Lobby card for the film “Hitler’s Madman” (1943)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 11.000 inches (27.94 cm) | Width: 14.000 inches (35.56 cm)
Creator(s)
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Production Company)
- Angelus Pictures, Inc. (Production Company)
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Distributor)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
Biographical History
The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
Archival History
The lobby card was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
Scope and Content
Lobby card for the American feature film, “Hitler’s Madman,” released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in June 1943. Lobby cards are promotional materials placed in theater lobby windows to highlight specific movie scenes, rather than the broader themes often depicted on posters. “Hitler’s Madman” is a fictionalized portrayal of the assassination and of Reinhard Heydrich and its aftermath. Heydrich was Heinrich Himmler’s second-in-command and chief of the Reich Security Main office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA), which was the major implementer of the systematic murder of European Jews. He was especially brutal, earning the nicknames “The Hangman of Europe” and “Hitler’s Hangman.” Under Heydrich’s leadership, over 34,000 Jews were deported from Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. On May 27, 1942, two British-trained Czech agents rolled a hand grenade under Heydrich’s vehicle. Splinters from the resulting explosion led to an infection that killed him. On June 10, 1942, in retaliation for Heydrich’s death, the Nazis targeted the village of Lidice in Czechoslovakia. 192 men and boys were executed by firing squad, and 203 women were deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp, 60 of whom died in the camp system. Additionally, 82 children were likely deported to Chelmno and killed in mobile gas chambers. The Germans then destroyed the buildings and razed the town. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Lobby card with a large photographic image of a scene still printed on rectangular off-white paper, with a white margin on all four sides. The image depicts an indoor scene with a woman and two men, all shown from the waist up. The woman, on the left, has dark brown hair and is wearing a green shawl and a high-necked purple dress with gold buttons down the front. The man in the center has his right arm around the woman’s shoulders. He has dark, slicked-back hair, a thin moustache, and is wearing a brown jacket over a light blue, collared shirt. He is looking at the older man on the right, who is grasping the woman’s hands. The man on the right is wearing a brimmed, black hat, a blue jacket, and has a thick, dark moustache. Along the bottom edge of the image is a border comprised of a thin, white stripe and a thick, yellow stripe, containing a line of green text. The border expands in the bottom right corner to encompass an image of a fist holding onto the end of a whip, which curls around into rough circular frame. Within the frame is the film title printed in a red font that resembles dripping blood, and the production credit is in small, black print below. The copyright information is printed in blue in the bottom margin. A small water stain is in the bottom right corner of the border. There are several pinholes in the upper and lower margins. There is faint ink transfer on the back from another image and several partially crossed-out numbers and letters in the upper left corner. Depicted: Patricia Morison as Jarmilla Hanka, Alan Curtis as Karel Vavra, Ralph Morgan as Jan Hanka
back, upper left corner, handwritten, black ink : 21 [illegible text] 15
People
- Heydrich, Reinhard, 1904-1942.
Subjects
- Political violence in motion pictures.
- United States.
- Nazis in motion pictures.
- Heydrich, Reinhard, 1904-1942--Assassination.
- Historical films.
- Lidice Massacre, Lidice, Czech Republic, 1942, in motion pictures.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in motion pictures.
- Feature films.
- Foreign agents.
- Lidice (Czech Republic)
Genre
- Display cards.
- Posters
- Object