The Mortal Storm
(1940) is about fascism. It is about
young love—and fascism. It is about
family values—and fascism. It is about
career dreams—and fascism. We may
consider these ideals to be separate from fascism, even opposing, but they are
not. So many people in the course of
history have woven them together at their own peril.
For the next few weeks, we’re
going to be talking about fascism, a particularly appropriate theme with the
coming of the Republican Party convention and the rise in the media and in
American politics of Donald Trump. He is
a fascist. Too many people perhaps
equate the word fascism with
something old-fashioned, belonging to the twentieth century, and think it is a
foreign aberration, since Adolf Hitler made it his slogan and source of power. They might think that use of the word today is
cliché and overused, but it is as powerful and meaningful a word and a strain
of political thought today as it ever was from the 1920s through the 1940s. It is with us still, and the most poisonous
aspect of fascism is it becomes chameleon-like.
We do not see it for what it is, unless we force ourselves to
concentrate and look.
Classic films forced us to look
at fascism. During World War II, of
course, the films were patriotic, and even propagandist, and it was very easy
to pick out the villains in the movies because they were wearing Nazi uniforms.
But in that strange, tense era just
before our involvement in World War II, the studios utilized their art and
their industry with courage not seen today, and with a social conscience not
seen today, they examined fascism.
Because of so many screen Nazi
bad guys, we may have come to believe that fascism is a product of Europe, and
is as out of sync with the modern world as high waisted trousers, fedoras, and
clip-on earrings. The movies we’re going
to examine will take us out of that notion, and into an interesting exercise of
where we must look to examine how fascism starts, how it spreads, and what do
we do about it?
Along with The Mortal Storm, in future weeks we will be discussing Address Unknown (1944) here, Keeper of the Flame (1942) here, Storm Warning (1951) here, and Seven Days in May (1964) here. This brings us up to the 1960s, when our world
became far more interested in the Cold War against communism, and the space
race, and the dizzying parade of social ills and revolutions. But fascism remained, always there, like a
smoldering ember at a campfire that has been carelessly left, and will start a
forest fire if the prevailing winds allow it.
TheMortal Storm
(1940), was produced by MGM, with great trepidation. We were not at war with Germany yet (indeed we
would not go to war with Germany until two days after they already declared war on us in December 1941), and the
studio was wary about producing a movie that could be considered inflammatory. The German market was especially important to
Hollywood, and offending the German government could be disastrous when it came
to distribution of the film in Europe. Moreover, the studio heads were sensitive
about pushing the subject of fascism when, as most of them were of Jewish
heritage, were afraid to appear as if they were politicizing their product. It had been their practice, as most of them
were European immigrants to this country, to assimilate to their new country
and to adapt to its culture, its language, and even, if necessary, to concede
to its long-standing prejudices.
We may recall from these previous
posts (part
1 and part
2), that Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)
was avoided by many studios and was finally produced by Darryl F. Zanuck of 20th
Century Fox—a major studio head who happened to be not Jewish, but who had
guts, and took on the story.
We may applaud MGM for moving
forward with The Mortal Storm, risks
and all, but their fears were justified. The German government under Adolf Hitler was
incensed that this film was made, and banned that and any future MGM movie from
being shown in Germany. That MGM was
blacklisted by the Nazis may have been worn as a badge of courage by the studio
in future years when the war was going on, but at the time it was seen as a
misfortune.
However, the film is quite mild
by today’s standards, at least of depicting the savagery of Hitler’s regime. It is still a powerful movie, and that is
because it deals with people. Ideals,
and political jargon are bandied about, of course, and people take sides, but
first and foremost it is a movie about a single family and what happens to them
when forces beyond their control knock on their door and take over their lives.
It is gentle, and it is scary.
Frank Morgan plays a university
professor in Germany. The year is 1933. Irene Rich is his wife. Her two grown sons by a previous marriage are
played by Robert Stack and William T. Orr. They are very close to their
stepfather, Frank Morgan, and when the film opens with Morgan’s 60th
birthday celebration, they take him aside to give him their present personally
and to thank him for being such a wonderful father to them.
From Mr. Morgan’s marriage to
Irene Rich there are two younger children, a daughter played by Margaret Sullavan,
and a son barely in his teens played by Gene Reynolds. At the university where Mr. Morgan teaches, a
surprise celebration in his lecture hall greets him when his students and the
other members of the faculty, who clearly respect him and love him very much,
present him with a gift and sing “Gaudeamus Igitur” in his tribute (which is pretty
impressive watching the cast sing it in Latin). We’ve heard the song in zillions of old movies
and cartoons whenever a scene is set at a college. It’s like playing
“California, Here I come,” or “The Sidewalks of New York.”
Two of those students are played
by Robert Young and James Stewart. Mr.
Young, Mr. Stewart, and Miss Sullavan have been friends since childhood. When these two gentlemen come home with the
family to have a birthday dinner for Mr. Morgan, we see that Robert Young is
even closer to Margaret Sullavan, and impetuously asks her to marry him. With his exuberance, and the whole family
watching, he makes it difficult for her to say no and she accepts. Everyone in the family is jubilant, except for
James Stewart, whose expression ever so slightly falls to the floor and we see
that he has harbored an unspoken affection for Margaret.
But the birthday party turns on
its head when we hear from the radio that Adolf Hitler has just been elected
Chancellor of Germany.
Fascism, in its most vile form,
is brought to a nation in a democratic election. There is nothing so virulent a germ as a
political movement which serves to appeal to the most base, crude, and ignorant
in a society, inflating them with a power they do not have, and then taking it
away like a shell game. Alexis de Tocqueville, nineteenth century historian who
made many keen and valuable observations on America in its formative years
noted especially of our eagerness to follow the mob, despite our boasts of
individual freedom:
In times of
equality, no matter what political laws men devise for themselves, it is safe
to foresee that trust in common opinion will become a sort of religion, with
the majority as the prophet.
Robert Young, Robert Stack, and
William T. Orr are overjoyed at the radio announcement and celebrate, saying
that Hitler will bring the country back to greatness. He will make Germany great again.
James Stewart has no political
convictions; he still seems to be reeling by the idea that Margaret Sullavan is
going to marry somebody else. Frank
Morgan and his wife are hesitant to be quite as jubilant as the boys. They hope for the best, but as a university
professor, Morgan is unimpressed with Hitler’s designs on the country and his methods
for achieving greatness. Morgan is a man
devoted to logic, and this is all too illogical for him.
But there is more to his concern.
We come to find out later in the film
that Frank Morgan is Jewish.
In the movie his Jewish heritage
is never mentioned by name, he is instead called “non-Aryan,” and at first we
may think this is MGM pulling a punch, trying not to get too ethnic, too
personal, too political. It probably
was. But time tends to leave a patina,
on ideas as well as on objects, and I think perhaps that “non-Aryan” sounds here
more inclusive of all the millions of people who suffered under Hitler’s
regime.
When people who deny the Holocaust,
or just as perverse, people who do not deny it, but who simply prefer not to
think about it, hear the figure of 6 million Jews being murdered, I wonder if
they forget that also there were at least 9 million non-Jewish citizens of the
Soviet Union murdered in death camps, and nearly 2 million non-Jewish Poles,
and millions of other people whom the Hitler regime regarded as non-entities:
Gypsies (properly referred to now as Roma), non-Jewish Czechs, Serbs and other
peoples of occupied Europe, and people within Germany who protested including
Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the infirm, the
mentally challenged, convicts, and homosexuals—a variety of targets in addition
to the millions of suffering Jews.
It is staggering. And because it is staggering, the human mind
recoils, unless the heart is brave and the mind has a bigger conscience than it
has a fear of discomfort. Only a moron
and a coward would deny the Holocaust, and though we may equate the Holocaust
with fascism, we must remember that fascism did not start there.
“Non-Aryan,” means everybody who
was not considered to be “us.” And
fascism resulted in millions of “thems.”
Us and them. That’s where it always
starts.
The movie moves swiftly from this
point, with Robert Young, Robert Stack and William T. Orr becoming more
immersed in the Nazi culture, wearing uniforms, giving the Nazi salute, and
their boyish jubilation has turned to stern, dogmatic, and slavish obedience to
their new leader. (Look for a young Dan Dailey as an especially vicious Nazi
youth leader.) Hitler has given them an
identity, and they draw apart from their family because of it. They become distant with Frank Morgan, and
Robert Young’s preoccupation with his new Nazi youth organization duties has
left Margaret Sullavan alone and puzzled at the change in him.
James Stewart, who has come to
the university to learn veterinary medicine, has grown up on a farm on the
outskirts of town. His mother is our favorite
Maria Ouspenskaya, who seems to see no werewolves in the vicinity. Young Bonita Granville is their hired girl,
and Bonita has a crush on James Stewart. Before the movie is over, she will be
terrorized by Nazi thugs trying to get information out of her about where James
Stewart is hiding.
Stewart has pulled away from his
university pals; he wants none of this Nazi business. When he sees them beating up an old teacher,
James Stewart runs to his aid, and Margaret Sullavan helps. She refuses to stop
seeing Stewart as friends, even though Robert Young warns her to stay away from
him, not so much because of romantic jealousy, but because Stewart is getting a
name for himself as an enemy of the state. It does not take much to be an enemy of the
state. James Stewart has made no
political speeches, he assiduously avoids talk of politics at every turn; he
just wants to be left alone. But he will
not join the boys in their Nazi youth organization, and this makes the boys
furious. He will not play with them, so
now James Stewart has stopped being “us,” and has started to be “them.”
Frank Morgan, formerly beloved by
one and all, has become an even more serious “them.” He is not political either, but he was born to
be a “them,” because he is a non-Aryan. He
is sent to a concentration camp.
James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan
show the most courage and the most moxie of anyone in the movie because of
their stubborn refusal to be one of the gang, because they defend a victim of that
gang, and because Miss Sullavan openly claims her heritage. When she hears Robert Young disparage
non-Aryans, she calls them “my people,” though her mother most certainly is
Aryan and if she wanted to, Margaret Sullavan could be safe even in this Nazi regime,
by denying her father and ignoring her Jewish heritage. She breaks off with Robert Young.
An exciting climax builds when,
after Frank Morgan dies in the concentration camp (which must have been at
least surprising, if not shocking, to audiences of the day), she, her mother,
and her young brother try to escape from Germany as James Stewart has already
done before them. Mother and younger
brother make it, but Margaret is held at the border. Stewart comes back for her and leads her
through a treacherous mountain pass, with Robert Young and the boys on the chase.
Just Stewart and Sullavan are skiing down a wintry slope approaching the
Austrian border, the patrol under the orders of Robert Young, shoots Margaret Sullavan
down like a dog.
Mr. Stewart scoops her up in his
arms and continues to ski for the border, but she dies before he can reach it.
That had to be equally strong
stuff for the audiences of the day. The
Nazis here are not punished, they are not foiled. World War II is barely six months old, and it
would be another year and a half before we became involved. This is a tragedy we cannot reach. Is it any of our business? Some Americans on the sidelines (and in the
movie theaters) said yes, some said no, some were cheering for the Nazis and
resented them being presented as the bad guys.
Robert Young has always impressed
me with his sensitive acting ability, I think I like him better in dramas than
in comedies, though he could certainly do both well. Here he is not so much a brainwashed Nazi, as
someone who is trying to convince himself that he hasn’t made a mistake, and
his pride is too great to admit that he could be wrong.
We see this so often today. People so slavishly devoted to an idea, or
political party, or a candidate, and refuse to entertain any niggling doubt
that might indicate they are wrong in their choice, that there are holes in the
story they want to believe.
Robert Young does still love
Margaret Sullavan, and we can see he is choked up and appalled by her murder
(he even helped her earlier by finding out what camp her father was taken to),
but we do not know if this is going to change him and make him step back from
being a Nazi. It probably won’t. He would have to admit he was wrong.
Robert Stack is also appalled by
his half-sister’s murder, and he is the most sensitive to the horror of it. It’s possible he would step back from being a
Nazi if he could, but he is too weak. It
is not his pride that keeps him in the grip of fascism; it is his weakness.
The younger brother, William T.
Orr, is the one most flagrantly dogmatic about fascism, to the point where he
does not mourn his sister’s murder. He
slaps Robert Stack in the face for entertaining thoughts that they have made a
mistake. Orr has embraced fascism out of
lack of maturity, a lack of intelligence, and because of the sensational high
it gives him, and he is perfect fodder for the new regime.
Frank Morgan, before he is taken
to the death camp, refuses to submit to Nazis, not because he is a non-Aryan,
but because he is a teacher and a scientist and in both professions
truthfulness is more important than fashion, or should be. He takes umbrage about the concept of racial
purity in his lecture hall when students protest when he insists that the blood
of different races is the same.
“Scientific truth is scientific
truth, unchangeable and eternal. It
cannot be altered to suit the politics of the hour or the clamor of immature
hoodlums.”
Later he will say, “I’ve never
prized safety for my children, I’ve prized courage.”
These are great lines. They are just as apropos today. We began this year with this
post on the relevance of classic films today, particularly as we examine
how our society is buffeted in turbulent times.
I mentioned Donald Trump as both an aberration of our time, and a
consequence of it. I admit, I did not
think he would get this far, that the media would have raised him to the level
of a celebrity; or that the party of Abraham Lincoln, of Teddy Roosevelt, of
Dwight D. Eisenhower would have embraced this pig. But fascism has its mysterious and
confounding allure. We cannot depend on
modern films to tackle the subject. They
are too busy with juvenile stories. Luckily,
we have classic films.
Come back next week when we
discuss Address Unknown here with Paul
Lukas. This time, we see the allure of fascism not to impetuous youth, but to
an educated and cultured man in middle age, and two immigrant American families
that are touched by long-reaching ideology from a foreign source, caught in its
web even from the supposed safety of American shores.
**********************
My audio book version of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star., narrated by Toni Lewis, is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes.
*********
Jacqueline T. Lynch
is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress.
Singer. Star. and Memories
in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper
column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated
nationally.
