As if it had anticipated President Roosevelt's call to arms against "fifth column" activities, Hollywood already has dozens of reels ready for release as a dramatic barrage against subversion. Proof of anticipation is lacking, for the subjects were selected long before international developments reached their present stage, and many were filmed or at least begun in quieter. da; Foremost of the releases is the old "Confessions of a Nazi Spy," a bare-fisted treatment of alleged "inner workings" as revealed during New York's espionage trials. The picture ran a spotty box office course during its original release last year to a largely apathetic citizenr; With the subject in the headlines. however, Warner Bros. lost no time in re-editing, inserting footage previously deleted as too controversial, and pasting on a new ending in the expectation of a box-office rush.
Previewed also was "Four Sons," a detailed and excellent dramatization—with emphasis entirely on the human rather than the political side—of the Nazi infiltration and later conquest of Czechoslovakia.
Its heroine (Eugenie Leontovich) is a Czech mother who lost her husband in the world war and in the new crisis loses all but one of her children. This is the story, a tale of war's cruelty, and yet its implications are inescapable.
"The Mortal Storm," based on the Phyllis Bottome novel, pictures family life inside Nazi Germany, and the breakdown of family ties under the impact of Nazi ideology. This film also is completed.
"Escape" in Production The same studio, Metro, is in production on "Escape," another peek behind the scènes in Germany, based on the best-selling novel by Ethel Vance. Alla Nazimova, whose film "War Bridges" was a sensation of the Norma Shearer and Robert Taylor are the principals.
"I Married a Nazi" (Joan Bennett-Francis Lederer) is in work on the 20th Century-Fox lot, with a yarn detailing the sorry plight of an American girl who did marry one and found herself wed also to the Nazi political religion. As the story works out, the heroine escapes and the Hitler-worshipping husband falls through his own allegiance to the Nazi creed.
Paramount's projected "Birth of a Hero" deals with the siege of Warsaw, and is another of the "human" treatments of war.
Walter Wangers "Foreign Correspondent," after many production vicissitudes due to rapidly changing foreign developments, promises to! emerge finally as one of the timeliest of the timely films.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.