'The Mortal Storm'

Sometimes you find a film with a little guts and no matter what you find yourself enjoying it more than you typically would. The Mortal Storm is one of those films.

It's not an alien story. A happy Bavarian family celebrate the birthday of their father, a noted university professor of science (chemistry or eugenics or something ... although it's intimated that he's also non-Aryan although they never call him a Jew). The next minute Adolf Hitler is elected German chancellor and their lives are thrown into tumult.

The two elder sons and the daughter's boyfriend quickly celebrate the Third Reich of the German empire by joining the Nazis. Meanwhile, family friend played by Jimmy Stewart, a farmer, fights assimilation as he foretells the policies of the Nazis including the annihilation of party opponents, intelligentsia and prejudices untold.

Soon relationships unravel as Stewart's character is bullied and the father is imprisoned and later dies under questionable circumstances. The remaining family attempts to leave the country via train. The youngest son and mother flee. The daughter is detained upon suspicion of being an enemy of the state.

She and Stewart's character attempt emigration by skis and she is murdered upon command of her former fiancé.

Why does any of this matter? What makes it any different than any other Nazi film?

This was released in 1940. A full year-and-a-half before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. Here is Jimmy Stewart telling everyone what was going on and still we found ourselves shocked at the atrocities of the Nazis.

If the Nazis are banning your films, you are probably doing things right.