A huge risk at the time of its release, Confessions of a Nazi Spy is now available on Blu-ray through the Warner Archive Collection. No other studio would show guts like Warner Bros. in the late 1930s. I cannot say this enough. This is certainly something that I discuss almost every time that I write about the studio for its centennial. Germany’s LA consul, George Gyssling, wrote letters in hopes of shutting the film down.…
"Confessions of a Nazi Spy Gets Warner Archive Blu-ray"Tag: Henry O’Neill
Dodge City was one of the highest grossing films of 1939 and the fifth of eight feature films to team up Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. There is the Western genre before Stagecoach and then there is everything that came afterwards. Prior to Stagecoach, the genre was seen as a B movie. In addition to Stagecoach and Dodge City, other big Westerns of 1939 included Union Pacific and Jesse James. When studios realized what…
"Dodge City: Errol Flynn Goes West"
Sons of Liberty is an Oscar-winning short film that tells the story of Haym Salomon, the Jewish financier of the American Revolution. It’s not often that Jewish synagogues were depicted on screen during Hollywood’s early years. The founding moguls didn’t push across their religion on screen. Even in The Life of Emile Zola, a film in which antisemitism plays a strong role, they didn’t even say Jew or Jewish at any point in the film.…
"Sons of Liberty: An Oscar-Winning Short Film"
Anchors Aweigh is the first of three 1940s musical buddy comedies that pair Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra together on the screen. Kelly and Sinatra starred together in Take Me Out To The Ball Game in 1945 and then again in On the Town in 1949. Funny enough, their first and last film together see them as a pair of sailors on leave from the U.S. Navy. One is set in California while the other…
"Anchors Aweigh: Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra’s First Team-Up"
In watching Santa Fe Trail, one starts wondering if this Western was the consolation prize for Warner Bros. after losing Gone with the Wind. In the first moments after pressing play, my first question was just what the hell was Warner Bros. thinking? It’s not just the studio. Michael Curtiz is a filmmaker that is better than this pro-Confederate propaganda. Leave it to him to read into the history of the Santa Fe trail but…
"Santa Fe Trail: What Was Warner Bros. Thinking?" Confessions of a Nazi Spy was seen as a huge risk for Warner Bros. at the time because it dared speak out against Nazi Germany at the time. When Dr. Karl Kassel (Paul Lukas) makes his way to the United States, his main goal is to persuade German Americans to support the Nazi cause. Kurt Schneider (Francis Lederer), unemployed at the time, ends up joining the cause and becomes a spy. Schneider sends a letter…
"Confessions of a Nazi Spy: A Huge Risk"