Anglophilia on Film: Creating an Atmosphere for Alliance, 1935-1941
1997; Volume: 27; Issue: 1-4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/flm.1997.a395895
ISSN1548-9922
Autores Tópico(s)Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
ResumoBennett | Anglophilia On Film: Creating an Atmosphere for Alliance, 1935-1941 Michael Todd Bennett University of Georgia Anglophilia on Film: Creating an Atmosphere for Alliance, 1935-1941 / host of movies appearing in American theaters from 1935 to 1941 projected a pro-British bias onto the screen. These productions both mirrored and informed the increasingly close Anglo-American relations at both the popular and official levels before World War II. Films mirrored these trends because Hollywood, hungry for profit, followed public opinion. But the American motion picture industry also played a diplomatic role by reinforcing public support for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's interventionist policies. Those policies culminated in an Anglo-American military alliance after Pearl Harbor. In creating an atmosphere in which this alliance could flourish, movies drew upon deep cultural, geographical, historical, and political ties. But these ties guaranteed a partnership neither in reality nor on the screen. On the screen that partnership was contingent upon international events, market forces, official policies, and individual acts. As a result, the U.S. motion picture industry, first unintentionally and only by 1941 consciously, strengthened these unofficial ties, softened the malevolent images of monarchy and imperialism, and stressed to American viewers that Britaindemocratic , freedom-loving, and triumphant-was inhabited by people just like themselves. As Americans confronted (or ignored) the world in 1935,materials were to be regarded as contraband.1 Thus, if Britain, an "unneutral" affinity for Britain emerged in the nation's for-which controlled the Atlantic with her navy, became emeign policy. In August ofthat year the United States Con-broiled in a conflict, Roosevelt could choose to remain isogress , inspired in particular by the Italian invasion ofIated and yet simultaneously aid that beleaguered nation. Ethiopia—but also by growing German and Japanese threatspassed the Neutrality Act of 1935. Designed to limit the possi-Extant Non-Neutrality: Shakespeare, bility of either enemy attacks on American shipping orn L· ,. ¦ · r f ? ?· a ¦ ? -· · ,. a , uu, a Robin Hood, and Empire Financial ties dragging the nation into war, the act prohibited' ~ supplying belligerent nations with implements ofwar. Al-American films fell short of impartiality as well. Cinema though the act committed the nation to isolation, that isola-served as one medium of a unifying cultural exchange, pertion was in fact not neutral. Roosevelt, seeking to preservehaps the most popular tie drawing the two nations together executive power, lobbied for "flexible neutrality" from Con-during the "great rapprochement." Common language, origress in the final version of the act. Flexible neutrality allowedgins, and demo-cratic institutions all helped solidify Anglothe president to declare embargoes and to define what warAmerican relations throughout the twentieth century.2 In 4 I Film & History World War II in Film | Special In-Depth Section 1935 Warner Bros. Pictures' A Midsummer Night's Dream provided a prime example of the cultural ties uniting England and the U.S. Film critic Richard Sheridan Ames, although bemoaning the film's vulgarization ofWilliam Shakespeare's work, recognized that it helped expose American moviegoers to the play. Starring a young James Cagney, A Midsummer Night's Dream appeared for 163 days at Warner's first-run theaters in New York and Los Angeles , longer than any of the studio's other productions that year. The National Board of Review voted the film one of 1935's ten best in terms of popular appeal.3 Following Mutiny on the Bounty and Captain Blood, The Adventures ofRobin Hood reinforced the close Anglo-American cultural relationship. In director Michael Curtiz's version of the Robin Hood legend, Prince John conquered Anglo-Saxon England in the absence of the crusading King Richard the Lionhearted. In a "swashbuckling defense ofhuman rights," Errol Flynn as Robin Hood rose to defeat John and his henchmen in vivid technicolor.4 Flynn's Robin entered upon this revolu-tionary course after having witnessed "the beatings, the Windings with hot irons, the burning of our barns and homes, [and] the mistreatment of our women," perpetrated by the tyrannical John.5 All of this heroism added up to a "Merrie England" film which championed Albion as a land of individualism , liberty, and morality. Along with rich technicolor and a sense of romantic adventure, this portrayal...
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