The Pittsburgh Press (June 1, 1941)
I DARE SAY —
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Why not more propaganda and less pussyfooting in the films?
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By Florence Fisher Parry
Last week at Loew’s Penn Theater, there was shown one of the best propaganda pictures yet offered to a war-conscious public. It was a “short,” and was called Out of Darkness. It told the story of a brave secret publication which, after the German invasion of Belgium in the last war, persisted in spite of the successive deaths of its 22 editors and staffs.
It showed more dramatically and forcibly than any other method of propaganda could possibly show, the undying, watchful spirit of conquered, and how, although forced into a seeming obedience, they await the day of liberation and continue the activities of their underground rebellion.
The picture ended on a frank note of propaganda. It showed the enslaved peoples of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, England, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, France, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece – all, all bending silently, ominously, under their new yoke, waiting for the day when they can turn on their oppressors.
It was a great short, and the audience broke out in applause.
WHY NOT HAVE MORE OF SUCH PROPAGANDA PICTURES?
The March of Time, on the same program, provided another strong piece of propaganda. It told the story of the Atlantic and its navies, and provided the best possible argument for U.S. naval convoy, without advancing any apparent “editorial comment.” The whole Loew’s Theater program, containing these two highly partisan pictures, both frankly propaganda for aid to the Allies, was a heartening departure from the pussyfooting that has been going on in the motion picture industry ever since the war began.
Most of the producers have avoided the war in their feature pictures, their shorts and even in their editing of the newsreels. The public has had to sit through one newsreel after another and watch bathing beauties, fashions, sports, regattas and sweepstakes winners, when what they have come to see are NEWSREELS OF THE WAR.
We know that the greatest news pictures of all time are now being made; and we have become impatient at being “spared” strong meat and given pap-batter.
Lately, however, there has been evidenced a healthy change, and motion picture audiences are being considered adult enough to be informed, by newsreel, short and even feature picture, that there actually is a war on, and that war is indeed hell and a definite possibility FOR US HERE IN AMERICA.
This notable improvement in newsreels, however, has not extended appreciably into the field of feature films. The studios still seem scared to death to produce anything bearing upon the war. True, there have been a few “war” pictures made, pictures like Four Sons, So Ends Our Night, I Married a Nazi (The Man I Married became its title on our theater marquees), Pastor Hall. But these, the complaint records, did not prove to be good enough box-office to justify a continuation of such pictures (my personal suspicion is that the pictures simply weren’t good enough pictures).
Now, however, the studios are showing a definite interest in the highly melodramatic material which the war affords them. The critical acclaim accorded Night Train to Munich, Girl in the News, and A Voice in the Night, all three British films, is reminding our producers that all a picture needs to be is a GOOD PICTURE, a VERY good picture, and the public will accept it never mind what its subject matter; and as a result we can look forward in several American-made pictures of the same breathtaking and terrifying appeal as these three mentioned above.
Of these, Man Hunt (a picturization of the suspenseful Rogue Male which was published a year or so ago) should set a lively pace. Later, of course, we shall certainly have distinguished screen versions of the two great “war” plays, There Shall Be No Night and Watch on the Rhine, both of which came off with the Awards of the year, Pulitzer and Critics’ Circle, respectively.
Indeed, one needs only remember the quick acclaim accorded these two great plays, to be reminded that the theater is still the perfect medium FOR “theater” – and by that I mean melodrama – the quintessence of melodrama.
It is extremely unlikely that the screen versions of these two prize-winning dramas will refrain from tinkering with the bold, lean, unsparing dramatic structure upon which their original action was built. For movie audiences simply aren’t theater audiences and never can or should be. They need their emotions CUSHIONED; and the stark, harsh, pared-down action and dialogue of plays like Watch on the Rhine and There Shall Be No Night are bound to be softened rather than heightened by the devices of motion picture technique.
An interesting example of the difference between stage and screen “requirements” will be ours to see when The Little Foxes emerges from the hands of its producer, Samuel Goldwyn. This astute showman has again engaged Lillian Hellman, author of the play, herself to adapt it to the screen; but we can look for the same adroit and softening processes in it, that we found in Mr. Goldwyn’s earlier Hellman drama The Children’s Hour, the screen title of which was These Three. The rancid color of decay, which pervaded the play, will be softened, I fear, with a faint breath of magnolia; and the rapacity of the three Little Foxes will be modified to suit the tender sensibilities of Bette Davis’ fans, who, however thrilled they may be by their favorite’s “wickedness,” must needs discover in her somewhere the elements of high romance and innate virtue, however distorted it may for the moment be?
I do not know what ambitious plans are in the forming for the distribution of Walt Disney’s incomparable Fantasia. But oh, but oh, I DO hope that I shall live long enough to see, someday, in my favorite movie theater, the various and separate “numbers” of his opus delivered to us, piecemeal, in ideal “short” form!