The period when the American film industry ignored his intentions until it was too late is covered Thomas Doherty’s detailed and fascinating Hollywood and Hitler: 1933-1939. Equally a factual film history and an examination of the business of entertainment, Doherty never loses the big picture in his analysis.

There are no surprises in Hollywood and Hitler. The productions, policies, performers, and politics are well documented; the difference here is that they are accessible in one admirably researched volume. Post-World War I German cinema was experimental, decadent and brilliant. German directors and actors were valued influences and collaborators during the Silent Era and at the start of the talkies. The films each nation exported were profitable; an important aspect in understanding why the primarily Jewish-American studio bosses went along with The Code.

This mutual creative respect ended in 1933 when Hitler became chancellor. Fewer American films played in Germany; their censors even found Shirley Temple reactionary. Jewish members of the German film community that could flee did, with many coming to America. It is ironic that one émigré in particular, Billy Wilder, would push The Code to its limits . . . after establishing himself in Hollywood during and after World War II.

Since Hollywood could not portray “friendly” nations negatively, one way Americans could learn something about Hitler was from newsreels. Both the Embassy and Trans-Lux in Times Square showed newsreels exclusively to sold-out, boisterous crowds. Regular viewers of TCM know that newsreels were primarily “light,” with the occasional hard news story (e.g., the Lindbergh Baby kidnapping and murder trial). Yet RKO, a studio constantly plagued with money and management problems, produced the groundbreaking March of Time (1935-1951, parodied to the hilt in RKO’s most famous release, 1941’s Citizen Kane). March of Time specialized in longer segments, in-depth reporting, and, like rival newsreel outfits (and their modern-day cable equivalents), re-creation. Their 1938 series Inside Nazi Germany was as close a look as Americans could get at that time. Of course, the worst was not yet public record, but Doherty points out that this was “the spellbinding news of its day, not grainy archival footage.”

A major studio broke the ban on Nazi films. Warner Brothers specialized in gangster pictures and sophisticated cartoon humor, thus making Hitler and his followers prime material. The first way Warners worked around The Code was to make a series of patriotic shorts leading up to Sons of Liberty (1939), the biography of American Revolution patriot Haym Salomon, a Jewish financer and friend of George Washington. Rather than the usual forgotten faces found in many “quickies,” Sons was directed by Michael Curtiz (an American citizen but Hungarian by birth, who came to Hollywood during the 1920s) and starred the elegant Claude Rains as Salomon. (They were reunited in 1943 for a film Warners considered an afterthought, Casablanca.) Because of the critical success of Sons of Liberty and the outrage and alarm over the German invasion of Poland, Warners was able to make Confessions of a Nazi Spy—the first studio film to depict Nazis and say their name. It was released in 1939, the same year as Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, and The Wizard of Oz.

Doherty’s writing is objective, with one exception. He begins his chapter on director Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003) by describing her as the “lone shimmering star in a constellation of dim hacks.” Despite this compliment, Doherty does not sugarcoat Riefenstahl’s links to the Nazi Party—for once, the artistic merits of her Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) are not lauded or excused because George Lucas borrowed her shots for the Star Wars finale. Doherty regulates their status to that of big-budget propaganda made by an opportunist. With the Party’s blessing, she visited the US in 1938 with the hopes of releasing Olympia. This time Hollywood was not afraid of a Code or isolationist policies. The invasions of Austria and Czechoslovakia were not easy to hide, and she was a pariah welcomed only at the Disney Studios by Uncle Walt himself. During her long life, Riefenstahl was unrepentant for her contributions to Nazism, and it is refreshing that he discusses her without reverential kid gloves.

Hollywood and Hitler: 1933-1939 is a fascinating overview of censorship and politics in a particular film era. It’s also a reminder that you can only keep an audience in the dark for so long.