The international photographer (Jan-Dec 1940)

shooi", i've qoT you coverecI You see, by way of explanatory digression, one of the main reasons I came over for Hatrick and Hearst, via MGM, was to get our organization geared up for complete war coverage. This, of course, would in its proper turn take me to Rome, Berlin, and Bucharest. My main objective, of course, was Berlin, because we had been having considerable trouble getting stuff released and shipped from our Berlin agents. Paramount had beaten all the reels on the very first German war film — a product of the Deutschland propaganda mill, properly censored and hopped up by Germany's own military cinematographers, but nevertheless, it was first blood for the opposition— so, naturally, Hatrick wanted something done in Berlin . . . and quick. I spent a week and a fair-sized waypaving bankroll in Lisbon, but when I left for Rome, we — Leon, the Spanish Metro man and I — had the situation under control and clear sailing — or rather, shipping ahead. I was able to get a lot of stuff aboard the Clipper that was figuratively cluttering up the wharves of Lisbon, waiting to be bailed out. I headed for Rome, on an Italian airliner which lays down, enroute, at Sevilla, Spain, Mellila, North Africa — and the Isle of Majorca. The plane was a twelvepassenger Savoia-Marcheti, and we arrived at Sevilla, an overnight stopover, in fair style. I wasn't in Sevilla an hour before I became so satiated with Spanish fascism and its gestures that I was well nigh "Heilhappy." It seemed that everywhere you turned someone would start singing the Franco marching hymn or something and everybody would drop what he was doing — whether it be drinking a glass of wine, carrying a bowl of goldfish, or lifting an anvil, and shoot his right arm skyward with a salute to Franco. I was conducting myself sympathetically and stood quietly when these things happened but. owing allegiance to only one nation — which was a hell of ways from Spain and across a mighty ocean — I didn't point the right arm toward the blue, and didn't intend to unless that same blue was pleasantly intermingled with red and white. Well — that patriotism of an innocent abroad almost put me in the Franco-American soup! I was in a cantina, drinking wine from a pre-war (Spanish) cask of amantillado. The cask was blood-stained, the wine being a rare recovery — so I was told when I asked why the charge per drink was double the usual bite — from the aged catacombs of the Alcazar. Suddenly someone yelled "Viva Franco" and every right arm went up in the air but mine — and then the fellows with their arms in the air went up in the air. Only the quick-mindedness of a Spanish cabdriver get me out of the place without dire results. Next morning I was more than 18 pleased to get aboard the Italian airliner and proceed on the air road to Rome. The road to Rome was paved with good intentions and bad transport pilots. On the way to Sardinia, one of the motors started spewing oil all over the starboard side. Rather than turn back, they plunged ahead with all the desperate "do or die" attitude of a combat flier. The transport pilots there aren't the best. If they were, they would be in the army service. Falling short of desirable qualifications, but being able to fly a ship after a fashion, they get a job doing just that. Flying a ship — after a fashion. I was sure a happy cookie when we arrived at Ostia, the seaplane port of Rome — some twenty miles away. There I was met by the MGM Rome cameraman, Umberto Ramagnoli. As he drove me into the city I asked him whether the fascisti salute was compulsory for the tourist in Italy. He laughed and said, "Hell, no! We've got a broadminded government. That stuff is just for the totalitarian states!" But the Italian members of the fascisti party raise their right arms with alacrity. In Italy, I found that the Rome-Berlin axis — though still in existence — is a thing of the past. Particularly since Herr Hitler and Company tied in with atheistic Russia. Do not forget that Italy is a Catholic country, with a resident Pope, who is the spiritual leader of some three hundred thirtyone and a half millions of Roman Catholics over the world, with two hundrad and twenty millions of that number — almost an exact two-thirds — in Europe alone. For this same reason, despite the inborn Teutonic affinity, the Reich will never completely bend the Austrian knee to the power and will that is now in the hands of the onetime house-painter. I wasn't but a day and a half in Italv before I was shoving off for Berlin, via the Lufthanza airline which operates between the two cities with a northerly fuel stopover at Venice. Flying trouble again brought us back to our starting point, where we discharged the passengers booked for Venice. Then we headed for Munich, with such of those passengers as were properly visaed and ticketed for Germany. We ploughed forward and upward, attaining an altitude in excess of twenty-five thousand feet. We were sucking on oxygen tubes, gathering tons of ice and, to cap the climax, the pilot was lost over the German Alps though, characteristically, he stubbornly refused to admit it. Though a trifle better — just a mere trifle — the German transport pilot is in the same classification as the Italian. This fellow soon had the ship on a wild goose chase, the plane reminding me for all the world of a Japanese waltzing mouse with wings. After groping all over the Alps, it seems, we were getting nowhere fast. Nobody was getting anywhere fast. (Continued from Page 12) except the rapidly diminishing fuel supply. We bargained for Munich and finally settled for a rapid return to Venice. And we only reached there by sheer accident. Until the lights of the Venice airport loomed into a view, when we dropped away down for a shoreline checkup, the pilot had no idea where we were. Up to that time, Cork, Ireland or the monastaried peaks of Tibet would have been just as good a guess as any. That washed me up. Once on terra firma. I hit for the nearest bar, hoisted a couple of fast ones, and then parked the body in a Venetian gondola. I had a guy with a feather in his hat and a frog in his throat paddle me to the railroad station. When I'm on to something — I know when I'm well off. I went the rest of the way to Berlin by train. There were so many people jammed into a six-place compartment I fancied that the train must have a terminus in Sardinia! People, mostly of the fancy-smelling peasant variety, step on you, breathe on you, sit on you. and sponge on you. When I brought out a knotted pack of Camels, all bent in the middle, I was the most popular man on the train. When the cigarettes were gone — which didn't take long — I was once more the Forgotten Man. Yessir. That train had all the comforts of hell. It was a concentration camp on wheels. I wasn't on the train five minutes before I became thoroughly conscious of being under the all-seeing eye of the Gestapo, the Ogpu, and just plain Pu-pu. Well, I'm siting there minding my own business and everybody else's when a guy came through, asked for my ticket, passport and whatnot. I complied. After scanning them he said, "Hmmm. Your name iss Norman Alley?" I nodded. "Hmmm. Den dot makes your initials N. A. Dass iss correct?" I nodded again. Then he shot his chin out at me with all the wham of a district attorney, as he pointed a warted finger at my luggage and demanded. "Veil, den — voss iss dese initials M.G.M. doing on your zuitcase " I patiently explained and, when he knew I was from Hollywood, he asked, "Do you know Marlene Dietrich?" "No"' was my honest reply. "Emil Janning?" Again I shook my head. "Neither do I!" he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Issn't it a small vorld?" I arrived in Berlin and found that the panic was on, as far as the cost of living was concerned, but with everybody expressing the fullest confidence in Der Reichfuehrer and the ultimate victory for Germany. Thev feel that they were the victims of a Mexican shuffle at Versailles and, in pursuing this war, they have