Columbia University Press
Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939
Key Metrics
- Thomas Doherty
- Columbia University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780231163927
- 9.1 X 6.1 X 1.4 inches
- 1.6 pounds
- Performing Arts > Film - History & Criticism
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
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. As Europe hurtled toward war, a proxy battle waged in Hollywood over how to conduct business with the Nazis, how to cover Hitler and his victims in the newsreels, and whether to address or ignore Nazism in Hollywood feature films. Should Hollywood lie low, or stand tall and sound the alarm?
Doherty's history features a cast of charismatic personalities: Carl Laemmle, the German Jewish founder of Universal Pictures, whose production of All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) enraged the nascent Nazi movement; Georg Gyssling, the Nazi consul in Los Angeles, who read the Hollywood trade press as avidly as any studio mogul; Vittorio Mussolini, son of the fascist dictator and aspiring motion picture impresario; Leni Riefenstahl, the Valkyrie goddess of the Third Reich who came to America to peddle distribution rights for Olympia (1938); screenwriters Donald Ogden Stewart and Dorothy Parker, founders of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League; and Harry and Jack Warner of Warner Bros., who yoked anti-Nazism to patriotic Americanism and finally broke the embargo against anti-Nazi cinema with Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939).
Author Bio
A cultural historian with a special interest in Hollywood cinema, Thomas Doherty is a professor of American Studies at Brandeis University. He is an associate editor for the film magazine Cineaste and film review editor for the Journal of American History. His most recent book is Lindy Lindy Is Kidnapped: How the Media Covered the Crime of the Century, from Columbia University Press 2020.
Education
University of Iowa, Ph.D.
University of Iowa, M.A.
Gonzaga University, B.A
Source: Brandeis University
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