Hollywood Declares War on the Dictators (1939) 🇺🇸

May 31, 2023

Since they've declared war on Hollywood, why shouldn't Hollywood take up the challenge?

With 1939, the search for Scarlett O'Hara ended, Nelson Eddy, the perennial bachelor, took unto himself not only a wife, but a 14-year-old stepson. Clark Gable finally paid Rea Gable enough so that she would divorce him and let him marry Carole Lombard. Hedy Lamarr's first starring picture was shelved, after three months of shooting. So-and-So won an Academy Award. Unofficially, Mickey Rooney became Box-Office Star No. 1.

All of these events have been more or less surprising to a large portion of the population. They have been news. But — ten years from now, or even one year from now, who will care?

They won't change the course of history one iota. But something else has happened in Hollywood since January first that will make 1939 remembered.

Hollywood has declared war on the dictators.

Hollywood has finally realized something that the dictators have known for a long time: Democracy won't vanish from the earth until it vanishes from America. And American movies can awaken people to the attractions of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Until dictators marched into power abroad, Hollywood made movies that the whole world was able to enjoy. But with the coming of dictators, people in various and assorted sections of the world weren't allowed to enjoy American movies as heretofore. Those movies had to be drastically censored first. When they weren't banned completely.

As time went on, more and more were banned.

American movies hadn't changed, either in quality or in subject matter. But with new rulers abroad, there were changed ideas of what the masses could safely see and hear.

Men in power by virtue of armed minorities didn't want the masses getting any notions that life elsewhere might be fuller, freer and happier.

Stalin raised the bars first. He frankly said that American ideas were contrary to the Communistic philosophy of life. Hitler followed suit — only Hitler gave as his sole reason: Jews would profit if Germans patronized American movies. Mussolini raised the bars by decreeing that all picture profits made in Italy must be spent in Italy. Some American movies are still seen in Japan, but in hideously censored form. Even an innocent scene of a laborer eating a banana was chopped out of a recent picture when it played Japan. With the masses paying the bulk of the high cost of the rape of China, only the very rich can afford bananas.

Hollywood did its best to please the dictators, as well as everybody else.

Before Hitler, Hollywood had made a world-famous picture, All Quiet on the Western Front — depicting the horrors of War as experienced by a small group of German boys. Germany saw it and applauded it. After Hitler, Hollywood attempted to make a sequel, "The Road Back" — depicting the after-effects of war on a small group of German boys. Hitler's objections were so strenuous that, in placating him, the picture ended by being a weak travesty of what it had set out to be. It had more slapstick than drama in it.

In the novel, A Farewell to Arms, the retreat of the Italian army motivated the hero's desertion. But when Hollywood went about picturizing the story, Mussolini raised violent objections to any suggestion that the Italians had ever retreated. Hollywood heeded his objections, weakened the story.

These are only two examples of what Hollywood has been willing to do to keep the good will of the dictators. But within the past year there has been no pleasing them. They just don't like American movies. They made that plain. And the reason why is also plain now. They are out to make the world a feasting place for Fascism (or, in Stalin's case, Communism). And anything democratic is to be stamped out, if possible.

In their own countries, they have stamped out freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religious worship, freedom of opportunity. They have substituted bullets for ballots. They have perverted justice. They have legalized intolerance, and enforced it with tortures that take civilization back to the Dark Ages. They have turned men into slaves of the state. They have turned women into breeding machines to produce soldiers. They have made children play at war. They have persecuted the wealthy, robbed them by force. They have taken what they wanted from defenseless neighbors. They have made the bombing of women and children a tactic of war.

Everything they stand for is antagonistic to democratic ideals. Why shouldn't they bar American movies?

And with the dictators declaring war on Hollywood, why shouldn't Hollywood declare war on the dictators? There is nothing to lose now, everything to gain.

In a dictator-threatened world, Hollywood's remaining audience isn't easily entertained. Especially by the same old story about boy-meets-girl, boy-pursues-girl, boy-wins-girl. It wants the movies, like the newspapers and the radio, to keep up with the excitement of the times. It wants the movies to say something vigorous about the things that matter more to free people today than ever before.

Hollywood has known this for some little while. But it has taken Hollywood time to throw off the old fear of displeasing somebody, somewhere. Time, and an outspoken, fearless President, asking Congress for a huge appropriation for national defense, saying that dictator countries menace the democracies of the world, including the United States…

If Washington isn't afraid to awaken patriotism, at the price of displeasing the dictators, why should Hollywood be afraid? It isn't, any longer.

One proof of this is Hollywood's recent complete shunning of Leni Riefenstahl, Nazi Movie Star No. 1. A far more complete shunning than that given Vittorio Mussolini, son of II Duce, a couple of years ago.

Vittorio came to Hollywood for a three-month stay to learn something about American ways of making movies. He was given quite a welcome by some of our biggest names. This sickened a thoughtful handful. They bought space in the trade papers to print photos of wounded women and children in Ethiopia and Spain, where he had served as a flier, and to publish quotations from his autobiography, to the effect that War was "fun." No one was flattered after that to shake his hand. Signor Mussolini became so uncomfortable that he stayed barely three weeks.

Leni Riefenstahl is a woman — an attractive woman. To the best of anyone's knowledge, she hasn't machine-gunned cripples or dropped bombs on children or ballyhooed War as a glorious adventure. But she has been seen often enough with Adolf Hitler to be billed in Berlin dispatches as "Hitler's girl-friend." The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League bought space in the trade papers to warn her that this was enough to make her unwelcome in Hollywood, which she was about to visit. She didn't believe the Anti-Nazi League could be speaking for all Hollywood. But, this time, it was. Not one star wanted to meet her, not one studio would open its doors to her.

That's how Hollywood feels today about the dictators — and their friends.

M-G-M bought the play, "Idiot's Delight," several years ago. Mussolini protested against its being filmed. He apparently suspected that playwright Robert E. Sherwood meant to suggest that a certain somebody delighted in War, since the soldiers in the play were Italian. Anyway, his protest was heeded — then. But last Fall the story was yanked out of its pigeonhole. Idiot's Delight is now a picture.

True, the setting of the picture is a mythical Alpine country. The soldiers don't speak Italian, but Esperanto, the would-be international language. The picture is far more concerned with the amorous dalliance of Clark Gable and Norma Shearer than with the horrors of War. The indictment of War is pretty weak. But the fact that Idiot's Delight has been filmed, even in expurgated form, is proof of Hollywood's new independence of the dictators. Mussolini didn't want it filmed in any form.

One of the pictures you will be seeing this spring, despite the violent protests of Germany and death-threats against all players known to be in the cast, is "Confession of a Nazi Spy." Germany might well be upset over this picture. It is not a fictional story; it is a factual story. It depicts in exact detail the discovery, arrest and conviction of a Nazi spy ring in the United States. It will shock America into a realization that President Roosevelt was not joking when he said that dictator countries menace America.

It took courage to be identified, in Nazi eyes, with this picture. George Sanders, Lya Lys and Francis Lederer — once a Czech, but now an American — had that kind of courage. So had the Warner Brothers, who dared to produce it.

Nor do the Warners intend to stop with this one anti-Nazi film. They have writers working on a story to be called "Concentration Camp" — another factual expose, based on the recollections of men who lived to be refugees. Warners also have announced "The Bishop Who Walked with God" — the life-story of Dr. Martin Niemoeller, who dared to worship his God in a way different from Hitler's. Paul Muni may play the role.

Muni has just finished the title role of Juarez, which also boasts Bette Davis, Brian Aherne and John Garfield. This reminds the world what happened, the last time a European power invaded North America. It tells the story of Emperor Maximilian, who, with all his army, could not conquer liberty-loving Mexico, led by a peon named Juarez.

Crusading, to make Americans proud of freedom, Warners have already produced several historical shorts about the founders of our independence. (Moreover, they will furnish any of these shorts, free of cost, to any school, lodge or patriotic organization asking for them.) Now they are turning their attention to liberators south of the Rio Grande, too — Bolivar, San Martin, O'Higgins and others. With The Monroe Doctrine, they remind all the Americas of their union for protection against European invasion. With "Son of Liberty," they will remind the intolerant that a Jew, Haym Solomon, helped finance American independence.

And Warners aren't stopping here. In "Wings of the Navy," they made Americans conscious of their first line of defense. With "John Paul Jones," starring James Cagney, they will make Americans conscious of their traditions as sea fighters. With "The American Way," they will tell the story of a German immigrant and his wife and the opportunities that they and their son, and their son's son, find in America.

Samuel Goldwyn is producing "The Exile," starring violinist Jascha Heifetz — a story of a great musician driven from his native land by race prejudice, who finds sanctuary in America. Goldwyn is also thinking of doing a picture about Benedict Arnold, the traitor — to help make un-Americanism unpopular. And he also expects to give every freedom-lover something to think about in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois."

It has been years since any studio has been Great Emancipator-minded. Now, suddenly, this spring of 1939, two studios are. Henry Fonda is doing Young Lawyer Lincoln at 20th Century-Fox. Where some overdue attention is being given to American inventiveness and stick-to-it-iveness in "Alexander Graham Bell," starring Don Ameche. Just as, in "Submarine Patrol" not long ago, some overdue attention was given to the Splinter Fleet and the daredevils who helped make America safe (?) for democracy twenty years ago.

Whatever Jesse James may have been in real life, 20th Century-Fox recently pictured him as a good American who simply went berserk. Getting across the point that injustice makes American blood boil — and stay hot.

Until this spring of 1939, no producer ever thought of asking audiences to stand up during a picture. But during "Let Freedom Ring," audiences not only stand up, but cheer, hearing. Nelson Eddy sing, "My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty…"

M-G-M, responsible for this bit of patriotism-arousing, is about to produce "It Can't Happen Here," the Sinclair Lewis story banned ever since it was bought several years ago. A bitter story of what could happen if Fascism ever diseased America.

In Babes in Arms, Mickey Rooney will tell the world, in song, that "in the good old U. S. A. every man is his own dictator."

M-G-M's "Northwest Passage," like Paramount's "Union Pacific," Warners' "Dodge City," 20th Century-Fox's "Panama Canal" and Selznick's Gone with the Wind, will reawaken America's never-say-die spirit.

Paramount is planning "Air Raid" — dramatizing the horror of civilian bombings. And Invasion, on which a million will be spent — showing what might happen if an unnamed foreign power suddenly attacked us.

Universal is doing "The Spirit of Culver" — an appeal to the Americanism of young America.

Frank Capra is preparing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, which will forcefully remind Americans that their government is of the people, by the people, for the people.

But the picture that will really make the dictators froth at the mouth is Charlie Chaplin's first talkie. It is a crime, in their countries, to joke about them. And Chaplin will go beyond joking; he will ridicule them. And, come fall, the picture will be seen in all countries where "the people are still permitted to have a sense of humor."

It started out with the title, "The Dictator." Now, since Mussolini has added his furious protest to Hitler's, Chaplin has changed the title to "The Dictators." He is guarding the plot, as he is himself being guarded. All lie; will reveal is that he is playing a dual role. One character will be a downtrodden derelict, shell-shocked into silence by the World War; the other will be a bombastic dictator who looks like him.

Hollywood has declared war on the dictators, and started militantly defending democracy, not only on the screen, but off it.

The biggest radio broadcast in Hollywood history was the program put on last December 14th, Rededication Day of the Bill of Rights. Every Hollywood name worth mentioning was either on or at that broadcast, which was designed to rouse Americans to re-appreciate their freedom in a world menaced by dictators.

Last January 30th, at a rally that jammed Los Angeles' vast Shrine Auditorium, movie stars dramatized Hitler's six-year reign of terror, adopted a slogan "Quarantine the Dictators!" and launched a campaign to obtain 20,000,000 signatures to a "declaration of Democratic Independence," to persuade Congress to put a ban on trade with Germany.

Among the original signers of the Declaration were such stars as Melvyn Douglas, Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Joan Bennett. A Declaration that says, among other things:

"We accuse the leaders of Nazi Germany… of 'a design to reduce the world under absolute despotism'… They bring chaos and disunity into sovereign nations and then seize and dismember them. They send their agents to spy upon us. They organize Bunds to spread their vicious doctrines in strident contempt for our Democracy and its institutions… We, a free people, have continued to support by trade and commerce this enemy of our liberty and our peace. This, our conscience will permit no longer." That is strong language. Hollywood, this spring of 1939, is convinced that it is time for strong language.

Leni Riefenstahl, leader of German film industry and one of Hitler's few women friends, received the cold shoulder from Hollywood on recent trip

Photo by: Wide World Photos

Vittorio Mussolini, son of Il Duce, came to Hollywood for 3-month stay, but left after 3 weeks. Hollywood partied him very well at first, then dropped him

Chaplin plays World War derelict — doubles as dictator in new film, "The Dictators," now being made