Director: William Dieterle
Year: 1938
Rating: 7.5
The film Blockade from 1938 is more interesting
for the politics around it than for the film itself which some 78 years later
feels very antiquated, theatrical, stilted and didactic. It was unusual for
Hollywood of the 1930’s to be political when it came to events that were
going on in Europe due to the potential loss of profits if the film was banned
and also because of the power of the Isolationist lobby back home. Blockade
broke all the rules as it tells the story of a Republican territory holding
out against the Nationalists under Franco. In it Henry Fonda plays a simple
peasant who takes up arms to defend his land against the Nationalists and
Madeline Carroll (39 Steps) is a spy for the other side. Naturally they fall
in love. The Nationalists have enforced a blockade and the people are starving.
There is no doubt which side the filmmakers are on as the film goes from
speech to speech and hungry face to hungry face. One of the great independent
producers of that time, Walter Wanger had this to say when told that making
such a controversial film would lose money "Not only do we meekly take intimidation
from abroad, but we jump obediently when almost anybody in this country says,
'Frog!' It's ridiculous, and I, for one, don't intend to continue. I'm going
to release this Spanish picture as is, and if it's banned in Europe, I'll
have to take my loss." Now the film never explicitly identifies either side
but there isn’t a bit of doubt who the bad guys are.
The scriptwriter was John Howard Lawson, one of the openly Communist writers
in Hollywood at the time and he throws a lot of the political jargon in this
film in the mouth of Fonda. Later he was to be one of the Hollywood Ten and
was blacklisted after the war. Some of his other screen credits are Algiers,
Sahara and after being blacklisted Cry, the Beloved Country under an alias.
Director William Dieterle didn’t fare much better. After a very successful
career, he was as he said “gray listed” because of his involvement with Blockade
and after the House UnAmerican Committee (HUAC) hearings the job offerings
slowed down and he was forced to move back to the country of his birth Germany
to get work. Rather ironical isn't it. Going to Germany to be free to do
his work.
I wish I could say it was a better film, but it is not that good. Still Henry
Fonda gets to give a speech at the end of the film that was perhaps an audition
for Grapes of Wrath two years later. Sadly in 1939 the Republicans were to
be defeated by the Fascists. Over 30,000 Republicans were executed.
