US 100m Dir: Frank Borzage Key Cast: Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart
Germany was a lucrative market for Hollywood films and so studios were reluctant to criticise the Nazi regime for fear of being banned and losing money (nothing changes). The Mortal Storm was one of the few anti-Nazi films that Hollywood made before Pearl Harbor and even despite talking about Hitler and showing Nazi insignia it never mentions the word 'Nazi' nor the word 'Jew' or 'Jewish'. Hitler immediately banned the film and MGM's entire back catalogue so it seemed pointless attempting to be in any way coy.
The film opens with happy families with Professor Viktor Roth (Frank Morgan) celebrating his 60th birthday with his family. During the celebrations it is announced that Hitler has been made Chancellor of Germany and we then see how family life is affected. Roth's sons are delighted but Roth himself is concerned, as is family friend Martin (James Stewart). Over time we see free speech stamped down on and Roth, his daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan) and Martin struggling to survive in Nazi Germany.
The film is less the now traditional fighting the Nazis narrative and more surviving the Nazis. We see how a happy family is ripped apart pretty quickly once Hitler becomes Chancellor and how anyone who says anything that doesn't fit with the Nazi narrative is threatened and beaten up. It's all pretty bleak but done superbly well as friends and relatives are brain-washed by the regime and become part of it. Though it's alluded that the Roth's are Jewish it's never explicitly said and the film was made before the Allies really knew about the Holocaust so though unpleasant it doesn't perhaps go quite so far into the real horrors that were happening in Germany at the time.
In some ways though this actually works in the film's favour and it feels frighteningly relevant to today. It shows a country where political discourse was stamped down upon, where free speech was violently destroyed and where even respected scientists where ignored. The film therefore feels really familiar and it makes me really uncomfortable that there are such striking similarities in the much of the world as in a film depicting Nazi Germany.
One would imagine that James Stewart is the star of the film and though he has an important role to play, not dissimilar to many of his previous films but with a bit more bite, the film is more of an ensemble. The focus changes with various people spending time serving as the main character from Stewart's Martin to Margaret Sullavan's Freya. Freya is a superb female character and it's striking that she is far more than the love interest of the male lead here. She speaks out about the regime and bravely stands up to the men who subscribe to it. Sullavan is superb here in her fourth and final partnership with Stewart and it feels like she ought to have been a bigger star than she was.
Charming lead characters put into a chilling real-world scenario that disturbingly still feels relevant today. One of those films that most people won't have heard off but everyone really ought to see.
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