Warner Brothers and their fight against the Nazis
Warner Brothers studio is well known for their catalog of swashbucklers with Errol Flynn, and their gangster films with Jimmy Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson, and even the horror genre with Dr. X and Mystery of the Wax Museum.
But in 1939, they made a decision. It was a decision that was met with disdain from fellow filmmakers at other studios.
The film was the first anti-Nazi film from a major American studio: Confessions of a Nazi Spy, released on May 6, 1939.
Again, it's 1939. Many corporations were doing business with Nazi Germany. Many Americans were unaware of the events happening as Hitler began sweeping across Europe, while those that knew, didn't care and didn't want to get involved, and in addition, there was a large number of German-American citizens in the country.
Condemnation came quickly.
Studios like MGM, Paramount, and Twentieth Century-Fox still worked with the Nazis to maintain their place in the German marketplace, while also accusing Warner Bros. of “righteous rage” and feeling “somehow responsible for the fate of European Jewry.”
The Production Code Administration, led by notorious antisemite Joseph Breen, first recommended shelving the film citing concerns about losing access to the German market and saying it unduly criticized a particular world leader (Hitler), but later acquiesced after alterations including removing any mention of Jewish people, Hitler's big lie. The PCA was heavily lobbied by the German government, particularly from their consulate in L.A., to prevent the release of anti-Nazi movies.
Not long after the Warners announced the project, Georg Gyssling, a German consul based in Los Angeles and installed by Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, wrote to Breen to have the production stopped. Gyssling had been a devoted Nazi since 1931 and served as a Hollywood influencer from 1933 to 1941, often taking his orders directly from Goebbels. Gyssling demanded that Breen use his influence to bar the production, or else Hollywood would face penalties from the German market. Breen, inclined to approve the anti-Nazi material given its basis in fact— despite his being an anti-Semite—ignored Gyssling’s letter and approved the production
After the release of the film, the PCA announced that they would not permit the release of any other anti-Nazi films.
Gyssling and the German-American Bund tried to intimidate the Warners and producer Hal B. Wallis to shut down the production, issuing death threats, menacing phone calls, and physical intimidation.
Warner Bros. increased security on the studio lot, resulting in its doors being heavily guarded during filming. Jack Warner himself insisted on filming without interference, treating the script like a top-secret document, and wrapped the production in the span of six weeks, saying that "it is time America woke up to the fact that Nazi spies are operating within our borders. Our picture will tell the truth—all of it—and it will speak for itself this summer".
Many actors turned down roles out of fear of repercussions including violence, and nobody would play Hitler no matter the pay, so the script was altered so that he was only present in newsreel footage. A 60-pound boom had been sabotaged to fall down on the set, nearly killing one of the main actors. Actor Ferdinand Schumann-Heink recalled that most of the film's German cast members were known only by numbers in order to protect the relatives of theirs that were still living in Germany then. Famed composer and conductor Max Steiner did not want his name credited.
The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated from their country after the rise of Adolf Hitler. Many of the German actors who appeared in the film changed their names for fear of reprisals against relatives still living in Germany. Harry, Albert, and Jack Warner, who then owned Warner Bros, were Jewish.
The film's story is based on a series of articles by FBI officer Leon G. Turrou, recounting his investigation of Nazi spy rings in the United States. Parts of the film are drawn from the Rumrich spy case, the first major international espionage case in American history.
Screenwriter John Wexley based his script on real events and the articles of former FBI agent Leon G. Turrou, who had been active in investigating Nazi spy rings in the United States prior to the war, quit the FBI and continued publishing articles on the topic that J. Edgar Hoover had largely ignored and tried to prevent from publication. Authors Paul Buhle and David Wagner of Radical Hollywood wrote that it "treated a real-life case" and that Warner Bros. had been warned by the Dies Committee "against slurring a 'friendly country'".
Parts of the movie were a fictionalized account of a real-life espionage case, the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case, and the eventual trial in 1938 involving individuals convicted of spying for German government. The FBI said the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case was their "first major international spy case" and that Leon Turrou "was placed in charge" but had later been fired by FBI chief Hoover. In fact, Turrou had first quit and been retroactively fired to strip him of benefits. Guenther Gustave Maria Rumrich was arrested on February 14, 1938, and charged with spying for Germany. He came to the FBI's attention when he attempted to obtain 50 passport application forms from the Passport Office in New York City. In the film, Francis Lederer, as Schneider, plays the role equivalent to the real Rumrich.
The scene where an unnamed American Legionaire played by Ward Bond challenges Kassel at a meeting, is supported by others speaking out for democracy, provoking an attack by Bundists, is based on an actual event that occurred in late April 1938 when approximately 30 World War I American Legion Veterans stood up to the Bund in New York City during a celebration of Hitler's birthday. The veterans were severely beaten.
At the filmns premiere, there were almost as many policemen and special agents in the audience as customers. Wexley's script made a point of following the facts and real-life events of the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case whose participants went to trial in 1938. The film was re-released in 1940 with scenes describing events that had taken place since the initial release, such as the invasions of Norway and the Netherlands.
Pushback from Nazis and their local supporters saw theaters around the U.S. being picketed or vandalized, limiting the release. Fritz Kuhn, leader of the German American Bund, sued Warner Bros for $5 million, alleging that the film was libellous against him.
Confessions of a Nazi Spy was banned in Germany, Japan, and many Latin American and European countries. Norway also banned it in 1939. Adolf Hitler in particular banned all Warner Bros. productions from being shown in Nazi Germany as a result of the studio's work on the film. Warner Bros. was so surprised to hear that the British Board of Film Censors gave the film a U certificate that the studios telephoned the censors, asking them to confirm its passage for exhibition in the United Kingdom. The film remained banned in Germany for 32 years after the fall of the Nazis; in early 1977, after West Germany lifted its ban on "hard-core" anti-Nazi films, it was shown in West German cinemas as part of a series of such films that were made by Warner Bros. during World War II.
In the United States, it had a month-long rolling open.
Louis B. Mayer required all MGM employees to attend Lionel Barrymore's 61st birthday celebration, broadcast live on the NBC Red radio program Good News of 1939, in order to prevent their attendance of the premiere.
Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News said that "Anatole Litvak has done a splendid job of creating suspense in building a case against the spies, but, I am grieved to say, he and the scenario writers have spoiled the effect of their big trial scene by permitting themselves to deliver a needless warning to the audience."
Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times noted that the film's premiere in Hollywood was marked by hisses and boos, and remarked that the film was "stunningly acted, the word being apt for the performances by Paul Lukas, Francis Lederer and George Sanders, who surpass themselves in their portrayals."
Harry Mines of the Los Angeles Daily News wrote that "suffice to say Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and others of the party will not like 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy.' Warner Bros, however, may rest assured of having done a patriotic service to the American people in making such a picture possible. For after glimpsing this factual document exposing a terrifying espionage system and stealthy spread of alien propaganda in a peace loving nation, it teaches the thoughtful citizenry of the United States the necessity of awareness."
A critic for The Boston Globe wrote that "the picture never grows [hysterical] or overly vehement in its treatment, which makes the indictment against German espionage all the more powerful. The menace of concentration camps, tortures and nameless horrors to be found back in Germany for faithless Nazi agents is depicted in shadowy, but terrifying fashion."
Writing under the Mae Tinee pseudonym, a critic for the Chicago Daily Tribune described the film as "potent anti-Nazi propaganda that presents a powerful and impassioned plea for the defense of the principles that have made America "the land of the free." There are times when the action seems ineptly strung together. This fact is undoubtedly due to the producers' determination that they would stick to facts and indulge in no fictional fancy work. But you are never confused, for off-screen narration, concisely delivered, keeps the decks of meaning cleared."
Lowell Lawrence of the Kansas City Journal said that the "Warner Brothers have done a courageous thing in presenting this dramatized evidence of a national peril to the American people. The German government may retaliate not only against the producers but against every player in the cast. But the time has passed when foreign governments can dictate to Hollywood. Warners answered Nazi threats by giving "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" the kind of a production that presents the picture's message in the most impressive manner."
In the end of the film, eighteen people are indicted for espionage. Four are in custody.
US Attorney Kellogg describes the role of a network of German fifth columnists in the United States and in the Nazi conquest of Europe. He calls for Americans to take a lesson, reviewing Hitler's march through Europe, demonstrating “the supremacy of organized propaganda backed by force.” The spies are convicted.
Over coffee, US Attorney Kellogg and FBI agent Renard discuss events in America and Europe. Renard describes Nazis as "insane." Kellogg believes that "when our basic liberties are threatened, we wake up."
The credits roll to America the Beautiful in march time.
Is Confessions of a Nazi Spy relevant today?
I will let you make that decision for yourself.....but ask that you consider the words of US Attorney
Kellogg: "When our basic liberties are threatened, we wake up."
Sources: Wikipedia, Deep Focus Review
But in 1939, they made a decision. It was a decision that was met with disdain from fellow filmmakers at other studios.
The film was the first anti-Nazi film from a major American studio: Confessions of a Nazi Spy, released on May 6, 1939.
Again, it's 1939. Many corporations were doing business with Nazi Germany. Many Americans were unaware of the events happening as Hitler began sweeping across Europe, while those that knew, didn't care and didn't want to get involved, and in addition, there was a large number of German-American citizens in the country.
Condemnation came quickly.
Studios like MGM, Paramount, and Twentieth Century-Fox still worked with the Nazis to maintain their place in the German marketplace, while also accusing Warner Bros. of “righteous rage” and feeling “somehow responsible for the fate of European Jewry.”
The Production Code Administration, led by notorious antisemite Joseph Breen, first recommended shelving the film citing concerns about losing access to the German market and saying it unduly criticized a particular world leader (Hitler), but later acquiesced after alterations including removing any mention of Jewish people, Hitler's big lie. The PCA was heavily lobbied by the German government, particularly from their consulate in L.A., to prevent the release of anti-Nazi movies.
Not long after the Warners announced the project, Georg Gyssling, a German consul based in Los Angeles and installed by Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, wrote to Breen to have the production stopped. Gyssling had been a devoted Nazi since 1931 and served as a Hollywood influencer from 1933 to 1941, often taking his orders directly from Goebbels. Gyssling demanded that Breen use his influence to bar the production, or else Hollywood would face penalties from the German market. Breen, inclined to approve the anti-Nazi material given its basis in fact— despite his being an anti-Semite—ignored Gyssling’s letter and approved the production
After the release of the film, the PCA announced that they would not permit the release of any other anti-Nazi films.
Gyssling and the German-American Bund tried to intimidate the Warners and producer Hal B. Wallis to shut down the production, issuing death threats, menacing phone calls, and physical intimidation.
Warner Bros. increased security on the studio lot, resulting in its doors being heavily guarded during filming. Jack Warner himself insisted on filming without interference, treating the script like a top-secret document, and wrapped the production in the span of six weeks, saying that "it is time America woke up to the fact that Nazi spies are operating within our borders. Our picture will tell the truth—all of it—and it will speak for itself this summer".
Many actors turned down roles out of fear of repercussions including violence, and nobody would play Hitler no matter the pay, so the script was altered so that he was only present in newsreel footage. A 60-pound boom had been sabotaged to fall down on the set, nearly killing one of the main actors. Actor Ferdinand Schumann-Heink recalled that most of the film's German cast members were known only by numbers in order to protect the relatives of theirs that were still living in Germany then. Famed composer and conductor Max Steiner did not want his name credited.
The film stars Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, and a large cast of German actors, including some who had emigrated from their country after the rise of Adolf Hitler. Many of the German actors who appeared in the film changed their names for fear of reprisals against relatives still living in Germany. Harry, Albert, and Jack Warner, who then owned Warner Bros, were Jewish.
The film's story is based on a series of articles by FBI officer Leon G. Turrou, recounting his investigation of Nazi spy rings in the United States. Parts of the film are drawn from the Rumrich spy case, the first major international espionage case in American history.
Screenwriter John Wexley based his script on real events and the articles of former FBI agent Leon G. Turrou, who had been active in investigating Nazi spy rings in the United States prior to the war, quit the FBI and continued publishing articles on the topic that J. Edgar Hoover had largely ignored and tried to prevent from publication. Authors Paul Buhle and David Wagner of Radical Hollywood wrote that it "treated a real-life case" and that Warner Bros. had been warned by the Dies Committee "against slurring a 'friendly country'".
Parts of the movie were a fictionalized account of a real-life espionage case, the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case, and the eventual trial in 1938 involving individuals convicted of spying for German government. The FBI said the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case was their "first major international spy case" and that Leon Turrou "was placed in charge" but had later been fired by FBI chief Hoover. In fact, Turrou had first quit and been retroactively fired to strip him of benefits. Guenther Gustave Maria Rumrich was arrested on February 14, 1938, and charged with spying for Germany. He came to the FBI's attention when he attempted to obtain 50 passport application forms from the Passport Office in New York City. In the film, Francis Lederer, as Schneider, plays the role equivalent to the real Rumrich.
The scene where an unnamed American Legionaire played by Ward Bond challenges Kassel at a meeting, is supported by others speaking out for democracy, provoking an attack by Bundists, is based on an actual event that occurred in late April 1938 when approximately 30 World War I American Legion Veterans stood up to the Bund in New York City during a celebration of Hitler's birthday. The veterans were severely beaten.
At the filmns premiere, there were almost as many policemen and special agents in the audience as customers. Wexley's script made a point of following the facts and real-life events of the Rumrich Nazi Spy Case whose participants went to trial in 1938. The film was re-released in 1940 with scenes describing events that had taken place since the initial release, such as the invasions of Norway and the Netherlands.
Pushback from Nazis and their local supporters saw theaters around the U.S. being picketed or vandalized, limiting the release. Fritz Kuhn, leader of the German American Bund, sued Warner Bros for $5 million, alleging that the film was libellous against him.
Confessions of a Nazi Spy was banned in Germany, Japan, and many Latin American and European countries. Norway also banned it in 1939. Adolf Hitler in particular banned all Warner Bros. productions from being shown in Nazi Germany as a result of the studio's work on the film. Warner Bros. was so surprised to hear that the British Board of Film Censors gave the film a U certificate that the studios telephoned the censors, asking them to confirm its passage for exhibition in the United Kingdom. The film remained banned in Germany for 32 years after the fall of the Nazis; in early 1977, after West Germany lifted its ban on "hard-core" anti-Nazi films, it was shown in West German cinemas as part of a series of such films that were made by Warner Bros. during World War II.
In the United States, it had a month-long rolling open.
Louis B. Mayer required all MGM employees to attend Lionel Barrymore's 61st birthday celebration, broadcast live on the NBC Red radio program Good News of 1939, in order to prevent their attendance of the premiere.
Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News said that "Anatole Litvak has done a splendid job of creating suspense in building a case against the spies, but, I am grieved to say, he and the scenario writers have spoiled the effect of their big trial scene by permitting themselves to deliver a needless warning to the audience."
Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times noted that the film's premiere in Hollywood was marked by hisses and boos, and remarked that the film was "stunningly acted, the word being apt for the performances by Paul Lukas, Francis Lederer and George Sanders, who surpass themselves in their portrayals."
Harry Mines of the Los Angeles Daily News wrote that "suffice to say Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and others of the party will not like 'Confessions of a Nazi Spy.' Warner Bros, however, may rest assured of having done a patriotic service to the American people in making such a picture possible. For after glimpsing this factual document exposing a terrifying espionage system and stealthy spread of alien propaganda in a peace loving nation, it teaches the thoughtful citizenry of the United States the necessity of awareness."
A critic for The Boston Globe wrote that "the picture never grows [hysterical] or overly vehement in its treatment, which makes the indictment against German espionage all the more powerful. The menace of concentration camps, tortures and nameless horrors to be found back in Germany for faithless Nazi agents is depicted in shadowy, but terrifying fashion."
Writing under the Mae Tinee pseudonym, a critic for the Chicago Daily Tribune described the film as "potent anti-Nazi propaganda that presents a powerful and impassioned plea for the defense of the principles that have made America "the land of the free." There are times when the action seems ineptly strung together. This fact is undoubtedly due to the producers' determination that they would stick to facts and indulge in no fictional fancy work. But you are never confused, for off-screen narration, concisely delivered, keeps the decks of meaning cleared."
Lowell Lawrence of the Kansas City Journal said that the "Warner Brothers have done a courageous thing in presenting this dramatized evidence of a national peril to the American people. The German government may retaliate not only against the producers but against every player in the cast. But the time has passed when foreign governments can dictate to Hollywood. Warners answered Nazi threats by giving "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" the kind of a production that presents the picture's message in the most impressive manner."
In the end of the film, eighteen people are indicted for espionage. Four are in custody.
US Attorney Kellogg describes the role of a network of German fifth columnists in the United States and in the Nazi conquest of Europe. He calls for Americans to take a lesson, reviewing Hitler's march through Europe, demonstrating “the supremacy of organized propaganda backed by force.” The spies are convicted.
Over coffee, US Attorney Kellogg and FBI agent Renard discuss events in America and Europe. Renard describes Nazis as "insane." Kellogg believes that "when our basic liberties are threatened, we wake up."
The credits roll to America the Beautiful in march time.
Is Confessions of a Nazi Spy relevant today?
I will let you make that decision for yourself.....but ask that you consider the words of US Attorney
Kellogg: "When our basic liberties are threatened, we wake up."
Sources: Wikipedia, Deep Focus Review
