Frame from movie trailerMargaret Sullavan in The Mortal Stormtheatrical trailerDan Dailey and James Stewart in the trailerMargaret Sullavan in the trailerOriginal theatrical trailer
In the mountains of Germany near the Austrian border on January 30, 1933, Professor Viktor Roth, a distinguished "non-Aryan" professor who is adored by his students, celebrates his 60th birthday. His family consists of his wife Amelie, his daughter Freya, his young son Rudi and his adult stepsons Erich and Otto von Rohn. His class greets him with applause and a trophy presented by Martin Breitner and Fritz Marberg. The professor is proud of his family's "tolerance and sense of humor."
Suddenly, everything changes. The maid brings wonderful news: Adolf Hitler has become chancellor of Germany. Listening to the radio. Amelie worries about what will happen to free thinkers and non-Aryans.[3] The ecstatic young men leave for a meeting, but Martin demurs.
Martin, Fritz, and Freya meet at an inn, where Professor Werner is bullied by a gang for not singing along with the "Horst Wessel Song." Martin interferes and the bullies allow Werner to leave. Fritz delivers Martin an ultimatum: join the party or be wiped out with other "pacifist vermin," but Martin refuses. Outside, the gang is beating Werner. On the train ride home, Fritz criticizes Freya for behavior unbecoming the daughter of a "non-Aryan."
Professor Roth refuses to teach the doctrine of racial purity, and his classes are boycotted. Students, who are now all in uniform, rally to burn banned books.
When Martin brings Freya home, the waiting gang assaults him. Mrs. Roth intervenes, admonishing her sons, who move out of their home. Weeks later, Freya comes to Martin's mountain farm. She wants him to meet their friends at the inn. He confesses his love to her. Professor Werner appears, begging for help because he is soon to be arrested. That night, Martin takes him on skis through a secret pass to Austria while the women successfully resist police attempts to intimidate them.
Professor Roth is arrested and Freya begs Fritz to learn where the professor has been taken. Fritz reluctantly arranges a brief meeting between Viktor and his wife at the concentration camp where he is imprisoned. Viktor urges her to leave the country with Freya and Rudi.
Otto comes home with news that the professor has died, supposedly from a heart attack, but Freya believes that he was killed.
At the border, Freya is detained for carrying her father's unpublished manuscript. Martin's mother writes to tell Freya that Martin is waiting at the farm to take her to Austria. Martin and Freya drink from the bride cup, with Hilda's blessing. Elsewhere, the Nazis beat Elsa until she reveals the pass. A Gestapo officer testing Fritz's loyalty makes him leader of the ski patrol. Fritz orders them to fire at Martin and Freya as they attempt to ski to safety. Freya dies in Martin's arms in Austria.
In the Roths' home, Fritz tells Erich and Otto of Freya's death and flees, crying, "It was my duty!" Erich is furious that Martin is free and storms out of the house. Before Otto leaves, he recalls in his mind some conversations that had taken place there—some, words by his father. Over celestial music, a man speaks: "I said to a man who stood at a gate, Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied, Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, and safer than a known way."
The film is based on the 1937 novel The Mortal Storm[5] by the British writer Phyllis Bottome, who had moved to Austria in 1924 when her husband Alban Ernan Forbes Dennis was posted there. Dennis was a British diplomat and a MI6 station head with responsibility for Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia. In 1930, she moved to Munich. She witnessed the rise of fascism, the rise to power of the Nazi party and the transformation of Nazi Germany.
The film's script diverged considerably from the story told in the book, but Bottome felt that the film retained the book's essence. However, Bottome wrote: "What it is to be a Nazi has been shown with unequivocal sincerity and life-likeness, but in the scene between the Jewish professor and his son, Rudi, there was a watering down of courage. Those familiar with the father’s definition of a good Jew will miss its full significance in the film because the central idea has been overlaid by insignificant words."[6]
The Mortal Storm was one of the few directly anti-NaziHollywood films released before the American entry into World War II in December 1941. The Freya Roth character is the daughter of a Junker mother and a "non-Aryan" father. It is implied that Freya, her father and Rudi are Jews, but the word "Jew" is never actually used, and they are identified as "non-Aryans." However, in the scene where professor Roth is visited by his wife in the concentration camp, the sleeves of his shirt bear the large letter J (possibly to represent the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear on their clothing). Erich and Otto von Rohn are not "non-Aryan," but they must fear guilt by association. The film infuriated the Nazi government; as a result, all MGM films were subsequently banned in Germany[citation needed].
The score by award-winning composer Bronislau Kaper and by Eugene Zador was credited to the pseudonym of Edward Kane. MGM paid $250 for the rights to the "Horst Wessel Song" for use in the 1938 film Three Comrades. However, with the World War II underway in 1940, the German publisher demanded script approval in return for usage of the song.[8] MGM ignored the request, and had Zador simply arrange the "Horst Wessel Lied" with English lyrics by Earl Brent. The English version of the song was titled "Close Up The Ranks".[9]
The film concludes with an excerpt from the poem "The Gate of the Year," which King George VI made famous when he quoted it during his Christmas 1939 radio broadcast.
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times calls The Mortal Storm "magnificently directed and acted ... a passionate drama, struck out of the deepest tragedy, which is comforting at this time only in its exposition of heroic stoicism."[10] Howard Barnes' review in the New York Herald Tribune laments that Europe was at war by the time of the film's release: "Less than a year ago, it would have had far more dramatic and emotional impact than it has at this time. ... It is not MGM's fault, but the timing on the making of The Mortal Storm has been extremely bad."[11]
A review in Variety states: "It is not the first of the anti-Nazi pictures, but it is the most effective film exposé to date of the totalitarian idea, a slugging indictment of the political and social theories advanced by Hitler. ... Performances are excellent."[1]Harrison's Reports writes: "This is the most powerful anti-Nazi picture yet produced. It excels in every department—that of acting, direction, production and photography."[2]Film Daily writes: "Because of its virulent exposition of Nazi methods, this film must be seen by every American ... Magnificently directed by Frank Borzage, pulsating with dramatic power, and played up to the hilt by a transcendingly skillful cast, it will electrify audiences wherever it is shown."[12]John Mosher of The New Yorker praises the film's story for being presented "without any theatrical nonsense" and adds, "What is outstanding about Frank Borzage's direction is its restraint. The cruel story is told without any of the highlights of horror. We feel that what lies behind is worse than what we are shown."[13]
The Mortal Storm ranks tenth on Film Daily's year-end nationwide poll of 546 critics naming the best films of 1940.[14]
The film holds a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 11 reviews.[15]
Margaret Brooke Sullavan was an American stage and film actress.
Three Comrades is a 1938 American drama film directed by Frank Borzage and produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for MGM. The screenplay is by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Edward E. Paramore Jr., and was adapted from the novel Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque.
Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor. He was the first person to win the Academy Award for Best Director for his film 7th Heaven (1927) at the 1st Academy Awards.
Maria Alekseyevna Ouspenskaya was a Russian actress and acting teacher. She achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an older woman in Hollywood films. She was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Dodsworth (1936) and Love Affair (1939).
Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a German film actor who appeared in over 100 films between 1926 and 1993. He is one of the most famous and popular German actors of the 20th century, and is considered a German film legend. Rühmann is best known for playing the part of a comic ordinary citizen in film comedies such as Three from the Filling Station and The Punch Bowl. During his later years, he was also a respected character actor in films such as The Captain from Köpenick and It Happened in Broad Daylight. His only English-speaking movie was the 1965 Ship of Fools.
Phyllis Forbes Dennis was a British novelist and short story writer.
George Froeschel was an Austrian novelist and screenwriter. In 1943, he received two Academy Award nominations for co-writing screenplays for Mrs. Miniver and Random Harvest. He won the Academy Award for Mrs. Miniver.
The Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund was the largest and the most active antisemitic federation in Germany after the First World War, and an organisation that formed a significant part of the völkisch movement during the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), whose democratic parliamentary system it unilaterally rejected. Its publishing arm issued books that greatly influenced the opinions of Nazi Party leaders such as Heinrich Himmler. After the organisation folded in around 1924, many of its members eventually joined the Nazis.
Paul Hörbiger was an Austrian theatre and film actor.
Viktor de Kowa was a German stage and film actor, chanson singer, director, narrator, and comic poet.
The term state actor has had different meanings in recent German history. In Nazi Germany, it was the highest title that could be awarded to a stage actor. Since 1945, the meaning has changed. In Baden-Württemberg, it is no longer simply a title of honor, but an official position.
Duel with Death is a 1949 Austrian war drama film directed by Paul May and starring Rolf von Nauckhoff, Annelies Reinhold, and Fritz Hinz-Fabricius. The film portrays the Austrian resistance to Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
I Am Sebastian Ott is a 1939 German crime film directed by Willi Forst and starring Forst, Gustav Diessl and Trude Marlen. Some of the film was shot by the assistant director Viktor Becker. It was shot partly at the Sievering Studios in Vienna. It premiered at the Gloria-Palast in Berlin shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. The film's sets were designed by the art director Kurt Herlth and Werner Schlichting. The plot revolves around art fraud with Forst playing the dual role of twins, one honest and the other corrupt.
Hotel Sacher is a 1939 German drama film directed by Erich Engel and starring Sybille Schmitz, Willy Birgel, and Wolf Albach-Retty.
Rudolf Gelbard was an Austrian Holocaust survivor and political campaigner against anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism. He lectured in schools and universities about his experiences during the Holocaust, and also appeared in a 2007 documentary film about his experiences.
The Mortal Storm is a 1937 novel by the British writer Phyllis Bottome. An anti-Nazi novel, it depicts the impact of Adolf Hitler's regime on a German family, and their conversion to resistance against the Third Reich.
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