Totem and Taboo

On their way to market in the U. S. last week were two pictures whose subject matter did not so much violate as ignore immemorial cinema taboos. One foreign and one domestic, they were meeting with widely differing receptions:

Confessions of a Nazi Spy (Warner Bros.) is Hollywood's first outright assault on the dictators' totem. Based on the story of the German spy ring netted in Manhattan last year (TIME, Nov. 14), produced with the technical assistance of onetime FBI Agent Leon G. Turrou, it is as matter-of-fact and unmincing as a newsreel, undiplomatic as an artillery bombardment. Calling a German a German, interspersed with newsreel shots of Adolf Hitler and a highly unflattering impersonation of carp-mouthed Propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Confessions of a Nazi Spy has a simple thesis, effectively presented: that the German-American Bund is a disloyal excrescence which should be stamped out.

Confessions of a Nazi Spy could not have escaped from Hollywood's own censorship in the days when Germany and Italy accounted for 10% of Hollywood's foreign market. More surprising was the fact that, at week's end, it had not run into trouble with any State or local censorship (though some communities thumbsdowned swastikas in Warners' outdoor advertising). Shown under police guard in Manhattan's Strand, it drew boos, hisses. cheers, and last week's biggest Broadway gross ($45.000), rolled up the impressive total of 450 advance bookings through the U. S. Other studios hurried work on productions calculated to please haters of Hitler & Co. Taken off the shelf at MGM was Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here; slow-moving Charlie Chaplin was under way with The Dictator; Independent Producer Al Rosen was working on a Hitler biography, The Mad Dog of Europe; Paramount announced Heil America, whose cast and director will be kept secret during production.

The Puritan (Derby Films), an ironic study in religious mania, looked as if it would have no such luck. It is the result of a meeting in Morocco in 1937 between Irish Author Liana O'Flaherty and a French capitalist named Jeff Musso, who was impressed with the cinema success of Author O'Flaherty's grim tale of the Trouble, The Informer (TIME, May 20. 1935). It was produced in Pathe's Paris studios with a competent cast at the incredible cost of $27.000 (less than the budget for a good Hollywood short).

The Puritan is the story of a fanatical young Dublin Catholic who murders a prostitute on what he construes as a divine command, only to learn after a horrifying night of sin that his real motive was mortal lust. Its moral: humans are not good enough to play God. A success with critics in France. The Puritan was promptly banned in Poland, in Author O'Flaherty's native Ireland. Banned by New York's State Board of Censors, temporarily held up by the customs authorities, it has been shown in a few communities like New Haven and Princeton, last fortnight made a try in Detroit. Result: an immediate police ban.

CURRENT & CHOICE

Juarez (Paul Muni. Bette Davis, Brian Aherne; TIME, May 8).

Union Pacific (Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, TIME, May 8).

Dark Victory (Bette Davis, George Brent, Geraldine Fitzgerald; TIME, May

1).

Wuthering Heights (Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, David Niven; TIME, April 17).

The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire; TIME, April 10).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.