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BEFORE THE STORM 489
No wonder that the gamut of the screen was being so greatly expanded. Never before had an art form acquired such a range of techniques in one man's lifetime.
With the invasion of Poland in 1939, the Foreign Department suddenly claimed my closest attention. When I think back, I can feel again the gradually mounting tension. Every month brought news of some fresh difficulty abroad or a new crisis to face. But few things have ever done more to bind the industry into a co-operating unit or to force it to greater resourcefulness.
I have already noted that the United States put practically no obstacles in the way of foreign films entering our country. In 1938 we figured out that our domestic market for foreign films had trebled in three years: there were upward of two hundred theatres in eighty-four cities showing the pictures of other countries. One Newark theatre was proud to tell us in 1938 that in a recent four-week period it had played films of eight different nations! Of course there were instances in which a state or a city banned the showing of a particular foreign picture. Such cases usually remained local affairs and not our direct concern, though undoubtedly the Association was often blamed. About this time both Spanish and German 'political" films were attacked in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Early in 1937, New Brunswick, New Jersey, had barred the showing of Spain in Flames as Red propaganda. In Pennsylvania, where Spain in Flames was banned by the State Censor Board, the North American Committee for Spanish Democracy threatened to carry the fight to the courts.
A case which at this distance looks slightly ironical, though at the time serious enough, was one in which the Police Censor Board of Chicago barred a March of Time film entitled Inside Nazi Germany. The Board explained that they imposed the ban because of the film's "propaganda opposing the policies of the Nazi Government in Germany," further explaining: "We rejected it because this country is on friendly diplomatic terms with Germany." The Police Board had certainly not had our experiences in dealing with Hitler and the Nazis since 1933! And they seemed to make no distinction between reporting and "propaganda." A few days later, however, the Chicago ban was lifted.
Even before the war brought serious physical problems, international politics and two major streams of ideology were confusing censors and exhibitors. Red Russia was not sending out as many films as was Germany, but they raised serious issues. Our people saw things on the screen they had certainly never seen in America, and they wondered how the "ideologies" of nations could differ so violently. They gradually became aware of the menace of Communism, as they were already aware of the mad dictatorship of Hitler.