National Board of Review Magazine (Jan 1939 - Jan 1942)

14 National Board of Review Magazine penetrate the rest of the world if they are to survive at home. But all this gets a terrific impact when good movie-makers put it on the screen, and seeing it in the peculiarly effective form that has been used in Confessions of a Nasi Spy is like being struck a sudden and smashing blow. For the film rushes us through so many things that might have come out of the newsreels (many of them did) that wt have no time to think that the man shouting his Nazi gospel is after all only Paul Lukas, and we have entirely forgotten that the picture has a star until well along toward the middle of it we are suddenly and surprisingly confronted with Edward G. Robinson at his desk in the F.B.I. So thoroughly have the actors lost their familiar screen identities that many people will not recognize Francis Lederer at all in the petulant little egomaniac who is the weak link in the spy chain, whose fantastic plottings supplied the first clue which led the federal men to their amazing and farreaching discoveries. This novel way of creating screen reality is what gives the picture its punch, what makes those who like the film admire it so enthusiastically, and what makes those who don't Hke it angry. It's not a film to be indifferent about, and serious people may well wonder whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that such a good film on such a subject should have been made. It is obviously a hate-breeder, and wlien hate comes in it is hard to argue calmly. It does no good to say that the Germans in tlie film are by no means all detestable monsters, when the horribleness of the Nazi agents (none of them so horrible, by the way, as many a Nazi face we see constantly in the newspapers and newsreels) makes us forget entirely the far more numerous people who are simply and inconspicuously the kind of likeable Germans we are accustomed to, like the ship captain and ship engineer, or the returning tourist. It does no good to point out that it is fanatical Nazism which is the villain of the piece, not the whole German race. If it stirs up hatred it stirs up hatred, and there is only the cpiestion, aren't there some things that should be hated ? In behalf of our own institutions, and just as much in behalf of folks like that scared little man whose agonized cries not to be sent back to Germany are one of the most terrifying things in the film. Or are we to be blandly goodnatured about aggressive groups that drape the American flag and the swastika together, and wait till their "Heil Hitlers" mean something more dangerous than telling Herr Goebbels how many soldiers are in the army hospitals of the New York area? The film ends, rather complacently, on just that note, with the implication that when there is real danger we shall handle it easily enough. That, however, is not the impression the whole film leaves, nothing nearly so mild as that. Tucked in between the more positive perils of Nazi penetration are hints of the equal peril of easy-goingness and indifference. The film does cover a lot of ground, in one way and another, with devastating competence. x\nd it is Hollywood's first effective example of a kind of movie that the dictators have known the value of for some time in shaping the thoughts and feelings of their own people. If it shocks anybody into an unaccustomed violence of emotion, who was it (as Otis Ferguson has suggested so pertinently) that started this hate business? Not, obviously, the Warner Brothers. Rated Exceptioval . J.S.H. Juarez ScreenpJ.ay hy John Huston, Wolfgang Reinhardt and Aeneas MacKenzie. based on '^MaxmiUan and Juarez." play by Franz Werfel. and "The Phantom Crown." novel by Bertita Harding, directed by William Dieterle. photographed by Tony Gaudlo. musical score by Erich WO'lfgang Korngold. Produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The Cast Benito Juarez Paul Muni Maximilian Brian Aherne Carlotta Bette Davis Porfirio Diaz John Garfield Alejandro Uradi Joseph Calleia Napoleon III Claude Rains Eugenie Gale Sondergaard Marechale Bazaine Donald Crisp Col. Miguel Lopez Gilbert Roland Miguel Miramon Henry O'Neill Riva Palacio Pedro de Cordoba Jose de Montares Montagu Love Dr. Samuel Basch Harry Davenport WHEN a moATe so sincere and handsome and expensive as Juarez comes along, done with such patent good intentions and good taste, it is disappointing not to be able to burst into involuntary and unreserved applause. There is so