The collaboration

Explores "how Hollywood and especially the big studios went along with German demands to censor movies not only before but especially after the Nazi seizure of power"--Back of dust jacket. ; After World War II, a legend emerged that Hollywood was synonymous with anti-fascism during the Nazi era. Shows that, contrary to this legend, Hollywood film studios collaborated with the Nazi regime, at least between 1933-40. Following the Nazi riots against the screening of Universal Pictures' film "All Quiet on the Western Front" in Berlin in 1930, the studios promised the German government that they would not harm German prestige in their movies. During 1933-40, eager to retain Germany as a main market for their productions, leading U.S. film studios yielded to Nazi pressure and refrained from making pictures that attacked Nazism. In 1933 none of the Hollywood studios would accept for production the script of a play written by Herman J. Mankiewicz, "The Mad Dog of Europe", which highlighted Nazi anti-Jewish policies. On the other hand, the allegedly neutral script of "The House of Rothschild" was produced in 1934 by Twentieth Century Pictures; parts of it were later incorporated into the Nazi film "Der Ewige Jude". From 1935-40 images of both Jews and Nazis disappeared from the U.S. screen; film scenarios were censured and re-written to avoid any attacks on the Nazi regime. With the MGM film "The Mortal Storm" in 1940, Jewish characters returned to the U.S. screen. In 1940-45 Hollywood produced a number of anti-Nazi films; however, the Jewish aspect of the Nazi policies was minimized. Dwells on the activities of screenwriter Ben Hecht, who criticized Hollywood policies and tried to draw public attention to the Holocaust in Europe. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)