British trade advertisement for the movie “Pastor Hall” (1940)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 17.250 inches (43.815 cm) | Width: 11.000 inches (27.94 cm)
Creator(s)
- Charter Film Productions (Production Company)
- United Artists Corporation (Distributor)
- Grand National Pictures (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 trade advertisement 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
Double-sided British trade advertisement, promoting “Pastor Hall” on one side and “Under Your Hat” on the reverse. “Pastor Hall” (1940) was a British feature film, released in the United States on September 13, 1940. “Pastor Hall” was an adaptation of the 1938 play written by Ernst Toller, a Prussian Jewish veteran of World War I. After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Toller was declared an enemy of the state and immigrated to England, and moved again to the United States in 1936. In the film, a Lutheran minister resists the Nazification of German Protestant churches, and is imprisoned in a concentration camp as a result. He manages to escape, but is eventually killed. It equates Hitler with the Antichrist, bent on destroying not only the Jewish people, but Christianity as well. The protagonist is based on Rev. Martin Niemöller, who was arrested in 1936 and sent to Dachau concentration camp. ”Pastor Hall” was brought to the United States by James Roosevelt, son of First Lady Eleanor and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The producers had to cut 5 minutes of the most brutal scenes before it was given approval by the American censors. The First Lady recorded a prologue to the film, informing the American viewers that it was representative of actual events. 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
Trade advertisement for the film “Pastor Hall,” printed on a rectangular sheet of paper. On the front, the background is light green. Diagonally across the center, in decreasing size from top left to bottom right, are illustrated headshots of a young woman and three men. The woman, at the top left, is blonde and wearing a blue hat. The man below her, to the right, is older, with a graying moustache, a red shirt collar, and military ribbon bars on his chest. The third figure, below the older man, is a man with close-cropped hair. The final, and smallest figure, is a young man, wearing a uniform and light blue peaked cap at the bottom right. The film title is printed in large red letters across the top, with partial credits printed in blue over a light pink banner directly beneath it. In the bottom left corner, the remaining credits are also printed in blue over a light pink box that has one corner cut out. Printed at the bottom is a studio logo in black and studio name in red. On the reverse is a trade advertisement for the film “Under Your Hat,” with a light blue background. In the center are large illustrations of the heads of a man and woman. The woman on the left has short, curly blonde hair and is wearing a black hat. She is smiling and looking sideways at the man on the right. She has one hand raised, shielding a finger that she is pointing at him. The man is looking at the viewer, smiling, and has his chin in his hand. At the top of the poster are two yellow banners with the names of the principal actors. Directly below the central image is a yellow cloud with the name of the film in large, red lettering. Printed at the bottom is a studio logo and production credits. Left to right: Nova Pilbeam as Christine Hall, Seymour Hicks as General von Grotjahn, Wilfrid Lawson as Pastor Frederick Hall, Marius Goring as Fritz Gerte
People
- Pilbeam, Nova, 1919-2015.
- Hicks, Seymour, 1871-1949.
- Lawson, Wilfrid, 1900-1966.
- Goring, Marius, 1912-1998.
- Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.
- Niemöller, Martin, 1892-1984.
- Roosevelt, James, 1907-1991.
- Toller, Ernst, 1893-1939.
Corporate Bodies
Subjects
- Political violence in motion pictures.
- United States.
- Film adaptations.
- Clergy--Crimes against.
- Great Britain.
- Germans in motion pictures.
- Nazis in motion pictures.
- Foreign films.
- Anti-Nazi movement in motion pictures.
- Imprisonment in motion pictures.
Genre
- Object
- Books and Published Materials
- Promotional materials.