I Was a Captive of Nazi Germany

This film is a dramatization of Isobel Lillian Steele's imprisonment in Alexanderplatz and Moabit prisons in Berlin, Germany in late 1934 on charges of espionage and treason. The Canadian-born Steele was a music student and one-time foreign correspondent for the magazine Germany and You. When Steele returned to America, she made herself accessible to the press and wrote many articles and one book of memoirs (bearing the same title as the film) on her experiences in Nazi Germany. At one point in the film, the narrator refers to German scribblings on a cell wall that warn "Der Fuehrer" that for every prisoner there exists a hundred in opposition to him who remain free. The cast and crew for this film wished to remain anonymous and are not listed in any reviews. The foreword to the film states that the names have been changed. Malvina Pictures, created to produce this film, derives its name from that of the yarn doll that comforted Steele during her imprisonment.
       According to Motion Picture Herald on July 25, 1936, Malvina president Alfred T. Mannon was at one time the president and treasurer of Republic Pictures Corp. He was later supervisor of production for Van Beuren Corporation, then went on to produce several features for independent distribution before making this film. The New York Times speculates that the filmmakers chose anonymity for fear of "Hitler's retaliation." An article in Motion Picture Herald dated July 25, 1936 outlines the efforts of German Consul at Los Angeles, George Gyssling, to stop the making of this film. Motion Picture Herald reports that according to Mannon, Gyssling summoned cast members (who were chosen for their Teutonic nationality and in several cases were German citizens) to the Consulate, where they were personally informed by Gyssling of possible consequences of participating in this production. Some of the actors, Mannon says, quit the cast, while others agreed to appear in the film on the condition that their names not appear in the billing. Steele and Mannon remained unintimidated, however, and, as production continued, Gyssling sent Steele a copy of the German decree pertaining to films "detrimental to German prestige." Gyssling also made a formal protest to the Hays Office to stop this film from being completed, but it was finished in March 1936. According to files in the MPAA/PCA Collection at the AMPAS Library, Gyssling also recommended a withdrawal of this film from possible review by the Hays Office on the grounds that it did not fairly represent the German government and its people. Joseph I. Breen, Hays Office director, wrote to Mannon on July 22, 1936 informing him of the protest and recommended himself that Mannon withdraw his application for approval of the film on the grounds of Gyssling's protest, adding that the Production Code stipulates that "the history, institutions, prominent people and citizenry of other nations shall be represented fairly."
       Mannon replied to Breen on 29 July with a lengthy protest of his own which states, "I am informed by competent authority that the German Consul exceeds his authority when he protests to your organization about the subject matter of pictures or the conduct of private individuals or firms in connection with a picture to be exhibited in the United States. The withdrawal of our application on account of this protest would be an admission on our part that the picture does not fairly represent Germany and its people. To my knowledge, the Consul of Germany at Los Angeles, or any other representative of the German government, has not screened the picture. In the picture, I was particularly careful not to depict political incidents that did not actually happen and have supported Miss Steele's personal knowledge of these incidents with headlines from the "New York Times" and other back numbers of newspapers. In fact the inserts in the picture are actual photographs of back numbers of newspapers. In depicting prominent people, we have cast no negative reflection upon them. We have shown the citizenry as a wholesome people. In the prison and examination scenes, we have shown no brutality. If the present regime in Germany did not win its popularity by inspiring the youth of Germany, if there was no Boycott of the Jews, if the Blood Purge and the burning of the books did not happen, if Minister of Propaganda Herr Goebbels did not suppress Herr Von Papen's speech on the necessity of the free press, if Isobel Steele was not arrested and charged with high treason, espionage and held for four months in solitary confinement at the Alexander Platz and Moabit prisons in Berlin, subjected to rigid cross examination and then deported without trial only after the United States Department of State demanded that she be given an immediate trial or freed, then the picture is unfair to the German Government."
       Soon after receipt of Mannon's letter, the Hays Office gave this film a Code seal for "technical conformity to the Production Code," not, it said, because it agreed with the film. The preview was reviewed in Motion Picture Daily on August 5, 1936 without a Code seal at a length of 89 minutes. As reported in Motion Picture Herald, the film was scheduled to be distributed on a roadshow basis with a New York and Chicago release. It was passed by the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio censors without eliminations, but, according to Motion Picture Herald, a Chicago opening was complicated by the Chicago censor board's refusal to issue a permit for exhibition. Motion Picture Herald quotes "wartime Mayor (Big Bill the Builder) Thompson's" description of Chicago as "the sixth German city" and reports that the censor board feared that the film might cause resident Germans to initiate a demonstration against the film's exhibition. In its review of the film, the New York Times states: "the picture is less an exposé of Nazi persecution than a mirror for Miss Steele's rather amazing unsophistication....A dupe of an obvious spy ring and an equally obvious Communist agitator, [Steele] plunged blindly into an elephant trap and when caught proclaimed that she was an American citizen." The reviewer goes on to quote the old saying, "when in Rome, don't laugh at Caesar," admitting he found himself "unable to sympathize unduly with Miss Steele for her treatment at Nazi hands." He says the film "falls into the common error of propaganda plays: that of making the enemy appear ridiculously black. There is too much need of a righteous denunciation of stupid despotism, bigotry and narrow nationalism to entrust the attack to amateurs and the issue to an Isobel Steele's resentment at an understandable, if undeserved, imprisonment." Motion Picture Herald classifies this film as "political preachment," and states that Steele puts across the idea that "Hitler's treatment of everybody is pretty bad but his treatment of the Jews is much worse." The reviewer later says that the film "factual or not...is a gaudy, underdone and ineffective attack on the Hitler government [and] compares unfavorably with most temperate utterances of the daily press and nightly radio on the same subject." William E. Borah was a U.S. Senator from 1907-1940 and served as chairman on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1924 through 1940. An advertisement in AMPAS files announces the screening of this film, which was banned by censors, for the first time in England on Friday 15 Sep. The year is uncertain, but the date and weekday suggest that it was 1939.