WEBVTT - Part One: How Hollywood Helped The Nazis 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:08.360 M Hey everybody, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:10.399 again Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:12.800 everything you don't know about the very worst people in 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.440 all of history. Now, this is a show where I 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.640 read a story about someone or someone's terrible from from 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.520 history to a guest who is coming in cold. And 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:26.040 my guest today is the inimitable Daniel van Kirk. Hello, Daniel. 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.320 You are a comedian. You are a writer, host of 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.600 Dumb People, Town, Hindsight, pen Pals, three great podcasts than you, 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.000 and I'm gonna guess you can throw a pretty good 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.960 punch because you look kind of yoked. I just think 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:43.760 the listeners should know that. Thanks. It's all I'm going 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.159 for is yoked. I am working towards that being my 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.400 only introduction. Alright, this next guy is Yokes. Please welcome 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.880 to the Yokes as Hell. Just saw him on the 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:56.520 street and brought him into the podcast. I am going 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.320 to fight that rule that you can't do stand up 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.800 in a tank time that a rule. Can't think about it? 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:04.400 Would you listen to anybody talk to you on a 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.480 microphone in the tank top. I was Daniel O'Brien's subordinate 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.000 for years and he wears a tank top of the time, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:15.960 so maybe he's broken used to it. Yeah. Um, all right, 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:20.160 So today we are talking about Hollywood and the Nazis, 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:22.560 I mean, and how the two helped one another. You know, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:24.960 you say that US guests come into this cold and 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.640 I am ready for that. That's beautiful. Well, what do 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.160 you think when you think of like how Hollywood reacted 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.760 to the Nazis, what do you think of? Well, one, 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.800 I think there's that documentary on Netflix about a whole 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.760 bunch of directors get sent to like make propaganda films. 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.000 I mean they made propaganda for the US against the Nazis. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:01:45.040 --> 0:01:47.240 yeah yeah. Are we saying the idea of people who 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.320 are we pro within the Hollywood elite. It's a little 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.600 more complicated than that. When we think about Hollywood the Nazis, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:55.360 we think about what you're talking about, those like why 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.639 we fight documentaries and like bugs Bunny beating up Hitler 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.520 and and all that stuff that all came after the 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.880 war had started. When we talk about the period from 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.720 when the Nazis took power to the beginning of World 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.120 War two and what Hollywood, it is a very different 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:15.760 tale and a less positive one towards Hollywood. So that's 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.880 what we're gonna talk about. All right, Well, I'm going 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:21.400 to start us off with some background on the motion 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.480 picture industry because I think it's going to be useful 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:25.560 to sort of set the tone that this story comes 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:29.280 in on. The first good movie going experience probably happened 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:34.640 on December in Paris. This is when Tin Lumiser Brothers 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.000 films were screened, and it was sort of the first 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:39.880 time where projection technology was advanced enough that, like it 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:41.880 was a good picture, you'd actually want to go and 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.280 see this rather than looking at like a grainy like 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:46.680 you know, it wouldn't be clear what was really happening. 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:49.920 So that was the first like good movie going experience. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.920 The first permanent movie theater, the Nickelodeon, was opened in 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.840 Pittsburgh in nineteen o five. The first full length movie 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.400 came out a year later. It was an Australian film 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.560 about the outlaw Ned Kelly. But of course Americans quickly 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:06.960 grew to dominate the industry, which you may have caught, yeah, 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.320 that it started in Pittsburgh. Yeah, the first movie theater. 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.720 I would never have guessed that right either. Yeah, Like 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:16.120 Pittsburgh Okay, yeah, all right, I guess that in a 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:19.200 Permanti Brothers sandwich your historic. I don't know what that 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.160 means because I've never been to Pittsburgh either, but I 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:22.600 see it on all those food jounls. It's like the 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:24.760 sandwich where they put everything on the sandwich, like fries 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:29.040 and cole slaw. It's Permanti Brothers supposed to be amazing. Well, 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:31.839 our three Pittsburgh listeners are over the moon right now. 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.160 We're here for you. We're here for you, guys. Today 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.200 is for you Pittsburgh. Obviously, one American was more dominant 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.840 than others in the early film industry. Thomas Alba Edison 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.560 now William Dixon, a Scottish inventor, actually created the kinetoscope, 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.920 which is one of the very first movie cameras, but 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.520 he worked for Thomas Edison, and so in eighteen ninety 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.880 two Edison got the patent for like the first functional 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:57.600 movie camera that you could really sell as a commercial device. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.440 This made him even wealthier, although who's are already pretty 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.200 rich at the time. Dixon, because he didn't get rich 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:05.080 off of inventing the movie camera, went on to become 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:08.080 one of the first video pornographers and all of history 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.320 and to make kids fortune. Yeah, he's that's the prequel 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:14.800 to the Deuce. Yes, yes, yes. Edison meanwhile just kept 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.920 buying patents related to the motion picture industry and suing 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.440 anyone he caught infringing upon them. Uh. In nineteen o eight, 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.320 he was a leading mind behind the creation of the 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.479 Motion Picture Patents Company, which was a trust that basically 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:29.320 bonded everyone who owned a film patent together in one 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.760 organization so they could control which films could be made 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:37.120 and basically monopolized the art form of filming. Things Like 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.120 anytime there's a new industry, especially in the eighteen hundreds 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.120 and then the early nineteen yards, it was like three 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.000 or four people being like, well, let's just on all 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:45.320 of it. Let's just down all of it and stop 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:47.599 it from ever changing, because that was Edison's idea. He 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.200 figured movies would always be like five or ten minutes 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.440 shorts that people watched a brunch of in a row, 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.360 and he was like, well, let's just be the only 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:56.560 ones who get to do that. Right, it went, and 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.440 actually that's what's happening today in the car industry. Over 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.359 the past like twenty to thirty years and even up 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.760 till today. With what Tesla is trying to fight is like, 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.479 you guys bought all of this electric technology back in 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:09.320 the eighties so that you never had to release it 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.560 because you controlled it all. So it was basically illegal 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:14.520 starting in nineteen o eight to make a film that 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:17.640 Thomas Edison didn't personally approve of. Uh, And he was 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:21.400 from the beginning very concerned with the moral character of films. Quote, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:24.240 in my opinion, nothing is of greater importance to the 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.040 success of the motion picture interests than films of good 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:33.760 moral tone. No thank you, which is always the best part. 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:35.800 Somebody's like by my moral tones, Like, no, I understand 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.520 what you're saying, But do you also understanding yourself defining that? Yeah, 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.240 if you everyone judges their own morals. Yeah, everybody has 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:44.880 a moral tone. You're just saying yours is right. And 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.400 in Edison's case, I think that meant he didn't want 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:53.400 films to show immigrants, so well, I guess that's his 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:56.680 moral tone. One of the things happening during this period 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.960 was what's known today as the Americanized the immigrant movement, 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.839 which was a reaction to the fact that immigration into 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.520 the United States had switched from being mostly people from 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.719 the British Isles, Germany and Northwest Europe, to people from 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:13.200 scary places like Russia, the Balkans and most horrifying of all, Italy. 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:16.760 Yeah yeah, which we all know what happens when too 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.640 many Italians get into a country. Good stuff, great espresso, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:23.839 terrible pizza. I think people like just don't think enough 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.880 about the time in our country where you know the 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:29.839 difference between racism and prejudice, right, prejudices. I judge you 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.119 based off what I know about you, and racism tends 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.279 to be at judge you based off how you look. Yeah, 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.440 so prejudice like was equal to like racism, but you 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:39.800 had to identify like are you Irish? Are you Italian? 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.240 And then once find out, then we prejudicize. Is that 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.760 a way we prejudicize you. But there was this time 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.360 where it was like it wasn't based off color of skin. 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:51.320 It was like this thing like, well you're from there, 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.520 No thanks. They would say it was based off color 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:55.440 of skin because a lot of people in nineteen o 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:57.160 eight would have looked in an Italian, a lot of 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.680 like American white people would have looked in an Italian 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.200 and said, well that's not a white man. Really. Yeah, 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.000 the Irish were the last of the white people to 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.520 become officially white essentially, but it was a process of 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.840 being accepted as white for all of what we now 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.320 just say, like, oh, everybody in fucking Europe is white 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.840 as well, that's Europe. But that was not the case 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.920 from the beginning, and this is the period where it's starting. Well, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:25.560 I don't know much about Edison in specific, but I 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:27.960 know this was a big factor in the movie industry 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.280 because the Americanized the Immigrant movement campaigned for the regulation 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.000 of the film industry. They were the first people to 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.920 want to censor films, and so Edison was very much 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.600 sort of reacting to that. The Americanized the Immigrants movement 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:44.800 was unsuccessful in actually creating laws to govern films, but 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:47.640 their arguments clearly had an impact on people like Edison. 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.440 A war started to brew in the nascent motion picture industry, 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:52.680 and on one side were people like Edison. And uh, 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:54.400 I'm going to read you a quote from a Moving 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.200 Picture World, which is like one of the first industry 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:59.440 trade magazines. A critic wrote it in nineteen ten, and 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.920 he gave a horrified description of a movie theater um 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.040 and This is from the textbook Taking Fame to Market. 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:06.600 So this will give you an idea of kind of 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.160 what some people in the film industry, sort of on 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.680 Edison side of things, were horrified of when they looked 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.400 into a movie theater. The audience also stood for one 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.760 or two high class films without any fuss, although we 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.920 are sure they didn't understand what they were looking at 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.320 any more than they would a Chinese opera. I would 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.360 have been more comfortable on board a cattle train than 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.760 where I sat. There were five hundred smells combined in 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.400 one One young lady fainted and had to be carried 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.520 out of the theater. I can forgive that all right, 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:35.120 as people with sensitive noses should not go slumming. But 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.080 what is hardest to swallow is that the taste of 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.360 the seething mass of human cattle are the tastes that 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.520 have dominated, or at least set the standards of American 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.360 moving pictures. This is like a film critic in nineteen 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:48.880 ten and he's commenting on the type of people in 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.199 the movie theater that you're going to the movie you're slumming, Yes, 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.559 but not based on people who are seeing movies, or 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.559 but based on based on both the people who are 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.880 seeing movies are a lot of them are immigrants and 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.520 horror people because it's a very affordable way to spend 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.240 your time, but also the people making movies and running 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.520 movie theaters were mainly lower class entrepreneurs who had come 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:10.640 to the country from Europe and were either Jewish or 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.480 Catholic immigrants, which at this point, if you're not a 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:18.840 white Anglo Saxon Protestant, you're below what they would declare 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.120 white people on the totem pole. So that's a big 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.240 factor in this is that these people who are Jewish 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.559 immigrants from Eastern Europe and Catholic immigrants from Eastern Europe 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.440 are moving into the United States and starting movie theaters 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.280 and other people like them are going to see these shows, 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.000 and the movies that are being made are being made 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.320 to play to this audience, and that is scary to 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.079 the whitest people who have ever lived. What are they watching? 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:43.280 I mean, they're probably not watching that much in the 0:09:43.320 --> 0:09:46.240 way of movies. I'm guessing nothing good because we don't 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.800 really get it was low round entertainment. It was very 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:52.160 low rent entertainment, very short, cheap kind of like it 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.200 wasn't the opera or the orchestra, and you're not in 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.680 this period seeing complicated movies with a three act structure 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:01.320 that are very long, and that doesn't come until a 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.360 little bit later in nineteen o nine. Because of this 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.120 trust Edison puts together, independent film basically becomes illegal. The 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.240 now outlaw filmmakers call themselves Independence. They keep right on 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.080 making movies, using illegal equipment and buying foreign film stock. 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.240 To get around the trust. Edison forms a subsidiary, the 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.880 General Film Company, to confiscate illegal equipment and basically bust 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.360 into movie theaters and shut down on his because he 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:29.319 owns the patents. You can't make a movie unters for film. Yeah, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:31.360 and at this point the film industry is all in 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.960 basically New York, the East Coast. But it's like the 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.800 cops showed up and there was a fight between his 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.160 people and the Independence. They would just say, well, we're 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.880 recovering what we own exactly, and they've got the law 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.360 on their side. These people are breaking the law by 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.439 filming movies illegally, you know, because they don't have the 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.080 right to use a movie camera to make a movie 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.880 if Edison doesn't approve of it. Yeah, Now the good 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.040 news is Edison's plan backfired. The General Film Company's iron 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.400 fist just pushed independence to get into manufacturing film them selves. 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:02.560 So Edison's not I'm not going to sell you film, 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:04.720 I'm not going to sell you cameras. So these people 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.760 who are making independent films and running small movie theaters 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:10.920 start getting their own cameras from outside of the US 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:15.080 because there's other people making movie cameras kind of on 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.640 the edge, like they're definitely breaking the law a bunch, 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.080 but you know, it's it's also nineteen o eight, nineteen 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.800 o nine, so the law doesn't mean quite what it 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.760 does today, which is why Edison's hiring goons to enforce it. 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.400 You know, so many of these independent early motion picture 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.840 moguls were people like Carl Lamel. They were immigrants themselves, 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.559 and Carl Lamel was born in southern Germany. He moved 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:39.200 to the United States as a young man and worked 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.080 a series of odd jobs until, in his recollection quote, 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:44.480 one rainy night, I dropped into one of those hole 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.000 in the wall five cent motion picture theaters. The pictures 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:48.680 made me laugh. Although they were very short in the 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.240 projection jumpie. I liked them, and so did everybody. Else. 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:52.959 I knew right away that I wanted to get into 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.720 the motion picture business. So Lamel got into the business 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.600 of running theaters. But then he became a distributor himself 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.000 because he basically it was too much of a hassle 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.240 to rely on the distributor to send him films, and 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.000 that also meant he was dependent on Edison Um. So 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.120 he eventually starts his own production outfit, the Independent Motion 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.200 Picture Company, in order to make films on his own terms, 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:17.560 because he's just there's so much demand and Edison and 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.000 his guys, the people who have actual approval, aren't making 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.839 enough movies and they're sort of throttling the supply to people. 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:24.959 So a guy like Lambol's like, well, funk it. I'll 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.199 just make my own movies and I'll rent them out 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.480 the other theaters in addition to the theaters that I owned. 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.400 In nineteen twelve, Carl Limley renamed his company, which had 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.880 been the Independent Motion Picture Company Universal, where we get 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.600 Universal Studios. During the meeting where this was announced, he explained, quote, 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.480 that's what we're supplying, Universal Entertainment for the Universe Ours 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.000 Technica does note that he later admitted he'd gotten the 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.480 name from a Universal pipe fitting struck he'd seen out 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:51.720 the window during this meeting. So I think Carl was 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.240 just kind of literally the thing where somebody's like, what's 0:12:54.280 --> 0:13:00.560 your name and you're like, uh, pencil fold it from 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.000 what was from That also proves like, don't put too 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:05.080 much thought into it just didn't work, because it clearly 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.600 it's worked. Everybody knows what Universal Pictures is, right. Uh So, Universal, 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:14.040 Paramount and Warner Brothers all started as essentially illegal film companies. 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.319 They fled from the East Coast to California, both because 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.720 the fantastic sunlight made it easier to shoot on sort 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.720 of the low tech ship that they were using in 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.679 those days, but also because the distance helped protect them 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.240 from Thomas Edison's wrath because you know, back then travel 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:29.400 Act you were saying, is not what the law is now, 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:33.559 because it's just like in the still running around to 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.320 where you just hire your own cops. That's part of it. 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.520 There's also US marshals and stuff, but they've got to 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.080 travel all the way across the country, and right, it 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.559 just means everything takes longer. And these guys are basically 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.320 playing a waiting game because they know that the trust 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:48.640 are starting to be busted during this period of time, right, 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:51.560 like Teddy Roosevelt. That's anything he was doing. So they're 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:53.680 thinking is if we get out to California, we can 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:55.840 make a shipload of money. We're off the radar. Yeah, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.200 when we do have to pay fines, will make enough 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.440 money to make it worthwhile. And the lengthening of sort 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.240 of the time that everything will take eventually will win that. 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.920 I was wondering when we started, how did we end 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:11.360 up in California Fromburg? That's how we got it. Yeah. 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.160 So the guy who wound up slaying the beast of 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.240 the Motion Picture Patent Company was a dude named William Fox. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.840 He started out running a film rental company. Soon he 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.040 started making movies to just like Lambley uh, and the 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:27.080 Fox Film Corporation became the foremost anti Edison studio. Fox 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.320 sued the mp PC and one, finally ending the patent 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.560 wars in nineteen fifteen. By that point, Hollywood had already 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.840 become the center of American and global film production. Now 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.520 all this is important to establish his background because Hollywood 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.040 was built by immigrants who had fought bigotry upon arriving 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.160 in America and had often fled persecution in their home countries. 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.480 Jewish people were overwhelmingly well represented within the industry. Here's 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.360 a quote from Ben Irwan's The Collaboration quote. The men 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.920 who created the studio system in Los Angeles where Jewish 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:58.960 immigrants of Eastern European descent. These men included William Fox 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.640 who founded Fox, It was b Mayor who ran MGM, 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:06.240 Adolf Zucker who ran Paramount, Harry Cone who ran Columbia Pictures, 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.320 Carl Lamley who ran Universal Pictures, and Jack and Harry 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.720 Warner who ran Warner Brothers. Of eighty five names engaged 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.600 in production, one study noted in the nineteen thirties, fifty 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.360 three are Jews. So this is a very Jewish dominated business. 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.400 These are people who had to fight in order to 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.200 be able to do their business against discrimination and stuff. 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.600 So these are You would think that when Adolf Hitler 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.400 rose to power in the early nineteen thirties, these diverse 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.160 and used to fighting bigots movie moguls would have stood 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:36.280 up to try and halt the spread of fascism. You 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.560 think that was their bread and butter, But you would 0:15:38.560 --> 0:15:40.920 be wrong. Throughout the first seven years the Nazis were 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.720 in power, past the outbreak of World War two, zero 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:46.720 major motion pictures were made that addressed the Hitler or 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.400 the Nazis in a in a hugely negative LFE. There 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.000 was one movie that kind of sort of did up 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:53.600 until the outbreak of the war, but it came out 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.120 in like nineteen Well, that's what I was gonna ask you. 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:57.320 So when they got here, when did they switch from 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.320 making these nickel like quick short movies and start making 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.720 longer ones. That really starts to happen around nineteen Like 0:16:03.760 --> 0:16:05.360 I said, I think it was nineteen o six was 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:07.600 the first close to full length movie, was like an 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.600 hour or something long. Nineteen ten was the birth of 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:13.360 the star system. That's when these people, so number one 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.400 these are, I think, is when they start doing talkies. 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:19.680 So in the silent movies, it becomes very useful to 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.360 have someone the audience is familiar with who, They understand 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.400 this person's gestures, their facial expressions and what because it's 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.640 important for the medium. So nineteen ten is when movie 0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.280 stars start to become a thing. Which again nineteen fifteen 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.880 is when the patent wars in. So by nineteen fifteen 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.600 we have the beginnings of Hollywood as we know it. Yeah, 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.360 and I you know, from that episode that you did, 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.960 people should check out if they haven't already about Behind 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.320 the Bastards for Hitler, Like there, it was obvious what 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:50.280 his agenda was. It's so interesting to me that there's 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.040 this disconnect of this industry that has literally drived out 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.080 of the idea of like showing viewpoints or opinions are 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.400 telling stories. That there's a disconnect of the people who 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.360 have started this here in California that are like, yeah, 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.280 we're not even yeah addressing it. Yeah, and we what 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:08.280 what's undeniable? So this is a controversial thing that we're 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.439 going to get into today. What's undeniable is that during 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.400 the pre World War two years, but post the Nazis 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:19.000 coming to power, Hollywood made almost no films whatsoever that 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.199 even talked about the Nazis. The number of films that 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:27.040 mentioned Jewish people dropped by like sixty or seventy percent. Um. 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:31.480 They became very very careful about not offending the Germans. 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:35.960 Um the debate is over. You know. Harvard scholar been Urwand, 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.879 who wrote the collaboration, essentially argues that the studios worked 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.600 with the Nazis, and he presents compelling evidence to that point. Yeah, yeah, 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.320 and it's it's a it's a good book studios run 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:49.520 by predominantly Jewish, Yes, yes, and we'll we'll get into 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.679 how this all started. I do want to announce upfront 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.680 that Urwand has some detractors, um, people who don't think 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:58.320 collaboration is a fair term. And so I'll be getting 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.200 in when where there are areas of controversy, I'll be 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.200 getting into it a little bit because this is very 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:06.520 far from settled history. But I think Irwan's arguments are 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:08.679 more convincing than the other one. So that is kind 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.800 of largely the tact we're going to be taken here. Um. Now, 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.600 Irwan traces the start of the collaboration to the film 0:18:14.640 --> 0:18:16.800 All Quiet on the Western Front, which came out in 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.200 nineteen thirty, almost three years before Hitler was in charge, 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.000 but during the period where Nazis had attained a lot 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.879 of power in both the Reichstag and on the streets. Now. 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:26.760 All Quiet on the Western Front was based off of 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.040 a classic book about German soldiers in World War One, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.280 It's It's Wonderful. Um. It was not an anti German film, 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.199 but it was anti war and very critical of the 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.880 pro war sentiment in the country that had driven Germany 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:40.119 to ruin in World War One. It gives you a 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:44.600 sympathetic oh yeah, like take on the German soldier. Oh yeah, 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:48.240 because it's it's a devastating emotionally um. But the Nazis 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:50.880 hated it because again, like you remember that scene where 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:53.560 like the boys are in class and their teachers making 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.480 going to war seem like this like wonderful, awesome adventure, 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:01.560 and they're all, yeah, horribly, Um, the Nazis did not 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.600 want them, and yeah, yeah, the Nazis hated that because 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.080 their Nazis they were trying to get we want we 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.200 want to get kids excited about dying for the fatherland again. 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.080 So on the day the film was released in Germany, 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:18.440 the Nazis in Berlin, organized by Joseph Gebel's, bought three 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.720 D tickets to the seven pm showing. Nazis inside the 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:23.840 theater who did and yelled at the movie and at 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.359 one predetermined point started throwing stink bombs into the crowd 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.600 and releasing mice. So like that was sort of there, 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:32.680 before they're in power, how they would try to shut 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:35.480 down a movie they didn't really, Yeah, like junior high 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.440 kids like junior high kids. Yeah, I mean probably a 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.240 lot of them were teenagers. Yeah, yeah, Now, the Nazis 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.040 protested for six days until the film was completely removed 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.359 from German screens. Karl Lambley, founder of Universal, ordered a 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.199 bunch of scenes cut from the film in order to 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:55.200 please the German foreign Office, including that scenes with the teacher. 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:57.879