WAR HYSTERIA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1940, Page 9

WAR HYSTERIA

HITS HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS. ANTI-NAZI FILMS. Panicked by the loss of its entire European market for some years at least, and realising for the first time that a •Hitler-run world would be a death blow to world democracy. Hollywood has thrown aside all pretences and allied itself with England in the fight for freedom, writes Lon < Jones from Hollywood. War hysteria has really hit the movie city, and :io one can talk or think of anything else but the terrible conflict raging in Europe. While stars, directors, producers, and prop boys gather on sound stages to listen to Continental news broadcasts over portable radio sets, work comes to a standstill. So serious and costly have these production hold-ups become that studio executives have forbidden radio sets on any sound stages. But the real news of the war hysteria in Hollywood, is that the studios have launched a powerful celluloid attack on Hitler and Nazism, putting all of their resources into films intended to whip up anti-Nazi feeling in America and give warnings of fifth columnist activities. With Nazi storm troopers sweating under the huge sun arcs, prisoners suffering untold horrors behind the barbed wire of studio concentration camps, Hollywood has found itself in the midst of a fierce anti-German offensive that is gathering momentum with the passing of each day. Working at Top Pressure. At least 10 productions, some of them in the million-dollar class, are being shot in as many studios with top stars depicting fifth column activities, para*

chute attacks, Jewish persecutions, the collapse of Holland, fighting at sea, and all the other dreadful aspects of World War 11. l At Warner Brothers they have two production units working 24 hours a d'ay in an attempt to bring to the Screen while it is still hot news a dramatisation of the fifth column’s work in Holland. Cameras are grinding day and night in double shifts so that the picture, ‘'The Secret Army,” will bu ready for release in America in four weeks from time of starting. In connection with filnfs dealing with fifth column activities, it is interesting to note that Ernest Hemingway has served notice on all studios that he will take legal action against them if they try to use the term, “The Fifth Column,” as a title for a picture. Hemingway actually introduced the term to the world in his stage play of the same name. The term was originally used by a Spanish general during the Spanish civil; war, and referred to active' supporters within and behind the enemy’s lines. Studios here believe Hemingway’s claims will fiot hold good in court. Warners also have rushed a re-issue of “Confessions of a Nazi Spy,” with a new ending, bringing the picture up to date, with parachute troops and total war in France providing the climax. This picture, which flopped so badly on its initial release early last year because the world then didn’t believe such things could happen here, is doing tremendous business, .and is being hailed now as a timely warning against German fifth columnists in the United States. This picture proves that GMan Leon Turrou knew what he was writing about when he prepared that story for Warners. Fox has just released “Four Sons,” a drama of the blitzkrieg in Poland, while such stars as Joan Bennett, Anna Sten, and Francis Lederer are performing on swastika-draped sound stages in “I Married a Nazi.” M.G.M. has Norma Shearer, Robert Taylor, and Nazimova working at high speed in “Escape,” another story of Nazi brutality and terror. On the sound stages at Paramount fighting ships are at sea on the wooden waves while Henry Wilcoxon, Carole Landis, and others are busy re-enacting the adventures of the steamer Altmark. German sea raider and hell ship. The real feeling of the American people can be gauged from the huge billboard posters from one end of the nation to the other. In huge letters painted over a blood-red swastika is this slogan: “Stop the Fifth Column in America.” The hunt for these agents of Germany is really on with a vengeance and the G-Men are rounding up all German aliens who are suspected of espionage. Communists are getting short shrift, also, and you'd be surprised how quickly Hollywood's colony of parlour pinks has suddenly disappeared. Melvyn Douglas Criticised. There was quite a sensation a few days ago when the American Legion (Returned Soldiers’ Association) objected to the appointment of Melvyn Douglas as a lieutenant-colonel in the National Guard intelligence unit. Douglas, is known for his charity work, but has also made many radical speeches. The legion and other bodies claim that he has Communist leanings and sympathies, and stated that he was not a fit man for the National Guard job. Under fire from these different organisations, the star asked the Californian State Governor to withdraw the appointment.