Ebook: Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939

The abundance of WWII-era documentaries and the huge cache of archival footage that has emerged since 1945 make it seem as if cinematic images of the Nazis were always as vivid and plentiful as they are today. Yet between 1933 and 1939, representations of the Nazis and the full meaning of Nazism came slowly to Hollywood, growing more distinct and ominous only as the decade wore on. Recapturing what ordinary Americans saw on the screen during the emerging Nazi threat, Thomas Doherty reclaims forgotten films, such as 'Hitler's Reign of Terror' (1934), a pioneering anti-Nazi docu-drama by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr.; 'I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany' (1936), a sensational true tale of 'a Hollywood girl in Naziland!'; and 'Professor Mamlock' (1938), an anti-Nazi film made by German refugees living in the Soviet Union. Doherty also recounts how the disproportionately Jewish backgrounds of the executives of the studios and the workers on the payroll shaded reactions to what was never simply a business decision.;Prologue: Judenfilm! -- Hollywood Berlin Hollywood -- Hitler, a "blah show subject" -- The Nazis in the newsreels -- The Hollywood anti-Nazi league -- Mussolini Jr. goes Hollywood -- The Spanish Civil War in Hollywood -- Foreign imports -- The blight of radical propaganda -- Inside Nazi Germany with the March of Time -- Grim reaper material -- There is no room for Leni Riefenstahl in Hollywood -- The only studio with any guts -- Hollywood goes to war -- Epilogue: the motion picture memory of Nazism.