Wednesday, March 6, 2013

He who will not be named

In the Wall Street Journal even, Otto Katz gets no mention in an article by A.J. Goldman about the German filmmaker diaspora of the 1930s;
Directors who fled Germany also helped introduce themes of social justice to American cinema. For example, Lang's first Hollywood film, "Fury," also on the program, takes aim at small-town vigilante justice. "These directors started to bring questions about how American society works, and I think it made American society healthier for it," Mr. Kardish said.
There could be another (and more accurate) description than 'social justice'; Communist propaganda.  Lang himself was a close friend of Otto and Ilse Katz and excerpts from a letter about the premiere of Fury, from Ilse to Lang, can be read in the pages of  The Dangerous Otto Katz.

The Katzes were friends with many of Hollywood's German expats, including Billy Wilder, Bertold Brecht, and Marlene Dietrich.  Not all of whom subscribed to Katz's communist ideology, but many did and  allowed themselves to be used by him to insert propaganda about 'how American society works' into their films.

But American was not 'healthier for it', as the House Committee on American Activities eventually exposed in their hearings in 1947.  Now there's a story Hollywood will never get around to dramatizing.

No comments:

Post a Comment