The Picture Show Annual (1942)

the time and has been given an official position of importance under the Nazi regime and she put the cause of Hitler before her love for her husband. In the end she repents and is shot by the Gestapo while helping her husband to send the clarion call of Freedom through the air. The two die side by side—reunited in a love that was divided by the accursed creed of Nazism. Nor does Freedom Radio cease to function even with their death, for a young electrician (played by Derek Farr) sends out another message from Freedom Radio just as the Gestapo chief has told the public on the official wireless that Freedom Radio is dead. This film, too, is based on fact, for we all know how a secret radio was worked in Germany for so long. Here, in this particular film, you get the strongest indictments of the Civilisation s charge against Nazism. Hitler decrees that his countrymen must put him before Him, Godless- ness in front of Godliness, and that no man shall be allowed to speak his mind. If Nazism is such a cultural creed, so beneficial to the German race, why is it that it cannot stand up to criticism in its own country ? No great cause, no true belief, has ever feared criticism. One of the most terrible things in Nazism is the complete annihilation of family life as we understand it and as Germany understood it before Hitler's time. Nazism insists that obedience to the State is the beginning and end of the lives of men, women and children. A husband must put his duty to the State higher than his duty to his wife and children, and the same applies to a wife. Children are taught to spy on their parents and if they are not true Nazis to report them and have them sent to concentration camps. This is a fact that Nazism does not seek to hide but rather glorifies _it. In “The Mortal Storm" we saw this horrible system at work. The father of the family, a scholastic Professor, respected by his neighbours and adored by his family, loses caste when Hitler comes to power because he has Jewish blood in him. His stepsons, ardent Nazis, turn against him. and the poor old man is taken to a concentration camp. His wife escapes but his daughter is shot by her former fiance, a Nazi, as she is escaping across the frontier with her lover. In “ Four Sons " we get a story of the results of the Nazi annexation of Czecho- slovakia. A widow has four sons. One goes to America and remains a free man. Another joins the secret Nazi party before the annexation of his country. This son deserts the Czechoslovakian army when called up against the Germans. Another brother, very anti-Nazi, goes to fight the Huns and is heartbroken when his country gives in without a fight. He is hunted by the Nazis and when hiding in a swamp he shoots a Nazi pursuer, not knowing it is his own brother. He is then killed by the Nazis. The other son (the youngest) is conscripted later and killed while fighting for the Nazis. In “ Escape " we had the story of a world-famous actress imprisoned in a concentration camp and. sentenced to death because she had helped some of her countrymen who were anti-Nazi. She is rescued by her ron, an American citizen, but not before she has experienced such hardships that she has been at the point of death. In “ The Man I Married " we get another side of Nazi persecution. A German long resident in America, returns with his wife and child to his country. Here he becomes a convert to Nazism, 3 and Char he Lhapun as Hynkel, the two dictators oj “ The Great Dictator." Onslow Stevens and Henry Wilcoxon in " Mystery Sea Raider .” In circle : Ann Sheridan and George Brent in "Honeymoon for Three." The Marx Brothers — Harpo . Zeppo and Groucho — in " Go 1 Vest."