42: Is It OK to Laugh at Hitler?

From To Be Or Not To Be

Kathleen Norris on IS IT OK TO LAUGH AT HITLER ?

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust (2004, Daniel Anker, director) is a valuable documentary offering a look at the reasons why in the late 1930’s, even though many film studios were run by Jewish immigrants from Europe, they were reluctant to alienate audiences by releasing movies critical of Hitler as he rose to power. Many in the U.S. belonged to the German American Bund, an isolationist “America First” movement that supported Hitler and was strongly against U.S. troops being drawn into any foreign wars. (The Bund disbanded on December 8, 1941).

The Mortal Storm (1940, Frank Borzage, director)  is one of the few openly anti-Nazi films released before America’s entry into the war. A sobering depiction of a German family torn apart after Hitler became the country’s chancellor it stars James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and Robert Young. The film so enraged the Nazi government that they banned the film in Germany. In America, Bund members made bomb threats and vandalized theaters showing it, and screenings often erupted into shouting matches between viewers who cheered at the sight of swastikas and others who responded with insults.