Documentary News Letter (1940)

a could mm. DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER JUNE 1940 TWO FILMS OF THE MONTH ^rfi ASTOR HALL HAVE not read Ernst Toller's play, but I like to link that it is his great spirit which illuminates ,e film Pastor Hall. The story is simple, as mple as the story of Professor Mamlock, and 1 some ways very like it. There is the same altrut, intent only on fulfilling the everyday needs of uman beings, no matter what their race or beprod olitical beliefs. There is the same incomprehennysla on when the doctrine of racial superiority and f blind obedience to the Fuehrer bursts with liiBcji iterfering hatred into his quiet village. There is *ap le same dawn of comprehension and at first ,'dioqM lechanical and later fully conscious opposition this denial of human dignity. Like Mamlock, astor Hall invites death with a final indictment "if Nazidom. Like Mamlock he speaks quietly, visely, without malice, as Christ once wept for erusalem. 10 'a. id IK iOffltH Of course there is the concentration camp, rhere is the pathological stormtroop leader, there 5 beating up and smashing of Jewish property, There is an over-melodramatic interlude of the ;irl who returns pregnant from a labour corps, here are shootings and exaggerated characters. Jut these incidents are not the film : and who am to dare say they are even exaggerated? I shall hiefly remember the twists of direction which svery so often made the visual a credible pulpit i"om which Toller's words could come searing nto my brain. The old woman weeping, and the lit down of the camera to the casket of ashes in ler hands: "Erich was so tall and strong. They trade him one of Captain Roehm's bodyguard." rhe man whose shop had been smashed because lis mother's mother was Jewish, groping among he debris in the street, and answering the Pastor's bifer of help with : "Thank you, Herr Pastor, here's nothing much to do now." The boy in the uspaiB;oncentration camp, who had once got safely » Sj iway to France, and had then returned to Geriskni hany: "I didn't want to believe any longer what ic(K' vas written in the French newspapers. It was the a ^pril, the buds were beginning to come out on rdof he trees. I got homesick." The schoolmaster elling Pastor Hall how to interpret the word love n bible classes: "Give the example of winter elief." The Commandant of the concentration ;2!i!), Btarnp, addressing the new prisoners: "Every jreiu' JuUet costs twelve pfennig, and that's just what ;itH 'ou're worth, no more, no less". And the S.S. ojuis! nan pointing the moral by calling one man out of ; W ine and shooting him down where he stood. rmeiii Ito lebo; uliole .1) of atei. mi a tile }1 .'!',« I.i fjro Most of all 1 shall remember the words of the Pastor's last sermon, after he had escaped from he concentration camp, and had gone back to (< his church, in the full knowledge that he would be followed there and shot. "The text for this my last sermon to you is from St. Paul : 'Put on the jjjgi vhole armour of God' . . . Men have been irsiifl Jiven a voice, and that voice is meant to be used ^ijjl'j IS a sword to fight against evil things. You can shut one mouth, a hundred mouths, a thousand, but the voice will be heard. Even a very little flame shines brightly in darkness. The weak will tell the weak, and they will become strong. . . ." Visually the end is tame, compared with the mighty scene of Mamlock on the balcony, and the stormtroopers paralysed and unable to shoot in the street beneath, but its very simplicity gave power to the words. This then is the film Pastor Hall, and it is up to all those who see it to treat it honestly, and to weigh it up. Let them remember that this kind of justification is the only possible justification and let them, when they have made their decision, be sure that it is really for this that the war is being fought. Only by such heart-searchings can the peace we need become possible. THE STORY OF DR EHRLICH'S MAGIC BULLET MID-WAY through The Story of Dr Ehrlich's Magic Bullet, the outspoken Dr Ehrlich is invited to a formal banquet. His hostess asks the famous scientist to tell her the subject of his latest researches. Dr Ehrlich answers with one shocking word which paralyses the whole company and which, in the fact of its theatrical utterance, is as significant for this generation as was Eliza Doolittle's "bloody" for our parents. Dr Ehrlich answers that he is working on a cure for syphilis. The Story of Dr Ehrlich's Magic Bullet is the story of the fight against syphilis. It is the outstanding example to date of how, without reference to the politer drawing-room conventions, the range of dramatic themes has broadened to include the whole field of human achievement. The very fact that the film has been produced represents a victory in a campaign comparable in importance with the one which Paul Ehrlich fought and won. It was not enough to attack syphilis with chemicals : it had also to be dragged from the chamber of horrors and exposed to the assaults of the propagandist. In this latter fight enlightened health authorities have now been joined by rtie movie moguls of Hollywood. But let there be no mistake as to motives. In making this film Warner Brothers have not been primarily concerned to make health propaganda. Their purpose has naturally been to produce entertainment, and they have been shrewd enough showmen to realise the box-office value of the dramatic conflict, man versus disease. Yet to choose this particular episode in that conflict needed courage; and to tell the story so accurately, and with as little false or distorted emotion as it is here told by director William Dieterle, required an honesty of approach which has had its reward in a film of three-fold distinction. The Story of Dr Ehrlich's Magic Bullet is first-rate entertainment; it is excellent public health propaganda; thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is a magnificently timely reminder of the existence of much that is noble in the humar. spirit. trolled conditions in testing a new drug, or upon a diagrammatic explanation of the fundamental basis of chemo-therapy. There is no attempt to gloss over the greatest handicaps of scientific research : the opposition of the stupid bureaucrat and of the time-serving sponsor who demands immediate results, are represented in bitterly ironic episodes. Throughout the film the drama is the drama of science rather than the personal drama of the scientist. The film finishes with a law-courts scene in which Paul Ehrlich defends his work against libellous attacks. Yet Dieterle has understood that we must be made to feel that it is not Ehrlich's reputation that matters but the future achievements for humanity of "606" that are at stake. Only if we understand that the discovery is more important than the discoverers, can their devotion and self-sacrifice appear credible to us. The actors, too, must be praised for moving skilfully aside and leaving the centre of the stage for science. Edward G. Robinson, as Ehrlich, promises future battles with Paul Muni for the laurels of historical impersonation. Ruth Gordon, as Frau Ehrlich, follows her performance as Mrs Lincoln in Spirit of the People with a slighter part which she plays equally brilliantly. Ruth Gordon is bringing to the screen a realistic technique which opens up new possibilities of screen characterisation. Highest praise of all must be reserved for Albert Basserman as Dr Robert Koch. Dr Ehrlich's "Magic Bullet" is the chemical bullet that kills disease germs in the blood stream. The film leaves us remembering that there are bullets of a different kind. Very skilfully, by means of an occasional undertone of topical reference, the film carries an implicit message to a warring world. Here, it says, is the Germany of the past and here in Cologne is the Koch Institute where great scientists are working for the whole human race. Among them is Paul Ehrlich, a Jew, who wants to destroy disease with chemical bullets. But because he is a Jew, and Far from shirking the scientific complexities of also because he believes that everything must be the subject, the film elucidates them so success subordinated to the welfare of the human race, fully that a deeply moving sequence is one in some of his contemporaries would prefer to which the slow, fluctuating progress of Paul destroy Paul Ehrlich. Long ago it was like this, Ehrlich and his assistants towards the discovery long before Nazism was heard of, the spirit of of "606", the compound which will cure syphilis, Nazism could be found amongst the German is recorded for us, as well as for Ehrlich, in the wavering progress of two lines on a graph. The film does not hesitate to base a dramatic situation on the scientific importance of preserving con people. But not in all of them. The rest were anxious to work and fight, not just for Germany but for the whole human race. They preferred Paul Ehrlich's magic bullets to bullets of steel.