“Do you know where my friend is?”
“In prison. All strangers go to prison.”
This brief exchange, in––of all things––Robert Siodmak’s 1944 adventure programmer Cobra Woman is all too applicable to contemporary American life. Cobra Island is ruled by a high priestess, Naja (Maria Montez), who has bent all other forms of governance to her will, establishing her whim as law. If that sounds familiar now, one doesn’t have to extend the imagination much further to see its resonance in 1944, from the German Siodmak’s home country. The notion of “the stranger” as an inherent enemy whose natural destination is prison is just that prevalent, and Cobra Island’s isolation mirrors the ways dictatorial countries wall themselves off from the world.
Far from an incidental note, this thread is one component of how this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival theme––“The World Comes to Hollywood”––found myriad forms. Production notes were one of the more obvious, spotlighting many works directed by and starring immigrants. Cobra Woman, with its German director, Dominican star, and Indian supporting player (Sabu), was one of the more diverse titles on display. Many films by other German emigres––including Ernst Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise, Lady Windermere’s Fan), Josef von Sternberg (Blonde Venus), Michael Curtiz (Captain Blood), and Douglas Sirk (There’s Always Tomorrow)––were also presented, and in one case, explicitly anti-Nazi. Fritz Lang’s Man Hunt has an ostentatious scenario, following a big-game hunter who sneaks into Germany to kill Adolf Hitler, that is lent credence by the threats following his failed attempt. This particular figure may be fantastic, but the machine constructed to defeat him isn’t.
Cobra Woman
Even more credible is Anatole Litvak’s Confessions of a Nazi Spy from 1939. Litvak was born in Kiev, later moved to St. Petersburg as a teenager, and left to work in Berlin in the 1920s, seeking greater artistic opportunities. When Hitler came to power, he fled first to France, then Hollywood. Nazi Spy was based on events from 1938, including Nazi meetings in the U.S. and the FBI’s pursuit of a German spy. It was the first explicitly anti-Nazi film from a major studio; even by its May release, Germany had not yet invaded Poland. It was a considerable risk for both the studio and its players––many in its cast had escaped Germany, but appeared uncredited to prevent retaliation against family members still living there. Watching it in a modern context, I was struck by an urgency far beyond its many contemporaneous procedurals that tend towards the languid in their depiction of routine; Nazi Spy is a thrilling chase film filled with distinct characters and a desperation to make its voice heard.
Another sort of propagandistic tack is taken in H.C. Potter’s 1947 feature The Farmer’s Daughter, shown on explosive nitrate first thing in the morning (the best part of waking up is fire-safety instructions). Loretta Young plays a Swedish immigrant who journeys from farm to city to study nursing, but along the way loses her money and has to work as a maid to a congressman (Joseph Cotten). Turns out she has quite a knack for politics herself, and goes on to run for a seat herself. Its original title, Katie for Congress, more fervently put this at the center, but the spirit of it remains in the film, a last-ditch effort to remind America of the immigrant-driven socialist movement that pulled them through the Great Depression before capitalism would conquer all. An outsider type does similar good in Tammy and the Bachelor, where Debbie Reynolds’ swamp-raised title character finds herself navigating polite society and pining for a strapping young Leslie Nielsen while teaching his stuck-up parents a thing or two about plain talk.
I saw two films that flipped the theme––Hollywood goes to the world––and proved that when America receives outsiders, we flourish, but when we assert ourselves elsewhere, everyone suffers. 1962’s Mutiny on the Bounty (shown on spectacular 70mm) is a classic tale of hubris at multiple stages, a zealous captain’s overreach quickly countered by the pride of the one man who could stand up to him and (almost) get away with it. That they manage not to destroy Tahiti in the process is but good fortune. Morocco (and the culture of good taste) fares less well in Elaine May’s landmark Ishtar, in which two bumbling singers stumble into a CIA-driven conflict and ruin everything. That played as part of a tribute to songwriter Paul Williams, who appeared in person for an extremely lively Q&A. Beyond their thematic ties, the two films shared poor responses in their times—each directly countered by the festival audience’s warm reception. At every TCM Fest, the world does indeed come to Hollywood to remind us how much fun it can all be.