Thomas Doherty. Hollywood and Hitler, 1933–1939. Ben Urwand. The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler.

Extract

What was Hollywood's stance toward Nazi Germany prior to World War II? Film historians have asked that question because the American motion picture industry was arguably the globe's most influential medium during film's pre-television “golden age.” Whereas one might assume that the answer is straightforward, that the Jewish studio executives who ruled Hollywood were motivated by personal politics to use the screen as an anti-Nazi bully pulpit early and often, historians have long understood that things were not so simple. The moguls were in the movie business to turn a profit, and experience told them that didactics flopped at the box office. “If you want to send a message, use Western Union,” independent producer Samuel Goldwyn quipped.

Out of that tradition comes Hollywood and Hitler, in which veteran film scholar Thomas Doherty maintains that a host of mainly commercial considerations conspired to prevent filmmakers who wanted to fight Adolf Hitler onscreen from actually doing so until 1939. Germany continued to be a major source of revenue even after Hitler's ascent to the chancellorship in 1933, and Hollywood held its collective tongue rather than risk losing that market. Under pressure from the Production Code Administration, the industry's internal censor, studios canceled or sanitized several anti-Nazi productions before they could reach the screen and offend German customers. As a result, the world's entertainment capital remained silent while Hitler's power grew.