Serial Number: 19466 Title: I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany (1936) Add item to shopping cart   View your Shopping Cart
Country of Origin: US
Genre: Private Gallery - The 30's
Subject:
Size: 17x22 Broadside poster
Condition: VF/EX
Card Number: N/A
Price: $NOT FOR SALE
Actors/Actresses: Isobel Lillian Steele
Notes: Director: Alfred T. Mannon; This movie is an oddity in many respects. It describes the imprisonment in 1934 Germany, of Isobel Lillian Steele, a German-American one-time foreign correspondent, who was charged with espionage and treason. Through intervention by an American Senator, she was released four months later and upon returning to America, has given numerous interviews to various media outlets, describing her harsh treatment at the hands of her Nazi captors, as symptomatic of the experience many “undesirables” are subjected to. She did not stop there as she has also written many articles for newspapers, and eventually also wrote a book with the same title, detailing her ordeal. In 1936 she stepped it up and made a movie about her story, starring as herself in the title role. Today, it is largely a forgotten little film, and a bad one at that. It is very easy to dismiss this entry with the main actress who never made another film before or since, a director for whom this was his only directorial effort, with absolutely no other credits given to any other actor or contributor, and a production company – Malvina Pictures – no one has ever heard of. Add to that the fact that when the film came out, Miss Isobel Steele was sometimes portrayed in an unflattering way. No one has questioned the veracity of her story, and yet no lesser a columnist than Frank S. Nugent of the New York Times has said that she was amazingly unsophisticated, a compulsive attention seeker, a dupe of a Communist agitator, and he finds it difficult to sympathize with her because she did not adhere to the old adage “when in Rome, don’t laugh at Caesar”. He outdid himself when he accused her of making the common mistake of making the enemy(in this case Hitler and the Nazis) appear ridiculously black… It is thus easy to see why this film would be largely dismissed these days, however some points in its defense must be made. It was established that many actors of German background who were members of the cast, were contacted by the German Consul in Los Angeles and warned of consequences if the remained part of this production. As a result, some quit, others simply did not want their names in the billing. The German Consul also contacted the director of the Hays Office who in turn tried to invoke the Production Code on the film’s director. Mr. Mannon was undeterred and bravely defended the movie and its contents. The movie that contained actors re-enactments, interspersed with contemporary newsreels, showed quite openly book-burning and racial persecution, where Jews were particularly singled out for harshest treatment – a fact Mr. Nugent seemed to dismiss in his review of the movie. When the movie was finally released to the public, some cities, like Chicago, would not permit its showing for fear of riots. Throughout all the adversities Miss Isobel Steele and her director Mr. Mannon remained steadfast and unintimidated. So, one can judge this film solely on its cinematic merits, which may be wanting, however its significance lays in its historical context. This is one of the very early films, the second to be exact, to draw world attention to what was happening inside Nazi Germany, and the brutal trampling of human rights inside the Third Reich, noting especially the treatment of Jews at a time when very few people in the outside world knew about it.

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