Motion Picture Herald (Jul-Aug 1936)

August 8, 1936 MOTION PICTURE HERALD 57 AMERICANS FILMING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR, DESPITE RIGID BAN Firsthand Shots of Battle Scenes Arrive from Within Rebel and Loyalist Lines; Film Smuggled Across Border Not all the shooting' these days in strifetorn Spain is being done by the rebels and the Loyalists of the Red Spanish Government. Proceeding quietly and very much under cover, scarcely a dozen in their ranks, are the American newsreel cameramen who, despite as rigid war-time censorship as ever has been imposed upon newsreel or newspaper photographers, are grinding cautiously in the night and from points out of sight in the daylight. The Spanish revolution was more than two weeks old before the American newsreel home offices in New York were aware that their men were even on the battlefronts. Disrupted communications and drastic censorship had led the managements on Broadway to believe there would be little if any pictorial record of the war available for American theatres. Now negatives in the can and carefully-worded cables are beginning to get through the lines, and already firsthand shots of the fray are in this country, but not without the continued possibilities of casualties to men and equipment. The American newsreel cameramen today are with the rebel army at Burgos, recording the activities of the Fascist insurgents while they are asserting that "the beginning of the end" of Spain's rebellion has come, as deserters from the loyal forces are entering the Rightist lines at Buitrago, 40 miles north of Madrid. The cameramen are in Madrid, too, filming the Loyalist movements, and at La Zaida, 30 miles southeast of Saragossa, amid the changing scene of capture and recapture. The American newsreel men will ignore Secretary of State Hull's blunt warning to United States nationals that they remain in Spain at their own peril. First Shots Arrive The first newsreel scenes to reach New York, last Friday, were more of "academic" nature than of action. It still was too early to determine the quality of the pictures now being smuggled across the border, nor could the managements determine how far away their cameramen were from the "closeup" scenes of action. Pierre Luck, first newsreel cameraman for Fox Movietone in revolt-torn Spain, cabled to Truman Talley, general manager, in New York a vivid description of the trek of luckless natives in one Spanish village to and from their homes to avoid the gunfire of opposing forces. Mr. Luck had reached the front lines of rebel forces near the town of Vera only by exposing himself to snipers who lined his route as the rebels advanced on San Sebastian. Mountain Warfare "I saw scenes of mountain warfare which, for hardships imposed on the troops, were almost unbelievable," Mr. Luck said in his message, relayed to Mr. Talley by Associated Press. Mr. Talley expects to find much of the BULLETIN "You may assure the Motion Picture Herald there will be no socialization nor confiscation of American representation in the film group here," Jose Carner Ribalt, newly appointed Comisario de Espectaculos Publicos de Catalunya, told me today," Harry Chapin Plummer, Herald representative in Barelona, cabled New York at press time. "We propose to rebuild on the old structure, not to tear it down," the new commissioner said. "There will be regulation and intervention in the sense that the Interstate Commerce Commission regulates American railways, and undoubtedly there will be also the establishment of quotas and the enactment of contingent laws will follow as in other countries. As to the native Spanish industry, the position of the producing companies is bad, as their backers under the old regime have fled, leaving them virtually bankrupt, and certain studios, like the theatres, may be made cooperative units in which the proprietors, impresarios and employees will share the production and profit, with the government providing all the legal support and, where necessary, subvention. But no socialization and no confiscation. "Production of the American group may prove the solution of the frozen money situation." The Federacion Regional de Espectaculos Publicos was formed to amalgamate the labor groups of exhibition, distribution and production. fighting recorded in Mr. Luck's next batch of negative. "Starting at Lesaca," Cameraman Luck continued, "I went horseback over the mountains with a native guide. We jogged for five hours before reaching Oyardun, where Colonel Beorlegui commands a column of 3,500 men, mostly Carlist volunteers. "From the hills surrounding Oyardun the troops looked down on San Sebastian, about eight and one-half miles away. In front of the Fascists, stretching around to Enderlaza, on the right, were government forces trying desperately to cut off the Colonel's troops from communication with Pamplona." Mr. Luck, for obvious reasons, made no mention of his camera. Mr. Luck reported to Mr. Talley that the rebel commander. Colonel Beorlegui, boasted he could "take San Sebastan easily with a loss of perhaps 500 men, but I have been held back by orders from Pamplona. I could at any moment blow up the important railroad bridge between Irun and San Sebastian and wreck the armored trains used by the government to maintain communication between these two points." And there Mr. Luck has his camera poised, in action. Luck dined in Oyardun with rebel officers, including two priests wearing uniforms. Dur Cameras Confiscated, Film Hidden Under Coat; Several Cameramen Jailed; Plane Chartered Outside Madrid ing dinner, information trickled in that the town was to be attacked. Bugles sounded a warning for evacuation. Not only civilians but soldiers streamed into the hills. Mr. Luck went with them. Rebel officers later explained to the cameraman that the strategy was to evacuate, let the government's loyal troops come in, and then recapture the town. "If you find on developing that the negative quality is not up to standard please take into consideration that a good deal of it was shot under danger of life," said the information sheet accompanying the pictures received from Mr. Luck. With him were Editor Hans Mandl, Cameramen Prieto, Alonzo and Palaccio, and two sound engineers were also in contact with him. Movietone News last Friday released a national "special" to all of its American accounts on the film sent it by its Spanish representatives. Mr. Talley claimed that these were the first pictures of the sanguinary civil war to be shown on American theatre screens. The negative was brought to New York on the SS Bremen, which arrived shortly after noon Friday. Mr. Talley said he was informed from Europe by Russell Muth, Movietone's European director, that Fox newsreel had scored a beat in every nation in Europe with the revolt pictures. Special prints from New York are now on wing to South America and the Orient. Movietone's first pictures, of Madrid in the midst of the struggle, were flown secretly from outside that city to Paris in a chartered plane. Incidentally, Mr. Luck had been the sole Movietone representative in Madrid in the almost bloodless revolution that ousted King Alfonso. He was decorated by the successful revolutionists at that time. Further, he had just returned to Spain from Ethiopia, the last member of the Movietone expedition that covered the Italian conquest to leave Africa. Reading between the lines of the information sheets coming through to all newsreel headquarters in New York with the film from Spain, there is evidence that every time a crew ventures out to make pictures the men's lives are ventured also. Stray bullets are commonplace when a nation is torn by civil strife, and hot-headed commanders, sullen in defeat or flushed by triumph, are wont to regard cameramen as enemy spies or as persons on whom to vent spleen or newly acquired power. The "dope" sheets of the second batch of film which arrived on the SS Normandie on Monday were full of such suggestions. Fox's Cameraman Prieto, who to date has made most of the Fox pictures showing the Fascists in action, wrote : "Had to leave this division after it left Burgos (sleepy cathedral town of Northern Spain). They are all youngsters, between 15 and 20 years old, with the exception of a few officers, and they are going up to the Guadarrama mountains for a major engagement with the government forces. One of the commanders told me that to proceed any further with them would be to invite a taste of trouble. The (Continued on following pane)