Address Unknown - 1944

Address Unknown(1944) is a very artistic examination of the consequences of fascism. The cinematography creates an otherworldly palette of light and shadow, of angles, of unbalanced screen images that is poetic and visionary. Classic films took on the subject of fascism and planted the nightmare on an everyday familiar world with everyday people we could relate to, unlike modern films which might tackle the grand subject of good versus evil and place it in an imaginary futuristic or superhero setting. The characters in classic films were unable to escape their circumstances with special powers or an arsenal of apocalyptic weaponry. They had only their brains, their courage, and their conscience.

This the second film in our series on classic films’ depiction of fascism. We covered The Mortal Storm (1940) last week here.With Donald Trump’s Faustian rise to become the official Republican Party nominee for President this past week, the subject of fascism is one we need to examine very closely, not as a history lesson per se, viewed safely from a distance, but as a very personal blueprint on how to fight it in our midst—with brains, courage, and conscience.

Address Unknowncame late in the war, and so was not so much a warning of the consequences of what was going on in Nazi Germany – though certainly, Hollywood likely felt the subject still worth pursuing morally and financially. The interesting thing about the movie is it shows very little of jackbooted Nazis, the sneering villains of most wartime patriotic fare. It is instead a psychological nightmare of one man’s seduction, and the price he pays for going over to the dark side. As such, it is not a flag-waving, drum-beating story, but a mature, contemplative tale that, unfortunately as we see today, is timeless.

Paul Lukas stars as a German-born art dealer who has lived in San Francisco for many years. He is married to Mady Christians, and they have five sons. Four of the boys are school-age, the oldest, played by Peter van Eyck, is a young man and works in the art gallery with his father.

Morris Carnovsky plays his longtime partner in the gallery, also originally from Germany. Mr. Carnovsky is a widower with a grown daughter played by K.T. Stevens. Stevens, and Mr. Van Eyck, have known each other since childhood, are romantically involved and intend to be married.

The story begins with the partners toasting each other on a sunny terrace in San Francisco, grateful for their life in America, and secretly celebrating because they think that Lukas’ son and Carnovsky’s daughter are about to name the day of their wedding. These old friends look forward to having their families united. It is also something of a farewell celebration, because Paul Lukas is slated to take his family back to Germany for a period of time to do business for their art gallery. Lukas will buy paintings in Europe and ship them back to Carnovsky in San Francisco to be sold in their gallery. Paul Lukas’ eldest son, Van Eyck, is going to remain in America to work at the family business. However, Carnovsky’s daughter, Miss Stevens, is going to go to Europe with Paul Lukas his family to study acting.

The fathers are disappointed when the young people announce that they are not going to set a date for their wedding. They are going to wait until Stevens returns from Europe and then decide on their plans. It is a great letdown, and the mood of the story changes with this first announcement.

In Europe, Paul Lukas will meet Carl Esmond, a local baron who will seduce Lukas with the lure of the brand-new Chancellor Adolf Hitler.  Mr. Esmond is educated, erudite, and hardly a Nazi thug. But he approves of the order and discipline that Hitler is bringing to Germany, the pride Hitler appears to be instilling in young people, and even though Esmond is a nobleman, the kind of person Hitler hated, he takes the view that Germany is progressing for the good. He will make Germany great again. We last saw Carl Esmond as they bad guy bullying Ann Blyth into a forced marriage in The World in His Arms (1952), and here as the Nazi officer in Resisting Enemy Interrogation (1944).

Mady Christians, whose film career was winding down (she died in 1951) was reunited with Paul Lukas in this picture. You may recall we mentioned her as playing opposite Lukas on Broadway in Watch on the Rhine in the same role that Bette Davis took in the 1943 movie of that play. We briefly mentioned it in the intro to the Ann Blyth series, but a more in-depth look at that play can be found in my book, Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star.

Mady Christians, like Mr. Esmond, originally hailed from Vienna, and there are a number of German cinema actors in this movie to give it credence. There are also a few old Hollywood character actors who are fun to pick out, including Amory Parnell as a busybody mailman – who has a much more important role in this movie that we might realize later – and Frank Faylen plays a smart alec journalist.

Paul Lukas, just on the strength of his performance in the film Watch on the Rhine, for which he won an Oscar®, is one of my favorite actors. Address Unknown really shows his range, particularly when you compare it to the hero he played in Watch on the Rhine. That film showed a man courageous, committed, but deeply torn by his commitment and what his actions were doing to his family in his effort to fight fascism. He declares what he does for a living, “I am an antifascist.”

In Address Unknown, he plays a man who falls under the spell of fascism, which leads to his own doom. His work here is meticulous and we can always see the range of emotions playing on his very expressive face. His joy at the thought of his son marrying his partner’s daughter; his disappointment when they hear the marriage is to be delayed; his amused, eye-rolling attitude over his young sons, who, all born in the United States, are going to run into culture shock when they go to Germany with him because there will be no baseball there. He is a proud and indulgent father, an attentive and kind husband, and a loyal and affectionate friend to his partner. He is a good man. Because he is a good man, he seduction into the Nazi creed is all the more painful for us to watch. It is easy for us to dismiss bad guys and morons as bad guys and morons, but when we come across a gentle soul who turns evil and is corrupted either because of a lack of will, or a desperate need to be flattered, we are faced with an even stronger message of right and wrong.

That is the particular achievement of this movie. It does not serve up platitudes, and it does not show things in black and white, but there are still clear demarcations between right and wrong, and like people walking on a footpath in the woods, following a marked trail, if we keep our eyes open we can see them, clearly. If we are careless and do not pay attention, we turn the wrong way and get lost.

How this tale is told in this introspective and intelligent examination is largely through stylistic imagery. The director here is William Cameron Menzies, and the film has a wonderful mosaic of extreme close-ups, off centered positioning of the subject, and stark lighting. We begin the movie with extreme close-ups of Paul Lukas and Morris Carnovsky toasting each other, and it almost looks like a scene out of Citizen Kane (1941) and a similar kind of cinematography here. The movie is quite visually stunning, and it turns this simple story to one of deep psychological horror.

When Paul Lukas and his family get settled in Munich, he receives a letter from his partner Carnovsky in San Francisco. Lukas is delighted to receive the letter because already he is homesick for America. 

Carnovsky asks, “Who is this Adolf Hitler?... I do not like what I hear of it.”

This movie is about an exchange of letters. It is based on a novel of the same name where the plot is told through the exchange of letters between these two men.

Paul Lukas can hardly answer Carnovsky, because he is still new to Germany, does not really know much about Hitler himself, but almost immediately his ability to reply to this question is stifled by Carl Esmond. Esmond encounters Paul Lukas and a friend in a local ratskeller that Lukas knew from days gone by. Lukas looks around; it is quiet and forbidding and he says the place has changed from the happy place he knew as a youth, but he can’t put his finger on it. He has read the letter aloud, and Esmond, with cool authority, tells him about Hitler’s virtues.  We see Lukas’ expression turn from curiosity, to being flattered that the great Baron is sharing a table and sharing his knowledge and giving him attention, but Lukas is embarrassed that his friend in America has asked this question and put him in an awkward position when he has read it aloud.

Carnovsky in San Francisco gets a letter from Lukas telling him that Hitler is good. Oh yes, he’s done some bad things, storm troopers breaking windows and being thugs, but essentially we have to take the good with the bad. Carnovsky and Lukas’ son, Van Eyck are surprised to get such a letter. Van Eyck immediately expresses concern about Miss Stevens.

We are back in Vienna when Miss Stevens shows up at “Uncle” Paul Lukas’ house in Munich. She enters at the end of a long shadow. She warmly greets him and he is pleased that she has come. She has taken the stage name of Stone because it is shorter and will look good on a marquee. The Baron is there when she visits and he notices that her monogram on a purse does not match her last name of Stone. When she has left the room to visit with her “Aunt” Mady Christians, the Baron asks Paul Lukas about the monogram, and Lukas gushes that Stone is just a stage name, that her real name is Eisenstein.

The Baron says the one word that puts fear into the heart of Paul Lukas. He asks, “Jewish?”

For the first time, we realize that Morris Carnovsky and his family are Jews. This is not a fact that has ever distressed Paul Lukas in the past, but suddenly it changes things. We see the expression on Lukas’ face. He is uncomfortable, he is embarrassed. The Baron warns him about such an association and leaves. The camera settles on Lukas for a moment, again his face registering a changing parade of emotions. He is like a child who is fretting, pouting and resentful that his party has been spoiled. There is a shot about table height looking up at Lukas and his grim expression tells us he has reached a decision. He turns off the table lamp. We are left in darkness by his hand.

In San Francisco, Carnovsky gets a letter, “We must, for the present, discontinue writing each other. You will understand, I know, that it is impossible for me to be in correspondence with one of your race.”

Van Eyck reads the letter over “Uncle” Morris Carnovsky’s shoulder. “What in the world is he talking about? He must be insane.”

Carnovsky is more forgiving. He understands that Lukas is only writing this letter because of the censorship that is going on in Germany at the moment. He must say the right thing or he will get into trouble. Carnovsky is hurt, but he understands. But he brightens, he tells his partner’s son that there is another way that they can freely send letters and not have to worry about the censors. He will send a letter to Lukas hand-carried by a friend who is an American journalist.

Our old friend Frank Faylen is the wiseguy journalist, who sits in the office of a Nazi bureaucrat, where Paul Lukas works at a new job – he has apparently given up being an art dealer. Faylen is unimpressed by the officious Nazi gatekeepers and lower-level management of this government office, and bluffs his way in to see Paul Lukas. You may remember Faylen most from his role as Ernie the cabdriver in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). He cheerfully gives Lukas the letter, but Lukas dismisses him arrogantly.

Back in San Francisco, Carnovsky, now desperate to clear the air and understand Lukas’ intention, writes one more time saying that he understands there is censorship, but that he needs some word of reassurance from Lukas that everything is all right in their friendship. “But there is so much madness in the world, I need a word of reassurance.” The simple word he requests Lukas to send back is “yes.”

Lukas’ answer is no.

Van Eyck has had enough. He wants K.T. Stevens to come home now. Her father reminds him that she’s up for new job in Berlin as a leading lady and he doesn’t want to cable her and spoil her big night. They will wait to contact her.

We go to Berlin, where her play is being rehearsed.  It is a religious theme and she is to recite the words from the Beatitudes, Christ’s words from the Gospel of Matthew. During rehearsal a Nazi official tells the director the following lines are censored:

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God…

…and other lines from the Beatitudes. Disobedience is treason.

On opening night, the feisty Miss Stevens decides to say the forbidden lines. The censor stops the show and demands the director to come out but Stevens courageously defends the director saying that she was the one who made the decision to put those lines back in.

The smarmy little censor announces to the audience that the actress’ name is not Stone, but rather Eisenstein. In a moment we hear murmurs in the audience, and soon shouting, of the word, “Juden!”

Stevens, who was brought up in America, not only finds this all a bit too ridiculous to swallow, but she is proud of her heritage and will not back down. It ends in a mob scene, in a chase and she is on the run.

Eventually, a hunted outlaw, she will make her way to Munich and her “Uncle” Paul Lukas’ home. Brownshirts are fast on her heels. When he answers the door and sees it is her, he will not let her in. She has been hurt and she’s bleeding from her hand, and she leaves a bloody handprint on his wall as he closes her out.  She’s shot on his doorstep.

Carnovsky gets a curt letter in San Francisco, “Heil Hitler. Your daughter is dead.”

Carnovsky sits, sobbing, utterly destroyed, while Van Eyck gently pats his shoulder. We see a close-up of Van Eyck’s hand in ministering comfort and then pulling back, forming into a fist. A subtle symbol that’s important later.

Back in Germany, Mady Christians has just had another baby, another son. At the christening, Baron Carl Esmond congratulates her on having so many sons, thereby doing her duty. The parents smile to their guests, but when they are alone with the baby, we see their marriage is on the rocks. Mady Christians is disgusted with Paul Lukas. She dislikes the change in him, and she is horrified at his having turned away Stevens in her hour of need. She intends, when the baby is able to travel, that she will take her sons away to Switzerland.

Things have definitely turned sour for Paul Lukas. He starts receiving more letters and cables from San Francisco, but he doesn’t understand the messages. They mention painters and artwork but the notes seem to be written in a kind of code. He can’t make sense of them. We see that the censors picking up on this code are starting to make things a bit hot for Paul Lukas. He is being watched. The Baron questions Lukas’ loyalty to Germany. Lukas is helpless and floundering. He tries to defend himself. He tries to write back and pleads with Carnovsky to please stop writing him because he’s in terrible trouble. Every letter he gets puts him deeper and deeper under suspicion.

We have seen throughout the course of this movie the great psychosis that is fascism. He is seduced by falseness, by flattery, by a sense of power, by being told he is better than other people, but it is a double-edged sword. By propping up a fascist government, one very easily – and over very little provocation, almost in the blink of an eye – can become its victim. Fascism is invariably cannibalistic. Lukas has become terrified. He has become paranoid. He is now an enemy of the state he once was so proud to join. It is difficult to walk that line. This is why inevitably fascist governments fall, but of course, not until they do great damage on a civilization.

Lukas writes to his son instead and begs him to stop Carnovsky from sending any more messages. He writes, “You must go to any lengths, as you are my son.”

It’s an interesting line. We imagine perhaps Lukas means that Van Eyck should kill Carnovsky. As you are my son.  Fascism demands ultimate loyalty.

The Baron is convinced that Lukas is a spy. When he confronts Lukas, the mail comes again and Lukas is nearly sick with worry when a letter arrives from San Francisco. He really isn’t doing anything wrong, obviously. He is not a spy. He has been a loyal member of the Nazi party and done everything they asked him to do. He wanted the prestige they gave him. He wants to be a good citizen of the Third Reich. But they don’t believe him. His intentions are irrelevant. He is under suspicion. To be under suspicion is to be automatically guilty. There is no due process here. To be slow to answer is to be guilty.

Mady Christians takes their children and leaves for Switzerland. Lukas gives her a letter to send to Carnovsky, begging him to stop sending any more letters. She is stopped at the border, but she is allowed to pass because she is no threat to the Third Reich. The Baron comes to warn Lukas for the last time, and Lukas, in desperation tells him that the letter his wife brought to Switzerland is the proof that he never wanted Carnovsky to write to him. He is told that ironically the letter was confiscated and destroyed. He has no proof.

We end this interesting movie with two grim scenes. Lukas stands outside the door of his home, an expression of deep horror etched on his face at approaching thugs coming to get him. He will be going to a concentration camp. Or murdered.

Then we go to San Francisco where Carnovsky reads a letter from Lukas that has been returned to him marked “address unknown” on the envelope. He is puzzled. Van Eyck is standing near him, watching him.

Spoiler time. The whole post has been a spoiler, but sometimes to be blunt is more necessary than to tease. 

Carnovsky tells Van Eyck that he hasn’t written to Lukas in months, that he didn’t write this letter to him. He stopped when Lukas originally asked him to send no more letters.

We see Van Eyck’s face. He wrote the letters. He wrote them to implicate his father and to purposely put his father in danger. He wants revenge over the death of his fiancée. He wants to kill the monster that the Nazis created.

It’s a cautionary tale of sorts—beware the company you keep—but so artistically framed that we are not bludgeoned with lessons and morals. The lessons and morals are obvious.

Unless one is the kind of person to whom lessons and morals are not obvious, and they are the real perpetrators of fascism, not the ones in power, but ones keeping them there.  And they are, ultimately, its victims as well. Eventually.  But some weak-willed, weak-minded souls are only too happy to vote against their own best interests.

When you deny rights to others, you’re next.

Come back next week when we take on Storm Warning with Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, and Doris Day. Part 8 of our series on the current state of the classic film fan follows the first Thursday in August. Our look at fascism in classic films will continue with two more movies in August, where we bring the curse to America.

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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.  

                                                            

The Mortal Storm - 1940

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), Keeper of the Flame (1942), Storm Warning (1951), and Seven Days in May (1964).  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.

The Mortal 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 20^thCentury 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 60^thbirthday 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 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.

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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.  

Tiffany Vazquez - New TCM Host - Part 7 of The State of the Classic Film Fan Series

Tiffany Vazquez, the new host on Turner Classic Movies is a reassuring promise of the future of the classic film fan. She appears to have entered the job with many laudable attributes, but this may be chief of all.

This is part seven in our year-long monthly series on the current state of the classic film fan.

When Ms. Vazquez was announced as the new Saturday morning host, many longtime TCM viewers voiced concern that this was another of the network’s unfortunate drift from its classic film roots. 

The plan to attract a young demographic, though practical in business terms, has its downside—there is the temptation to gear programming specifically to that demographic. While I confess, I dislike some of TCM’s shift to post-classic films, I have never been concerned about the youth of a new host. Indeed, I was an “old” old film buff at ten years old, and I’ll bet I was more familiar with classic films at that tender age than many young people (Tiffany, now 29, reportedly came to classic films late—not until college).  I am delighted, always, to come across a young person who enjoys classic films.

Though we may recall that Ben Mankiewicz met some resistance by fans when he was hired for hosting duties in 2003, unfairly principally for not being Robert Osborne, it was never his being younger that bothered me. Indeed, he’s only about four or five years younger than I. What first annoyed me about Mr. Mankiewicz was what I perceived at the time as flippancy and sarcasm in his delivery, and TCM’s pointed efforts to package him and Robert Osborne as a kind of Odd Couple. The young hip dude and the old guy.

Since then, with his growing into the job, I’ve come to like Ben Mankiewicz. I look forward to his intros, and he now comes off as a person as interested in the movie as me, and with respect for the people who made it. That’s all I ask. Also, I think I started to warm up to him about the time he began to shave and wear ties.  I like grownups to look and act like grownups.  At least insofar as they are guests in my home.

Remember how in the days of comedy/variety shows on TV when the host would sign off at the end of the show and thank us for allowing them to come into our homes? A gracious act. We don’t see that anymore. The people on TV just barge into our homes like The Desperate Hours (1955) and assault us with their crudeness. If we turned our back on them for one minute, they'd eat everything in the refrigerator, spit on the floor, and then maybe kill us.

What we love so much about Robert Osborne isn’t necessarily his knowledge of classic film (though that certainly is extensive), but his class.

Which brings me back to Tiffany Vazquez. Her polish, her well-spoken delivery, her professional appearance all tell me this is a young woman of intelligence, of taste, of maturity. What classic film means to most of its fans (okay, maybe excluding monster flicks and the Marx Brothers) is a sense of elegance and glamour not seen today. TCM has chosen wisely in a young woman who, by her manner and appearance, reflects that appreciation by its fan base for class. This is why we like Robert Osborne so much: he likes the movies as much as we do, he respects them, and he respects us. He looks, talks, and acts like a gentleman.

This is something that should not be undervalued by TCM. The classic film fan is your demographic, TCM, no matter the age.  It’s a very special demographic.

But Tiffany Vazquez is more than a lovely young woman who likes old movies. She hold two graduate degrees, one of them in film studies from NYU, and she interned at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. This most certainly recommends her for the job. If she did not grow up with Saturday afternoon matinees or The Million Dollar Movie like many of us, she still comes with her own pedigree and a special perspective.

It has been noted that she is the first woman to be hired as a regular TCM host, and her Puerto Rican heritage has been commented on as setting her apart as representing a new demographic. But before we skew this into some Madison Avenue pie chart of something up-market, we should remember that  the classic film fan “demographic” has little to do with age, gender, race, or ethnicity, and is remarkably diverse. We’ll comment more on that in future posts in this series.

What is remarkable is not so much that an educated young woman of Puerto Rican ancestry should like old movies, but rather that she does in the face of the overwhelming odds against many young people ever having an opportunity to discover classic films, or if they do, that any appreciation for old movies will be nurtured in a society that has little regard for the elegance and glamour they represent. Especially for a young woman.  Just one case in point:

I recently came across a clothing store website. I think I must have Googled “vests” (I don’t remember why or what now), but the page featured photos of some 12 or 16 models wearing various kinds of vests. Three of them were young men, the rest women, all were from their late teens to early twenties. The boys wore vests as part of a three-piece suit. They did not wear their jackets, but just appeared in shirtsleeves, their ties loosened, their shirts pulled out from their pants and shirttails hanging, their arms crossed. They glared at the camera to send the message of their hipness, their utter unconcern for what we think about them or the vain stubble on their baby faces.  They looked like preppie punks, but each conveyed an image of power. They were confident.

The girls all looked like prostitutes.

They wore vests that were not stylish or businesslike, just various scraps of material to decorate almost as an afterthought the real merchandise—the sexualized, barely of legal age, female. Each by the skimpiness of her unflattering outfits, and mostly by her vulgar posing, represented the old adage “sex sells”. Their dreary Goth-made up faces wore the same look of hip indifference as the boys, but where the boys looked like future executives (God help us), the girls looked like prostitutes. They were not given an image of control as the boys; they were assigned the role of object to be possessed. They were meant to be ogled, but for most of us, their photos are too tragically disgusting to look at. This image was apparently conceived by an ad agency as good business. This image was apparently approved by the store chain as good business.

Neither clearly give a damn about young women.

We often hear in our society today complaints that there are not enough women in Congress, not enough women in business, etc. Well, we’re not exactly encouraging them to wear business suits, are we?

And now TCM has a female host.  I have watched Tiffany Vazquez give her movie introductions for a few weeks now, and I am more than pleased—I am relieved. The future of the classic film fan is going to depend on young people who admire classic films enough not to regard them with snark or condescension, but who will empathize with the long ago generations that made them. They may even want to copy a little of what they see and adopt it for their own personal style. Image, even as those soulless ad agencies and store chains know, is a very powerful tool because it is a personal imprint.

Where the ad agency and the store chain make their mistake (and have bludgeoned our society for the last couple of generations) is trying to bait a younger demographic by imitating that demographic's immaturity, instead of trying to uplift them to something better.

I like Tiffany Vazquez’s style. If she had appeared like one of those repugnant store chain models, and saying, "Like, ya know, awesome," I would not have cared how enthusiastic she was about old movies: I'd have canceled my cable subscription.

I look forward to a future occasion where she might express her opinions on classic films, more than just introduce them. I’m interested to hear what she has to say. When she remarked in an interview that she had a habit of “introducing” films in the shower, where some people sing, I had to laugh because I identify with that.

Not that I ever introduce movies in the shower. I just wash up, sing a couple of show tunes, write my initials in steam on the glass shower door, and I’m out of there.

But I do have a habit of thinking about movies and writing descriptions and opinions and analysis in my mind. It was from that habit that this blog was born. I got tired of talking to myself.

Good luck, Tiffany. Congratulations on your new job. See you Saturday.

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Part 1 of the year-long series on the current state of the classic film buff is here: A Classic Film Manifesto. 

Part 2 is here: Cliff Aliperti’s new book on Helen Twelvetrees.

Part 3 is here: An interview with Kay Noske of Movie Star Makeover.

Part 4 is here: Evolution of the Classic Film Fan.

Part 5 is here: Gathering of the Clan at Classic Film Festivals.

Part 6 is here: John Greco’s new book of film criticism: Lessons in the Dark.

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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. 

Olivia de Havilland - 100th Birthday

Olivia de Havilland did not want to be Scarlett O'Hara.

So many actresses, from veterans to newcomers, yearned for that role, fought for it tooth and nail. But Olivia de Havilland wanted to play Melanie.

The mug shot and her surname misspelled on the placard may reflect the assembly line nature of The Golden Age of Hollywood, but they do not detract from the elegance, the power of the woman who knew who she was, and who knew who Melanie was.

We take a moment today to marvel at the 100th birthday tomorrow of this glorious actress, and to recall at least one quality that made her different.  As regards her role as Melanie in Gone with the Wind (1939), Olivia responded in an interview for the Academy of Achievement.

Jack [Warner], for example, said, "Oh, you don't want to play Melanie. You want to play Scarlett." I said, "I don't want to play Scarlett. I want Melanie." It's because I was so young. I had for four years been earning my own living, going through all the problems of a career woman, self-supporting and even contributing to the support of others, which is what Scarlett did. That's what Scarlett did. So, I knew about being Scarlett in a sense, but Melanie was someone different. She had very, deeply feminine qualities. Scarlett was a self-absorbed person. She had to be. Career women have to be, that's all there is to it. But, Melanie was "other people-oriented," and she had these feminine qualities that I felt were very endangered at that time, and they are from generation to generation, and that somehow they should be kept alive, and one way I could contribute to their being kept alive was to play Melanie, and that's why I wanted to interpret her role. 

Happy Birthday, Olivia de Havilland. There is much to celebrate in your career.  Thank you.

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The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and on Amazon and iTunes. 

ON SALE NOW - ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR. - THE AUDIO BOOK

The audio book for Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. is now for sale on Audible.com, and shortly will be on Amazon and iTunes.  Here's the sales page where you can purchase a copy.

Or, if you'd like to review the book on Amazon for a free copy, let me know because I still have a few promotional codes available.  Email me with REVIEW in the header.

Don't forget to email me to enter the raffle for a FREE AUDIO DOWNLOAD.  Just write GIMME THE AUDIO BOOK in the header.  I'll be picking the winner next week.

JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com

Five lucky winners will also be drawn from readers who subscribe to my mailing list here.

FREE AUDIO BOOK

Who wants a free audio book?

ANN BLYTH: ACTRESS. SINGER. STAR., narrated by Toni Lewis (see last week's interview here) will soon be available at Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.  I will pick one reader from this blog to receive a FREE download.  The audio book will be for sale shortly.

I will also give a free audio book download to the first eight people who agree to review the book on it's Amazon page here.

If you want to put your name in for the raffle for a free audio download, send me an email with the subject line: GIMME THE FREE AUDIO BOOK to: JacquelineTLynch@gmail.com.

If you want to review the book in exchange for a free copy, send me an email to the same address, but the subject line should be REVIEW BOOK.

It was just about this time last year that I published my book on Ann Blyth's career (June 18th, actually), and I don't think any writing project I've ever done has meant more to me.  Thanks for being part of the journey.