Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 ThomasDoherty. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Abstract

Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939 Thomas Doherty. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.Using a provocative, ambiguous title, Professor Thomas Doherty (from Brandeis University) studies the anti-Nazi feature films produced before World War II. As a response to anti-Semitic propaganda films from Germany, a series of newsreels and short films were produced in Hollywood. None of those productions was really memorable, but this corpus of mostly short films deserves to be analyzed, and thus, this is what this Hollywood and Hitler is about. And no, contrary to what the book's title might suggest: Hitler did not visit Hollywood and had no direct relationship with the US movie industry.Doherty's book is well documented and brings together a corpus made of lesser-known, yet signifying feature films such as Die Vandemder Yid (1933), which was shot in the Yiddish language in Hollywood (53). This book's exploration tentatively ends with a well-known feature film: Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) (336). A distant observer might object that many important anti-Nazi movies were not included in these pages, but the author prefers to investigate an era (and a corpus) not well documented in previous books on a related topic (often focusing on war movies released after 1939). Therefore, there is no analysis of Chaplin's masterpiece The Great Dictator (1941). Instead, his previous movies such as Modern Times (1936) are examined.Subtle forms of racism and anti-Semitism occurred in the US during the early 1930s, when many Jewish employees of Hollywood studios lost their jobs due to secret orders from Berlin's new regime, which was established in 1933. This regime attempted to create an anti-Jewish movement outside Germany through foreign offices and a network of influential allies (36). This racist pressure was made in a context in which exports of Hollywood films to Germany were negotiated and sometimes refused or delayed. It was during a period of change (the end of silent movies) and adjustments of all sorts, for instance when the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) and the Hays Code (on morals and censorship) were enacted (40). However, despite the fact there were many German emigre's in Hollywood, it would be unfair to conclude they were automatically anti-Semitic. Incidentally, an anti-Nazi League was created in Hollywood in 1936 with filmmakers and producers from all backgrounds and religions, and among this elite were director John Ford and actor James Cagney (96). …