NAZI FILM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 June 1940, Page 9

NAZI FILM

WITH A NEW ENDING. Warner Brothers are re-issuing "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" with a new ending. This ending plays up the activities of the Fifth Column in the United States and its threat to American peace.

“MORTAL STORM” ANTI-NAZI FILM. I spent a day in a concentration camp in Hollywood recently and saw re-enacted in grim and terrible detail the brutalities that are an every-day happening in Nazi Germany, writes Lou Jones from Hollywood. Director Frank Borzage was filming a brutal scene for M.G.M.’s. “Mortal Storm,” the story of Nazi terror, by Phyllis Bottome. This is the first real anti-Nazi picture Hollywood has attempted since the war began, and I believe that it will be the preJude to a flood of Hollywood-made films deliberately aimed at Hitlerism and its attendant terrors. This also is Hollywood's first effort at breaking down the United States neutrality barriers, and, as the story has been passed by the Hays Office, it is obvious that the U.S. Government no longer intends to interfere in whatever stand Hollywood openly cares to take in this war against dictators and terror. M.G.M. is one of the very few studios whose pictures are still being shown in Germany, but when “Mortal Storm” is released the door will be closed to it and probably all other Hollywood products. Two Brothers and Nazi Ideals. “Mortal Storm” will not force its message down your throats as did "Confessions of a Nazi Spy." Borzage is much too subtle in his direction to allow his work to be spoiled by what might seem just blatant propaganda. He told me that he would show both sides of the question in this film; the boy (Robert Young), who . embraces Hitlerism and becomes one of its leaders, and his brother (James Stewart), who refuses to accept it. He intends

to show how both believe they are right, and he will leave the audience to draw its own conclusions, which will not be hard to do.

"If films drop to the level of obvious propaganda they lose their force, and the people reject the ideology of the message being portrayed.” says Borzage.

You probably’ know the ■ story of “Mortal Storm.” It deals with a typical German family around the years of 1933 and 1934, when Hitler first rose to power in Germany, and tells .tow the family is split asunder by political beliefs. It also shows the terrors and brutalities that exist under a dictatorship. Besides Stewart and Young, the cast of “Mortal Storm" includes Margaret Sullavan. Frank Morgan, and heralds the return to the screen of that former silent favourite. Irene Rich, who still looks young and beautiful in spite of middle age. Bleak Realism of Nazi Uniforms. Borzage took me out on to the back lot and showed me the concentration camp, which has been erected in every grim detail. Two fences of charged barbed wire surround the bleak barracks with its barred doors and windows. Setbuilders achieved such real-I ism in the erection of this set that it | gave you the cold shivers just to look at it.

Actors in Nazi uniforms patrolled the camp, and during filming of the scenes I saw floggings and cruelties that made my blood run cold, even though it was all for a movie scene.

You needed little imagination to think you were inside Nazi Germany. I suggested to Borzage that he was exaggerating things for the sake of dramatic force.

“No, sir,” he said. “I have technical advisers right here on the lot who know only too well what went on inside Nazi concentration camps. They are refugees who spent months in. them, and can’t look at this set today i without a shudder.” '

Cameraman in Concentration Camp. And M.G.M. also has one of its own cameramen. Dick Rosson, who spent 34 days in a concentration camp in Germany last year ‘for taking pictures of what the Nazis said were fortified zones. Rosson was filming backgrounds for “Florian." a story of pre-war Austria, which has yet to be released. On this set, too, I met a young German boy whose parents used to own the Hotel Adlon, in Berlin. His name is Louis Adlon. and he has been in Hollywood for a few years working in pictures. He appeared very briefly m “Confessions of a Nazi Spy." but he told me that so far us he knew his parents had never been molested by the Nazis because of his work in Hollywood. They are Aryans, and that might have made some difference. Hiller will not be seen in this picture, although he will dominate it. I You'll hear his voice from the radio.' but the evil influence of his doctrines will permeate the whole film.

Just as soon as other studios see the; reaction to this first anti-Nazi picture. I : believe they will rush into production many stories of Nazi terror which have , been prepared quietly for the past few; months.

Warners have two stories all ready ; for production. “Concentration Camp"; and "The Man Who Walked With God." the story of courageous Bishop Niemol,ler, who defied Hitler. Neutrality laws held back production on these, but now that M.G.M. has paved the way. it is almost certain that Warners will start work on those two. It was Warners who produced “Confessions of a Nazi I spy."