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Confessions of a Nazi Spy Overview:

Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) was a Drama - Black-and-white Film directed by Anatole Litvak and produced by Hal B. Wallis, Jack L. Warner and Robert Lord.

SYNOPSIS

Using the style of a wartime propaganda film, this pseudo-documentary is based on evidence presented by former G-men during the 1938 spy trials that resulted in the conviction of four persons. The film presents the belief that German leaders used German-American rallies and other tactics to unravel democracy. Along with the staged action, the film uses newsreel shots of Hitler and a commentator's voiceover to add to its authenticity.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Confessions of a Nazi Spy BlogHub Articles:

Watching 1939: Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)

on Aug 29, 2019 From Comet Over Hollywood

rue events with a spy ring based in New York and the 1938 trial that followed, the Guenther Gustave Rumrich Spy Case in 1938.In 2011, I announced I was trying to see every film released in 1939. This new series chronicles films released in 1939 as I watch them. As we start out this blog feature, th... Read full article

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Confessions of a Nazi Spy Quotes:

Edward 'Ed' Renard: I told you I thought this man is an amateur. If he is, why did he become a spy? Well, because he's been listening to speeches, and reading pamphlets about Nazi Germany and believing them. Unfortunately, there are thousands like him in America. Half-witted, hysterical crackpots who go "Hitler-happy" from overindulgence in propaganda that makes them believe that they're supermen.
Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels: There will be slight change in our methods. From now on, National Socialism in the United States must wrap itself in the American flag. It must appear to be a defense of Americanism. But at the same time, our aim must always be to discredit conditions there in the United Sates. And in this way make life in Germany admired and wished for. Racial and religious hatred must be fostered on the basis of American-Aryanism. Classism must be encouraged in a way that the labor and the middle classes will become confused and antagonistic. In the ensuing chaos, we will be able to take control.
Edward 'Ed' Renard: [to Schneider] Don't worry. There's no third-degree with the Federal bureau of Investigation.
[last lines]
[Kellogg and Renard hear remarks about the spy case by diners at a lunch counter]
U.S. Atty. Kellogg: The voice of the people.
Edward 'Ed' Renard: Thank God for such people.
U.S. Atty. Kellogg: Yes, thank God.
Edward 'Ed' Renard: Funny thing working on a case like this for so long. Something like spending a great deal of time going through a madhouse. You see these Nazis operating here, and you think of all those in Germany, you can't help feeling somehow that they're, well, absolutely insane.
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Confessions of a Nazi Spy Facts
According to the article "Hollywood Goes to War" by Colin Shindler in the film history tome "The Movie", "Warner Brothers, who had made the one explicitly anti-Nazi film of the US pre-war period (1939, "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" were unofficially told by the US government not to make any more such pictures. In April 1940 the news filtered back to Hollywood that several Polish exhibitors who had shown "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" had been hanged in the foyers of their own cinemas."
Warner Bros. increased security throughout the production and some actors slept on the Warners lot. Sabotage was suspected when a boom holding one of the cameras collapsed, narrowly missing director Anatole Litvak.
Some well-known actors (including Anna Sten and Marlene Dietrich) refused to be in the movie fearing reprisals against relatives living in Europe. Many who did appear changed their names for the same reason, accounting for large number of aka's in the cast list.
This was the first major Hollywood film with the word "Nazi" in the title (though it appears Inside Nazi Germany was actually the first, this was a short and not a major feature). A number of American movies and documentaries in the 1940s would follow with the word "Nazi" in their title, among them Nazi Agent ; The Nazis Strike; The Story of One of Hitlers Children as Adapted from: Education for Death - The Making of the Nazi (USA) See: Education for Death; Nazi Concentration Camps; Nazi Spy Ring (aka The Dawn Express); and The Nazi Plan. A number of these titles mentioned were also spy melodramas.
The movie is based on an actual spy-ring trial in New York in 1938, which convicted four individuals of spying for the German government.
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