Pastor Hall
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Roy Boulting
Nova Pilbeam
Sir Seymour Hicks
Wilfrid Lawson
Marius Goring
Brian Worth
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
The advent of Nazi rule brings many drastic changes to Pastor Hall's peaceful community of Altdorf, Germany. At first, the pastor tries to cooperate with the arriving storm troopers, who have been commissioned to train the village folk about Nazi policy. He first incurs the displeasure of commander Fritz Gerte by declining to supply the names of Jews, Catholics and other residents of the community sought for discipline, and later by protesting the wrecking of shops owned by a man whose grandmother was a Jew, and by conducting a burial service for a townsman executed as a traitor. Soon many of his friends, swayed by Nazi propaganda, turn on the pastor and his daughter Christie. The commander restrains his men from taking action against the pastor, but tells Christine about the evidence against her father and promises to spare him if she will yield to him. She refuses, and the pastor is sent to a concentration camp, where he suffers lashings and beatings until the storm trooper, to whom Christine has promised to submit herself in exchange for her father's release, comes to tell him he is free to go if he will sign a pledge to preach no more against the regime. The pastor refuses and tries to rally the prisoners to resistance by his eloquence. For his efforts, he is sentenced to twenty-five lashes every morning. The pastor's escape is finally arranged by Christine and a friendly guard, after which Christine tries to persuade him to leave for America. The pastor returns instead to his pulpit to preach a final sermon while the troopers wait outside with guns ready to kill him.
Director
Roy Boulting
Cast
Nova Pilbeam
Sir Seymour Hicks
Wilfrid Lawson
Marius Goring
Brian Worth
Percy Walsh
Lina Barrie
Eliot Makeham
Peter Cotes
Edmund Willard
Hay Petrie
Bernard Miles
J. Fisher White
Barbara Gott
Crew
Mack Adams
Leslie Arliss
Clifford Booth
John Boulting
John Boulting
Roy Boulting
Roy Boulting
Haworth Bromley
James Carter
Cecil Cooney
Geoffrey Gabriel
Mutz Greenbaum
Pauline Hansford
Jack Harris
Jim Hyde
Harold King
Miles Malcolm
Anna Reiner
James Roosevelt
Peter De Sarigny
George Turner
Maurice J. Wilson
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Oh you're a stormtrooper now, are you?- Pastor Frederick Hall
Well, it's a job, Herr Pastor. I've been out of work so long.- Heinrich Degan
Trivia
This film was officially banned in Chicago by the city's police censor board, which deemed it "exceedingly controversial."
Notes
According to a news item in Hollywood Reporter, Ernest Toller's play was based on the experiences of Bishop Martin Niemoller, a German Protestant leader and member of the anti-Nazi movement. Another item in Hollywood Reporter adds that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain insisted that all references to Hitler and Germany be deleted before the play was produced. When Britain entered the war, however, these restrictions were lifted, and Charter Films then produced the film. According to the Variety reviews, this picture was originally to have been released in the U.S. by Grand National. Grand National owned the rights to the film, while Charter Films owned the rights to the story, and consequently, there was a fight over the rights to the film. According to a news item in Hollywood Reporter, this was complicated by the fact that the estate of the late playwright claimed that it owned the rights to the property. The film was finally picked up by James Roosevelt of United Artists, who added a prologue to the film delivered by his mother, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and written by Robert E. Sherwood. According to the MPAA/PCA files, United Artists was at first reluctant to distribute the film because they viewed it as British propaganda. The Motion Picture Herald review lists Cecil Cooney as the film's photographer, although his name is not mentioned in any other sources. Another news item in Hollywood Reporter adds that the picture was banned in Chicago because of protests by German and Italian organizations.
