U.S. Window Card for the film “The Mortal Storm" (1940)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 21.625 inches (54.928 cm) | Width: 13.500 inches (34.29 cm)
Creator(s)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Production Company)
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 window 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
Window card for the American feature film, “The Mortal Storm,” released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in June 1940. Window cards were mass-produced promotional materials used until the mid-1980s. They included a blank section at the top for individual theaters to write in dates and show times, and placed in locations outside of the theaters. “The Mortal Storm,” based on a 1938 novel of the same name, was MGM’s first film that openly criticized Nazi Germany. Beginning in 1933, just after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor, it features a Jewish professor of medicine and his daughter, whose fiancé and stepbrothers join the Nazi party. The professor is sent to a concentration camp, while his daughter attempts to cross the Austrian border with a former student of her father’s. The writers of the screenplay were themselves refugees from Nazi Germany. After the movie’s release, German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels ordered the Berlin office of MGM’s parent company, Lowe’s, to close. He also banned the film (as well as subsequent MGM films) in all German-occupied territories. 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
Poster printed on rectangular, cream-colored paper with images for the film “The Mortal Storm.” The top third of the poster is unprinted, with several lines of black handwritten text about the local theater’s show times, and a line of printed, blue text. Directly below are the names of the principal actors in large, uppercase, yellow-and-orange letters superimposed partially over the top portion of a red book. In the center, an illustration of a canted red book with bursting rays of light is depicted in the background, along with the film’s title in bold, white letters on the front. The names of the supporting cast are printed at an angle in light blue letters, on the right side of the book. In the bottom left corner of the card, there is a dark-haired man embracing a red-haired woman, who has her face tilted up towards him. In the bottom right corner is another dark-haired man, who appears to be looking at the couple. In the center between the two images, are the production credits printed in small red text, and the studio’s logo inside a yellow circle. The bottom two-thirds of the poster has a dark blue background. There is a hole for hanging the card at the top center. The paper is stained and yellowed with age, and there are several holes ringed by dark discoloration scattered across the poster. There are small losses across the surface and the card has been adhered to a support board. The upper right corner is torn and the larger section around it appears water-damaged. Left to right: James Stewart as Martin Breitner, Margaret Sullavan as Freya Roth, and Robert Young as Fritz Marberg
front, top, handwritten, black ink : NEWTON FALLS THEATRE / SAT-SUN. SEPT 28-29 / LATEST / NEWS / AND / ALSO / SHORT SUBJECT / 8:00 PM DST
People
- Morgan, Frank, 1890-1949.
- Young, Robert, 1907-1998.
- Sullavan, Margaret, 1909-1960.
- Stewart, James, 1908-1997.
Subjects
- National socialism in motion pictures.
- Historical films.
- Germans in motion pictures.
- Nazis--United States--Drama.
- Armed Forces in motion pictures.
- Austria.
- Film adaptations.
- Nazis in motion pictures.
- Germany.
- World War (1939-1945)
- Soldiers in motion pictures.
- Motion pictures--History--20th century.
- Anti-war films.
Genre
- Information Forms
- Display Cards.
- Object