Motion Picture Herald (Nov-Dec 1934)

10 MOTION PICTURE HERALD November 17, 1934 SOVIET PROPAGANDA AIDED BY NEW YORK PRESS ACCLAIM An Article by TERRY RAMSAYE rHE American screen, already burdened quite with its own sins and faced with endless problems of political regulation, taxation and general bedevilment by axe-grinders of all sorts, now unwittingly adds entanglement in the web of propaganda woven in Moscow in the cause of chaos and the Third Internationale. And, doubtless as unwittingly, two of America's greatest and most constructively conservative newspapers, the New York Times and the New York Herald Tribune, have permitted their young men to deliver their columns to the preachment of the Red cause and its glorification — all behind the mask of motion picture criticism. "Three Songs about Lenin," a feature length picture presented at the Cameo Theatre in New York, by Amkino, Russia's American picture agency, is their provocation and inspiration. This picture was made in Russia by Mejarabpomfilm "in commemoration of the Seventeenth Anniversary of the October Revolution." This picture in its primitive emotional content and inept messages of state has the precise quality of a soap box speech in Union Square. In cinematographic quality it does not compare favorably with over-night assemblies of topical film made in the newsreel editing offices of New York. "Three Songs about Lenin," like all Russian pictures which reach these shores, was made solely for purposes of propaganda. It Is presented to Broadway and the amusement world as entertainment. It is currently a fact of the American screen, invasive of an institution which has, for the four decades of its building, held itself especially in the entertainment service of the whole people and free of all or any manner of special pleading. The American screen has In its fashion reflected change, but it has not of its own motion advocated revolution or preached the cause of chaos. 7% T'OW comes Russia's Soviet, born / l/ of bombs and ruling by blade and firing squad, to make, in so far as it may, a forum of the American screen. And so far they have to help them Mr. Andre Sennwald, motion picture critic of the New York Titms, and Mr. Richard Watts, Jr., of the New York Herald Tribune— in the holy name of Lenin and Art. One may wonder where Mr. Adolph Och's editorial overseers of The Times were nodding the night of November 6 when his paper went to press with Mr. Sennwald's corybantic ecstasies, all a-drip with sympathetic appreciation of the screen canonization of Lenin. Mr. Sennwald's ode is presented under The Times' dull and neutral stock heading "The Screen," taking off gently in a manner to excite no copyreader, but soon goes aloft at full throttle, climbing swiftly to hang on the propulsion of his high emotion. Employing an intricate blend of newsreels, authentic historical cinema documents and original films, M. Vertof strives to dramatize the soul and meaning of Lenin as they filter through the eyes of the peasants whom the dead prophet liberated from the Czarist chains. He visualizes, in images of warm and tragic beauty, the influence of Lenin as expressed in three folk songs from the Soviet Orient which have evolved out of the soil since his passing. The songs to which Mr. Sennwald so tenderly refers are: "Under a Black Veil My Face," "We Loved Him" and "In the Great City of Stone," the last including a refrain "If Lenin Could See Our Country Now." Mr. Ochs should see his paper now. The refrain pleased the Times critic a lot, leading him to observe: This third section is a mighty chant of patriotism which ends on Lenin's own inspiring message to his people: "Victory will be ours." The dumb driven peasants of the cast in their ragged parades and the old time worn Soviet stock shots from their film library, rendered trite by their frequent use on the propaganda screen, really do show just what a "Victory" it has been indeed. After reading the press accounts of this demonstration of "Victory" the spectator may possibly find in the appearance of a Lincoln and a Packard car, manufactured In these moss-back and bourgeois United States, moving through the scenes a sug (Continued on foHounng paqe, column 1) WHAT LITVINOV SAID ABOUT PROPAGANDA One of the official gestures in connection with the recognition of Russia was an exchange of letters on propaganda neutrality between Maxim V. Litvinov, commissar for foreign affairs, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States. M. Litvinov's letter under date of November 16, 1933, inchides paragraphs defined as "the fixed policy of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics," reading: •1 To respect scrupulously the indis• putable right of the United States to order its own life within its own jurisdiction in its own way and to refrain from interfering in any manner in the internal affairs of the United States, its territories or possessions. 2 To refrain, and to restrain all ■ persons in government service and all organizations of the government or under its direct or indirect control, including organizations in receipt of any financial assistance from it, from any act overt or covert liable in any way whatsoever to injure the tranquillity, prosperity, order, or security of the whole or any part of the United States, its territories or possessions, and, in particular, from any act tending to incite or encourage armed intervention, or any agitation or propaganda having as an aim the violation of the territorial integrity of the United States, its territories or possessions, or the bringing about by force of a change in the political or social order of the whole or any part of the United States, its territories or possessions. But isn't it the current understanding that Amkino, the distributor of such items as "Three Songs About Lenin," represents Sovkino and the Russia Soviet — endorsed, supported, encouraged, controlled, picture makers? What the Russian screen says is the voice of the U. S. S. R.