Felicia Herman American Jewish History, Volume 89, Number 1, March 2001, pp. 61-89 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: For additional information about this article Access provided at 20 Jul 2019 04:29 GMT from SUNY College @ Buffalo https://doi.org/10.1353/ajh.2001.0005 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/607 F. Herman: Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews 61 Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews, 1933–41 * F E L I C I A H E R M A N The greatest single Jewish phenomenon in our country in the last twenty years has been the almost complete disappearance of the Jew from American fiction, stage, radio and movies. screenwriter and novelist Ben Hecht, 1944 1 Historians who have studied the image of Jews in American film generally have perceived the decade leading up to World War II as one of cowardice and avarice in the American film industry. Lester Friedman, for example, has labeled the 1930 s the “timid thirties...a lost decade” when the Jewish men who ran most of the Hollywood studios “placed their pocketbooks above their principles or even their personal convic- tions” and chose not to make films about the increasingly dire situation of European Jewry. 2 Neal Gabler, in his history of those same Jewish studio executives, emphasizes their political conservatism and their assimilationist drive, arguing as well that their fear of losing overseas markets for their product was the primary reason that they failed to make strongly anti-Nazi films. 3 As Stephen J. Whitfield puts it, “[a]t the very moment in Western history when an entire minority people was being designated for destruction, was being singled out as a fantastically powerful incarnation of evil, Jews were disappearing from the screen, * I would like to thank several people who read this article in various forms and offered invaluable comments: Rafael Medoff, Jonathan Sarna, Thomas Doherty, Stephen Whitfield, Rona Sheramy, Andrea Most, Marjorie Feld, David Ben-Ur, and Zelig and Heather Herman. This article also could not have been written without the expertise and advice of the archivists and librarians at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the American Jewish Archives, the American Jewish Historical Society, the Film Study Center of the Museum of Modern Art, Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, the Urban Archives Center at the University of California, Northridge, and the Warner Bros. Archive at the University of Southern California. 1 . Ben Hecht, A Guide for the Bedevilled (New York, 1944 ), 207 . See also Irving Hoffman, “Tales of Hoffman,” Hollywood Reporter , 16 November 1943 ; Henry Popkin, “The Vanishing Jew of Our Popular Culture,” Commentary 14 ( 1952 ), 46 2 . Lester D. Friedman, The Jewish Image in American Film (Secaucus, N.J., 1987 ), 39 ; also 33 – 40 , 114 – 23 3 . Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (New York, 1988 ), 300 – 2 , 338 – 47 62 A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O R Y their vulnerability unnoticed, their victimization unrecognized, their pain and grief unassuaged.” 4 This essay will examine the assertion that the films of the 1930 s were “Judenrein ,” as entertainment lawyer and Jewish communal leader Martin Gang put it, as well as the notion that it was the timidity of Jewish producers that led to Hollywood’s apparent failure to confront Nazism on-screen. 5 Two main themes guide the essay. First, while the Hollywood moguls certainly were timid, a host of other pressures acted upon the industry and mitigated against the production of explicitly anti- Nazi films in the 1930 s—most importantly, pressure from American Jewish organizations who did not want to see either overt condemna- tions of Nazism or overt defenses of Jewry on American film screens. Second, some filmmakers managed to work within the limitations imposed by the various pressures on the industry and produced several films with subtextual anti-Nazi messages that Jewish organizations and both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences welcomed. Three coded anti-Nazi films in particular attracted a great deal of Jewish attention: Darryl Zanuck’s The House of Rothschild ( 1934 ) and two Warner Bros. films, The Life of Emile Zola ( 1937 ) and the short film Sons of Liberty ( 1939 ). Although these films have either been dismissed or ignored by recent historians, the role that Jewish organizations played in their production and the reception they met with in the Jewish and mainstream press suggest that these films be considered squarely within the canon of anti- Nazi films. Understanding the relationship between the American Jewish commu- nity and the film industry in the 1930 s offers a new perspective on the American Jewish response to Nazism. Such an approach reveals the extreme caution which characterized and constrained the efforts of the Jewish organizations closest to the film industry. Fears of exacerbating 4 . Stephen J. Whitfield, American Space , Jewish Time: Essays in Modern Culture and Politics (Armonk, N.Y., 1988 ), 155 . See also Judith E. Doneson, The Holocaust in American Film (Philadelphia, 1987 ), 15 – 43 ; Patricia Erens, The Jew in American Cinema (Bloomington, Ind., 1984 ), 135 – 7 , 148 – 57 ; Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Goes to War: How Politics , Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies (Berkeley, 1987 ), 17 – 47 ; Henry Jenkins, What Made Pistachio Nuts? Early Sound Comedy and the Vaudeville Aesthetic (New York, 1992 ), esp. chapter 6 ; Stuart Samuels, “The Evolutionary Image of the Jew in American Films,” in Ethnic Images in American Film and Television , ed. Randall M. Miller (Philadelphia, 1978 ), 23 – 34 ; and Alan Spiegel, “The Vanishing Act: A Typology of the Jew in the Contemporary American Film,” in Sarah Blacher Cohen, ed., From Hester Street to Hollywood ( 1983 ; Bloomington, Ind., 1986 ), 257 – 75 . Compare with Joel Rosenberg, “Jewish Experience on Film—An American Overview,” American Jewish Year Book 96 ( 1996 ), 16 – 20 5 . Gang quoted in Gabler, An Empire of Their Own , 302 F. Herman: Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews 63 American antisemitism and of lending credence to the claim that Jews were warmongers led several Jewish organizations to try to police the public image of Jews by attempting to exert control over cinematic representations of Jews and Jewish issues. Jewish Organizations, Antisemitism, and the Film Industry The American Jewish organizational response to Nazism was condi- tioned by Jewish leaders’ fear of rising American antisemitism—the fear that America would “go antisemite.” 6 Leonard Dinnerstein has con- cluded that after 1933 , the United States experienced “an explosion of unprecedented antisemitic fervor”: Jews were blamed for the worldwide economic crisis and were accused of exercising undue influence in the Roosevelt administration, employment and housing discrimination against Jews were commonplace, quotas limited the number of Jews who could attend many colleges and universities, and demagogues like William Dudley Pelley and Father Charles Coughlin denounced Jews before increasingly large audiences of disaffected Americans seeking scapegoats for the country’s ills. 7 In 1939 , 20 percent of Americans believed there was “likely to be a widespread campaign” against Jews in the United States, and a striking 12 percent of those said that they would actively support such a campaign. 8 Jewish organizations’ views on anti-Nazi films were linked directly to their general posture on the optimal responses to the rise and spread of Nazism. Though they agreed on little else, most American Jewish organizations could concur in the 1930 s that Nazism was the antithesis of Americanism: in part to reassure themselves that their situation was different from that of their German coreligionists, American Jewish organizations put forth a notion of Americanism which emphasized a reverence for tolerance, equality, civilization, and democracy, starkly contrasting this with Nazism’s intolerance, discrimination, barbarism, and fascism. Beyond this general consensus, however, the methods for responding to the Nazi crisis differed among the prominent American Jewish organizations, with the fault lines developing in predictable places. With pessimistic prescience, for example, Rabbi Stephen Wise and his American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) criticized Nazism 6 . William T. Walsh, “Will America Go Anti-Semite?” American Hebrew , 24 February 1939 , 11 . A thorough new work on the American Jewish response to Nazism is Gulie Ne’eman Arad, America , Its Jews , and the Rise of Nazism (Bloomington, Ind., 2000 ). 7 . Leonard Dinnerstein, Antisemitism in America (New York, 1994 ), 105 – 27 8 . Rita James Simon, Public Opinion in America: 1936–1970 (Chicago, 1974 ), 82 – 3 64 A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O R Y publicly and directly, emphasizing the particular threat Nazi doctrine posed to Jews, holding mass protest meetings, and leading a boycott of German-made goods. 9 The Jewish organizations which enjoyed the closest relationships with the film industry, however, held and pursued very different ideologies and methodologies. Largely controlled by and catering to the descen- dants of Central European Jews, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), and the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee (LAJCC) took a more conserva- tive approach in their response to Nazism. “I am of the opinion that we [Jews] cannot be constantly thrusting ourselves before the public without danger to ourselves,” AJC president Cyrus Adler declared in the mid- 1930 s, stating a common principle shared by these organizations. “They will get tired of us. What I want them to do is to get tired of Hitler.” 10 Not wanting to strengthen the image of an international Jewry loyal only to other Jews and ever vigilant about public opinion in areas far from large cities with significant Jewish populations, these organizations discouraged the mass meetings and public protests which the AJCongress promoted. Instead, believing that the Nazis could be defeated only by broad-based American antipathy for Nazi methods and beliefs and that most Americans would not be sympathetic to the particular concerns of Jews, they sought to universalize Nazi ideology and to propose it as a threat to American democracy as a whole. As AJC secretary Morris Waldman declared in 1937 , the Nazi situation signifies more than merely an attack upon the Jews, but it is, in fact, an assault on modern civilization and on the ideals held precious by free men every- where. Unfortunately, excessive emphasis on the Jewish aspects in the Hitler situation has only served to blind public opinion to the more broadly serious implications...[and] has handicapped efforts to arouse Christendom at large and especially to stir the American people to the danger to America of anti- Semitic agitation. According to the conservative Jewish organizations, group hatred of any kind was the problem—indeed, they argued, the Nazis fomented such 9 . Stephen S. Wise, Challenging Years: The Autobiography of Stephen Wise (New York, 1949 ), 234 , 238 , 240 ; “Hitlerism and the American Jewish Congress: A Confidential Report of Activities, March–December,” (New York, 1933 ), 1 – 3 ; on the boycott see Moshe R. Gottleib, American Anti-Nazi Resistance , 1933–1941: An Historical Analysis (New York, 1982 ). 10 . Quoted in Naomi W. Cohen, Not Free to Desist: A History of the American Jewish Committee , 1906–66 (Philadelphia, 1972 ), 176 F. Herman: Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews 65 hatred in America to weaken the country’s defenses—and antisemitism was but one example of this. 11 The leaders of organizations like the AJC, ADL, and LAJCC believed that these messages would be received best by Americans if they came from non-Jewish sources. They therefore worked cautiously and quietly to encourage non-Jewish organizations to denounce Nazism as a threat to Americanism. For example, beginning in 1933 , former ADL national secretary Leon Lewis, who would soon found the LAJCC, sought to convince the American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans to adopt Americanism programs which would help “eliminate Fascist sentiment to a very great extent on a National scale without a Jew appearing in the picture and without the issue being a Jewish one.” 12 The AJC and ADL pursued similar goals by distributing information about Nazism and antisemitism to labor, interfaith, and women’s organiza- tions, journalists, radio stations, clergymen, the federal government and the FBI, and institutions of higher education. 13 Such efforts were usually pursued quietly and unobtrusively: as AJC historian Naomi Cohen has noted, we may never know the entire history of these organizations’ “many instances of behind-the-scenes intervention,” for the documen- tary evidence “often purposely omitted stories of personal suasion” and other activities. 14 These cautious attitudes shaped the contours of the Jewish relation- ship with the film industry. Jewish organizations resisted films which 11 . Morris D. Waldman, “Jewish Morale in the Present Crisis,” American Hebrew , 4 June 1937 , 10 ; see also Cohen, Not Free to Desist , 154 ff.; Richard C. Rothschild, “Are American Jews Falling into the Nazi Trap?” Contemporary Jewish Record 3 ( 1940 ), 11 , 13 ; Richard C. Rothschild Oral History, AJC Oral History Collection, Dorot Jewish Division, New York Public Library, 45 – 82 (cited as “AJC Oral History Collection, NYPL”); on the ADL see especially Sigmund Livingston, “Report of the Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League,” in Proceedings of the Fourteenth General Convention of the Constitution Grand Lodge (Changed to Supreme Lodge) , B’nai B’rith , May 1935 . See also Stuart Svonkin, Jews against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties (New York, 1997 ), 15 – 16 12 Leon Lewis to Allie Freed, 15 May 1934 ; [Leon Lewis,] memorandum, 14 September 1933 , Jewish Federation-Council of Greater Los Angeles Community Relations Committee Collection, Urban Archives Center, California State University, Northridge, Calif. (cited as “LA-CRC Papers”). See also Svonkin, Jews against Prejudice , 16 13 . Cohen, Not Free to Desist , 159 , 199 , 201 ; Svonkin, Jews against Prejudice , 15 – 6 14 Cohen, Not Free to Desist , 155 As the AJC’s Solomon Andhil Fineberg remembered, this was a difficult position for the organization to occupy, especially in the face of charges that it was inactive or cowardly. Its behind-the-scenes measures “didn’t show, and we used to ask the question[,] how do you show the fire you prevented?” S. Andhil Fineberg Oral History, AJC Oral History Collection, NYPL, 58 66 A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O R Y openly protested Nazism or took special notice of Nazi antisemitism, encouraging instead more subtle arguments in support of American values or the threat of Nazism to the United States as a whole. Some Jewish leaders took these views to an extreme. Rabbi William H. Fineshriber of Philadelphia, who became active in film industry affairs in the early 1930 s on behalf of the Reform Central Conference of American Rabbis, believed that filmmakers should refrain from producing films with any Jewish content “on the ground that the present atmosphere of the country is not conducive to a sympathetic understanding of the Jewish Problem.” 15 In 1936 Fineshriber opposed a film version of Sinclair Lewis’s antitotalitarian novel It Can’t Happen Here by arguing that “during these highly critical days for the Jewish people, here and elsewhere, we ought not to thrust the Jew and his problems too much into the limelight...there are times when to say nothing is better than to say something favorable.” Fineshriber later claimed that he alone convinced MGM not to make the film and the Production Code Administration (PCA), the industry’s self-censorship board, not to approve it. 16 The ADL, AJC, and LAJCC took a more moderate position than Fineshriber. They were somewhat more willing to encourage films with potentially positive Jewish content—although, to be sure, their estimation of “positive” content was extremely cautious and conserva- tive. As the ADL’s national director and secretary Richard Gutstadt explained in 1935 , the organization frequently received complaints from “hyper-sensitive members of our faith who take exception to every portrayal of a Jew, humorous or otherwise.” But the ADL took action, he explained, only on those characterizations which “indicate Jewish lack of ethical or moral standards,” especially when they reinforced popular negative stereotypes of Jews. 17 The reticence of Jewish leaders to support films which they believed would stir up antisemitism dovetailed with the financial and political 15 . William H. Fineshriber to M. S. Miller (editor, Southern Israelite ), 13 March 1936 , Folder B/ 6 , Papers of Rabbi William H. Fineshriber, Archives of Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel, Philadelphia, Pa. (cited as “Fineshriber Papers”). On Fineshriber’s connection to the industry, see my “American Jews and the Effort to Reform Motion Pictures, 1933 – 35 ,” American Jewish Archives Journal (forthcoming). 16 . Fineshriber to M. S. Miller (editor, Southern Israelite ), 13 March 1936 ; Fineshriber to L. B. Mayer, 7 February 1936 ; Fineshriber to Nicholas Schenck, 7 February 1936 ; Fineshriber to Will Hays, 7 February 1936 . All in Folder B/ 6 , Fineshriber Papers. For a similar opinion see Even Geffen, “Men and Events,” Opinion (November 1934 ), 31 17 . Richard E. Gutstadt, “Report of the Secretary of the Anti-Defamation League,” in Proceedings of the Fourteenth General Convention of the Constitution Grand Lodge (Changed to Supreme Lodge) , B’nai B’rith , May 1935 , 309 – 10 F. Herman: Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews 67 needs of the film industry. Like all other industries, the film business suffered mightily from the Great Depression, and Hollywood’s survival depended on attracting the greatest number of people of all ages, sexes, racial, religious and ethnic groups to its films as well as on the ability of studios to distribute its products abroad. 18 Moreover, the Production Code, the industry’s self-censorship system, had begun operating in earnest in 1934 and mandated that “the history, institutions, prominent people and citizenry of other nations shall be represented fairly.” 19 The PCA, run by Joseph I. Breen under the authority of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association (MPPDA), the industry’s trade organization, was also reluctant to approve any film project that might endanger the market for American films in Europe, especially as the Nazi sphere of influence expanded. 20 Anti-Nazi films might antagonize American audiences: not only were there Nazi sympathizers scattered throughout the country, but Americans in general evinced little interest in films about European political problems. American audiences, there- fore, might meet anti-Nazi films with apathy or even with anger that the screen was being used for political propaganda purposes rather than simply for entertainment. Though it frequently gets lost amid discussions of moral responsibility and artistic freedom, the fact remains that the film industry was (and is) first and foremost a business. Especially in the Depression-ridden 1930 s, it would have taken extraordinary disregard for a studio’s financial survival—not to mention a great deal of foresight—to undertake production of a film which could alienate untold numbers of filmgoers worldwide. 21 18 . On the effects of the Depression, see Andrew Bergman, We’re in the Money: Depression America and its Films ( 1971 ; Chicago, 1992 ) and Tino Balio, ed., Grand Design: Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise , 1930–1939 (Berkeley, 1993 ). 19 . The Production Code is reprinted in full in Gerald Mast, ed., The Movies in Our Midst : Documents in the Cultural History of Film in America (Chicago, 1982 ), 321 – 33 20 . On the Code, see Gregory D. Black, Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes , Catholics and the Movies (New York, 1994 ); Thomas Doherty, Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex , Immorality , and Insurrection in American Cinema , 1930–1934 (New York, 1999 ); Garth S. Jowett, “Moral Responsibility and Commercial Entertainment: Social Control in the United States Film Industry, 1907 – 1968 ,” Historical Journal of Film , Television and Radio 10 ( 1990 ): 3 – 31 ; Richard Maltby, “The Production Code and the Hays Office,” in Balio, ed., Grand Design , 37 – 72 ; and Stephen Vaughn, “Morality and Entertainment: The Origins of the Motion Picture Production Code,” Journal of American History 77 (June 1990 ): 39 – 65 21 . For an interesting exploration of this argument, see Siegfried Kracauer, “National Types as Hollywood Presents Them,” in Bernard Rosenberg, Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America (New York, 1957 ), 257 – 77 68 A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O R Y Although the ADL and AJC occasionally corresponded on their own with film industry figures, by far the closest relationship between a Jewish organization and the Jews in the film industry existed through the LAJCC. 22 Leon Lewis, the former national secretary of the ADL, had created the LAJCC in 1934 as an autonomous, self-appointed umbrella organization of local representatives of all of the major national Jewish organizations as well as local Jewish social and communal leaders. 23 Many of the LAJCC’s members enjoyed personal and professional links to Jews in the film industry, and a week after the LAJCC’s founding, the organization created a Motion Picture Committee comprised of promi- nent Jewish studio executives like Irving Thalberg, Jack Warner, Joseph Schenck, and Harry Cohn. These men met regularly with Lewis to discuss film issues relevant to the Jewish community and to contribute funds to the LAJCC’s work in ferreting out local antisemites and Nazi sympathizers. 24 Lewis thus became the point man for Jewish-Hollywood relations, and, often at the behest of the ADL and AJC, he utilized the connections fostered by the LAJCC’s Motion Picture Committee to try to shape film projects with Jewish content. For example, in the fall of 1934 , Lewis reported to the ADL’s Gutstadt that although Paramount was planning a film about the Crusades, Adolph Zukor himself had promised that the script would not contain any mention of Jews. To ensure this, the LAJCC was “in a position to maintain direct contact all along the line” of people involved with the film. 25 Similarly, when MGM was planning a film about the two thieves crucified along with Jesus, LAJCC chair (and entertainment lawyer) Mendel Silberberg asked Louis B. Mayer—one of his clients—to be sure that the film did not contain any 22 . The National Community Relations Advisory Council (NCRAC) acknowledged as much in a 1947 overview of Jewish communal relations with the film industry. L. Roy Blumenthal, Jules Cohen, Richard C. Rothschild, and Frank N. Trager, memorandum “Community Relations with the Motion Picture Industry,” March 1947 , Box 47 , National Community Relations Advisory Council Papers, American Jewish Historical Society (cited as “AJHS”). 23 . The organizational meeting of the LAJCC drew such notable Los Angeles leaders as Lewis, Mendel Silberberg, Harry Graham Balter, I. B. Benjamin, Louis Greenbaum, Judge Harry Hollzer, Irving Lipschitz, Rabbi Edgar Magnin, Marco Newmark, Judge Isaac Pacht, Aaron Riche, Judge Lester Roth, Judge Ben Scheinman, and Louis Nordlinger. Memorandum 9 March 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. See also Max Vorspan and Lloyd P. Gartner, History of the Jews of Los Angeles (Philadelphia, 1970 ), 221 ff. 24 . Memorandum “Meeting Held at Hillcrest Country Club,” 13 March 1934 ; Lewis to Gutstadt 21 March 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. Gabler is mistaken when he asserts that Jews in the film industry “dominated” the LAJCC: they were, instead, concentrated in the Motion Picture Committee. Gabler, An Empire of Their Own , 296 – 7 25 . Lewis to Gutstadt, 17 September 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. F. Herman: Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews 69 harmful references to Jews. 26 Throughout the decade, the LAJCC used its influence with receptive Jews in the industry to investigate and suggest changes to scores of films with potentially harmful Jewish content. Discussions of anti-Nazi films constituted a substantial part of the Jewish relationship with the film industry in the 1930 s. Jewish organiza- tions opposed explicit anti-Nazi films for three reasons: first, they worried that such films would lend strength to antisemitic charges that the Jews controlled Hollywood and were using films as a vehicle for Jewish propaganda; second, they believed such films would weaken Jewish attempts to prevent the exhibition of pro -Nazi propaganda films in the United States; and third, they feared that anti-Nazi films would lead to charges of Jewish warmongering. Thus, for example, throughout the 1930 s the LAJCC and ADL repeatedly opposed the production of a film called Mad Dog of Europe , which, had it been made, would have been a stinging indictment of Hitler and Nazi Germany. 27 The film’s would-be producers were all Jewish, and the film made particular reference to Nazi antisemitism. Upon investigating the project, Jewish leaders concluded that the script was “so fanatical” that “there may be a very unhappy kick-back from it.” 28 They therefore utilized many of the tools at their disposal to prevent the film from being produced: they corresponded with powerful figures in the film industry, they held meetings with the Production Code Administration (PCA) and with the film’s would-be producers, and they discouraged Jewish groups around the country from allowing the filmmakers to fundraise at their meet- ings. 29 Largely because their goals overlapped with those of the PCA and the MPPDA, which feared the repercussions Mad Dog of Europe would cause in Europe, the Jewish organizations were successful in preventing the film from being produced. The Jewish efforts to stop Mad Dog of 26 . Lewis to Sigmund Livingston, 13 July 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. 27 . Sam Jaffe, Al Rosen, and Samuel Gach (the editor of the California Jewish Voice ) all attempted to produce Mad Dog of Europe between 1933 and 1940 . For Jewish leaders’ discussions of the project, see Gutstadt to Lewis, 30 October 1933 ; Gutstadt to Lewis, 30 October 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. See also Anti-Defamation Bulletin , Pacific Coast Branch (May 1937 ); “ADL Activities,” probably District 4 ( 1937 ), 8 ; Gutstadt to Lewis, 31 July 1933 , and “Minutes of JCC Meeting,” 30 March 1934 , LA-CRC Papers; Richard E. Gutstadt, “Report of the Secretary of the Anti-Defamation League,” in Proceedings of the Fourteenth General Convention of the Constitution Grand Lodge (Changed to Supreme Lodge) , B’nai B’rith , May 1935 , 309 – 10 28 . Gutstadt to Lewis, 31 July 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. 29 . Gutstadt to Lewis, 25 July 1933 ; Gutstadt to Lewis, 31 July 1933 ; Lesser to Gutstadt, 7 August 1933 ; Gutstadt to Lewis, 31 July 1933 ; Lewis to Gutstadt, 4 August 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. 70 A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O R Y Europe received little public attention, just as Jewish leaders desired: as much as they could, they kept their dealings with the motion picture industry a quiet affair, attempting to stave off the charge that the Jews were “controlling” Hollywood. 30 Even as they were fighting the first of several rounds over Mad Dog of Europe , Jewish organizations became involved with another film with important ramifications for the Jewish community: Twentieth Century Pictures’ The House of Rothschild ( 1934 ), which starred the distin- guished actor George Arliss. 31 While The House of Rothschild was in production throughout the winter of 1933 , the ADL, having seen a script of the film, did everything in its power to stop the project. (Lewis had not yet created the LAJCC and was still serving as the primary ADL representative in Los Angeles.) The wisdom of producing a high-budget film whose heroes were bankers in the midst of the Great Depression was questionable in itself; but the fact that those bankers were Jewish— indeed, were the quintessential “international Jewish financiers” about whom Hitler and professional antisemites were fulminating—filled ADL leaders with trepidation. Moreover, the film’s depiction of the Rothschilds was ambivalent at best. On the one hand, the film characterizes patriarch Mayer Amschel Rothschild (Arliss) as a greedy Jewish moneylender who at one point cheats a tax collector, changing into shabby clothes before his arrival, hiding the roast, and bringing out a second set of fraudulent books. On the other hand, the film asserts that the Rothschilds’ oft- stated desire for money and power is simply a means to an end: the eradication of economic and political restrictions against the Jews. Indeed, the family does ultimately use its influence for the peace of Europe and for the freedom of European Jewry, and it also ultimately triumphs over one of the few purely fictional characters in the film, an antisemitic German count (Boris Karloff) who tries to thwart their plans. ADL leaders believed that audiences, especially non-Jewish ones, would focus only on the negative side of this ambivalent portrayal. They pleaded with MPPDA president Will Hays and with House of Rothschild producers Joseph Schenck and Darryl Zanuck to halt production of the 30 . Lewis to Gutstadt, 1 November 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. In contrast, the MPPDA’s and PCA’s efforts to stop the film were widely publicized: see Variety , 2 September 1933 ; “The L.A. Times,” 12 October 1933 , clipping in The Mad Dog of Europe File, MPAA Production Code Administration Files, Margaret Herrick Library, Center for the Study of the Motion Picture, Los Angeles, Calif. (cited as “PCA Papers”). 31 . For a more in-depth examination of the film’s production and reception, see my “To Walk the World with Dignity: American Jews and The House of Rothschild ( 1934 ),” forthcoming. F. Herman: Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews 71 film. 32 After discovering that Louis B. Mayer owned a substantial (though quiet) interest in Twentieth Century Pictures, they drew upon ADL representative Rabbi Edgar Magnin’s personal connection to Mayer to enlist his aid; using similar means, they also engaged Harry Warner in their struggle. 33 When these efforts proved fruitless, ADL leaders settled for attempting to change the film’s content, and then suggested that the studio delay the film’s release until late 1934 , at which time they hoped the worldwide antisemitic furor would have dimin- ished. 34 Finally, they asked the studio to restrict the film’s exhibition to the large cities and areas of the country which boasted substantial Jewish populations, hoping that in those areas, audiences’ familiarity with real Jews would mitigate any deleterious effects of the film. 35 But although the ADL later claimed some (unspecified) success in shaping the film’s content, and although some (also unspecified) Jewish theater owners apparently agreed not to show the film, ADL leaders were unable to prevent the film’s wide national exhibition in the spring and summer of 1934 36 The organization never spoke out publicly against The House of Rothschild , however, for once the film was released, both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences responded to it enthusiastically. Wishing to avoid the loss of dignity conveyed by disagreeing with such overwhelmingly positive popular opinion, and fearing the effects of publicly revealing Jewish disunity, the ADL ultimately decided merely to warn its represen- tatives nationwide about the film’s content in a confidential memo. 37 32 [Leon Lewis,] “Memorandum,” 29 November 1933 ; Lewis to Gutstadt, 7 December 1933 ; Lewis to Joseph Schenck, 20 December 1933 ; Zanuck to Lewis, 21 December 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. See also Will Hays to Zanuck, 21 December 1933 ; Zanuck to Hays, 27 December 1933 , The House of Rothschild File, PCA Papers. 33 . On Mayer and Warner, see Lewis to Gutstadt, 7 December 1933 ; Lewis to Gutstadt, 20 December 1933 ; Gutstadt to Lewis, 22 December 1933 ; Lewis to Gutstadt, 23 December 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. 34 [Leon Lewis,] “Memorandum,” 29 November 1933 ; Gutstadt to Lewis, 22 December 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. 35 . Gutstadt to Lewis, 15 March 1934 ; Golden to Lewis, 22 March 1934 ; I. M. Golden to Lewis, 22 March 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. 36 . Gutstadt to Lewis, 22 December 1933 ; Gutstadt to Lewis, 15 March 1934 ; confidential memo from Sigmund Livingston to ADL Representatives, 20 March 1934 ; Golden to Lewis, 22 March 1934 ; I. M. Golden to Lewis, 22 March 1934 ; Gutstadt to ADL Representatives, 30 March 1934 ; Minutes of the Chicago Advisory Council of the ADL, 14 April 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. For evidence that the film was showing nationwide in the spring and summer of 1934 , see Motion Picture Herald , 30 June 1934 , 72 ; 7 July 1934 , 68 ; 21 July 1934 , 64 ; 8 September 1934 , 52 ; 15 September 1934 , 54 ; 22 September 1934 , 52 ; 6 October 1934 , 80 ; 27 October 1934 , 72 ; and 3 November 1934 , 64 37 . Confidential memo from Sigmund Livingston to ADL Representatives, 20 March 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. 72 A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O R Y Although the ADL had feared that audiences would focus on the negative aspects of the film’s portrayal of Jews, in fact, both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences proved more willing to respond to the film’s pro- Jewish content. Despite Zanuck’s claims that the film was intended purely as entertainment and that he was unaware of rising worldwide antisemitism, American audiences read the film as an oblique denuncia- tion of Nazi antisemitism. 38 Many viewers saw contemporary parallels in the film’s depiction of the antisemitic treatment which delimited the Rothschilds’ business and personal lives: their forced confinement in the Frankfurt ghetto, the antisemitic riots in that city, and the discrimination the family suffered at the hands of other bankers and European rulers (especially the German count). The New York Herald Tribune called the film “a persuasive piece of anti-Nazi argument,” the New York Sun labeled it “the most effective anti-Nazi propaganda yet seen in this country,” and the New York World-Telegram asserted that the film was “filled with burning acerbity against the early nineteenth-century perse- cutions of the Jews in Frankfurt, which in the light of similar persecu- tions in Germany today, makes the film a timely and fiery document.” 39 The reviewer for the exhibitors’ paper Motion Picture Herald observed that when he previewed the film, whose “sequences...have a definite modern parallel,” it received “the most enthusiastic ovation this writer has heard in any theatre.” 40 The film was nominated for the Academy 38 . Zanuck to Lewis, 21 December 1933 , LA-CRC Papers. 39 New York Herald Tribune , 15 March 1934 , New York World-Telegram , 15 March 1934 , and New York Sun , 15 March 1934 , clippings on microfiche 380 , Film Study Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York (cited as “Film Study Center, MOMA”). Excerpts of reviews also appear in a special advertising section of Hollywood Reporter , 15 March 1934 ; in Hollywood Reporter , 16 March 1934 , 6 ; and Hollywood Reporter , 21 March 1931 , 2 Hollywood Reporter reviewed the film on 23 February 1934 , 2 ; Variety reviewed it on 20 March 1934 , 16 40 . Review of The House of Rothschild , Motion Picture Herald , 10 March 1934 , 49 For other praise of the film see Reverend C.F. Aked, “George Arliss in ‘The House of Rothschild’: A Joy and an Inspiration,” 15 April 1934 ; Hollywood Reporter , 10 April 1934 , 10 ; “The House of Rothschild,” The American Film Institute Catalog , 968 ; “ 1934 ,” Best Motion Pictures, 1920 – 1951 File, National Board of Review Papers, Archives and Manuscripts Division, New York Public Library (cited as “National Board of Review Papers, NYPL”); and Marie W. Presstman to Morris Lazaron, 8 March 1934 , Morris Lazaron Papers, Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati (cited as “AJA”). On the financial and popular success of the film, see Hollywood Reporter , 27 March 1934 , 1 ; Hollywood Reporter , 29 March 1934 , 2 ; Variety , 27 March 1934 , 9 ; Variety , 3 April 1934 , 9 ; and Motion Picture Herald , 22 September 1934 , 52 . For other evidence of popular support for the film, see Opinion May 1934 , 25 ; and mentions of Arliss’s “Jewish audiences” in Minneapolis/St. Paul American Jewish World , 27 April 1934 , 5 , and American Jewish World , 15 June 1934 , 7 F. Herman: Hollywood, Nazism, and the Jews 73 Award for Best Picture, and it placed second on a list of film critics’ favorite films of the year. 41 Similarly, many Jewish leaders, organizations, and film reviewers went on record with praise for the film, including Rabbi Stephen Wise, a reviewing committee of the National Council of Jewish Women, and even a B’nai B’rith group in Hollywood that was apparently ignorant of the ADL’s opinion of the film. 42 Reviewers in numerous organs of the American Jewish press praised the film’s portrayal of noble, principled Jews and its condemnation of antisemitism, and the American Hebrew — arguably the most important Anglo-Jewish paper of the day—placed a full-color still from the film on the cover of its 1934 Passover issue. In the following weeks, the paper was deluged with requests from readers for frameable copies of the cover. 43 This last fact offers a rare glimpse into the reception of the film among ordinary Jewish filmgoers: a year after Hitler had come to power, many American Jews apparently wanted to hang on their walls an image of Mayer Amschel Rothschild on his deathbed, telling his sons (as the paper’s caption read) that Neither business nor power nor all the gold in Europe will bring you happiness until our people have equality, respect, dignity—until we can trade with dignity—until we can live with dignity—until we can walk the world with dignity! 44 The reception of The House of Rothschild indicates that a film which implicitly condemned Nazism could find both critical and popular success among Jews and non-Jews alike. The ADL had proved too cautious in assuming that American audiences would focus only on the negative side of the film’s ambivalent portrayal of Jews. Even the AJC and LAJCC agreed that the ADL had been oversensitive in this case, with one AJC leader even arguing that the film’s ambiguous image of Jews 41 Film Daily Year Book of Motion Pictures ( 1935 ), 59 42 Hollywood Reporter , 10 April 1934 , 10 ; J. J. Cummins to Zanuck, 16 March 1934 and S. Y. Allen to Zanuck, 11 April 1934 , The House of Rothschild File, PCA Papers; Lewis to Gutstadt, 16 March 1934 , LA-CRC Papers. 43 American Hebrew and Jewish Tribune , 30 March 1934 , 419 . See also B’nai B’rith Messenger , 6 April 1934 , 15 ; 11 May 1934 , 10 ; Chicago Jewish Chronicle , 27 April 1934 , 2 ; California Jewish Bulletin , May 1934 , 20 ; American Jewish World , 11 May 1934 , 11 ; American Hebrew , 16 March 1934 , 350 ; American Hebrew , 7 December 1934 , 71 . For negative Jewish reviews, focusing mainly on the film’s historical inaccuracies, see Rabbi Edgar Siskin’s sermons, “One of the Rothschilds: An Estimate of the Life of the Late Baron Edmond de Rothschild,” delivered 16 November 1934 , and “Are We Influenced by the Movies?” delivered 25 March 1938 , Box 1 , Folder 2 , Edgar Siskin Papers, AJA; and B’nai B’rith Messenger , 20 April 1934 , 2 44 American Hebrew , 23 March, 1934 , cover. 74 A M E R I C A N J E W I S H H I S T O R Y was a virtue: because it showed Jews with flaws, it successfully walked the thin line between sympathy for the Jews and pro-Jewish propa- ganda. 45 The Life of Emile Zola ( 1934 ) and Sons of Liberty ( 1939 ) As Michael Birdwell observes in his recent history of the anti-Nazi films made by Warner Bros. in the 1930 s, Jack and Harry Warner “stood virtually alon