Line #28 Film/TheMortalStorm


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2	[[caption-width-right:350:They were much happier in ''Film/TheShopAroundTheCorner''.]]
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4	''The Mortal Storm'' is a 1940 drama film directed by Creator/FrankBorzage, starring Creator/JamesStewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan, and Creator/RobertYoung.
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6	It is about the rise of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany and how it destroyed one Jewish family. It opens in 1933 in the German Alps, in a town right by the Austrian border, on the day UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler came to power. That day, January 30, 1933, also happens to be the 60th birthday of Professor Viktor Roth (Morgan). Roth is a Jew married to a Gentile, Amelie. They have a daughter, Freya (Sullavan), and Amelie has two sons, Erich and Otto, by her first marriage. Despite having a Jewish stepfather, Erich and Otto (Otto is played by a young Creator/RobertStack) are both supporters of the Nazi Party. Similarly Freya, despite being partially Jewish, is engaged to a Nazi supporter, Fritz (Young).
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8	The evilness of the Nazis leads Freya to break up with Fritz and get together with her other suitor, anti-Nazi Martin (Stewart). Nazi persecution of the Jews soon costs Viktor his job and then puts him in prison. Eventually, Martin and Freya realize they must flee Hitler's Germany.
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10	1940 was the year that Hollywood finally started making anti-Nazi movies, with this film being released around the same time as Creator/CharlieChaplin's ''Film/TheGreatDictator'' and ''Film/YouNaztySpy'' by the pioneers of anti-Nazi activism, Film/TheThreeStooges. MGM pulled its punches a little bit by rarely using the word "Germany" and not using the word "Jew" at all, only describing Viktor and Freya as "non-Aryan". It didn't work, as Adolf Hitler proceeded to [[BannedInChina ban all MGM films in Germany anyway]].
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12	----
13	!!Tropes:
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15	* AloneInACrowd: Martin and Freya, looking on with horror as everyone else in the beer hall sings a Nazi song.
16	* AsYouKnow: Done pretty well. "You boys have made me forget that, unfortunately, I'm only your stepfather."
17	* BirthdayBeginning: A dark example, as the film starts with Viktor's 60th birthday, which is also the day the Nazis are taking power.
18	* BookBurning: The true terror of Viktor's situation is brought home to him when he sees a gang of Nazi goons burning books in the courtyard outside his classroom.
19	* CallBack: As a distraught Otto walks through the now-empty family home, he remembers all their happy talk from Viktor's birthday party in the first scene.
20	* DayOfTheJackboot: How the jackboot came to one little German town and ruined lives there.
21	* DownerEnding: Viktor dies in prison, Freya is shot and killed as she and Martin try to flee across the border, and the Roth family is destroyed.
22	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Some subtle characterization when Fritz and Martin are introduced together. While both are giving sincere and heartfelt birthday congratulations to Viktor, Fritz is bowing formally, clicking his heels, and talking about Viktor's contributions to "the Fatherland." Martin for his part is much more casual with the aw-shucks manner of James Stewart.
23	* TheHeart: Freya is the only girl in their little group of childhood friends that includes Martin, Fritz, and her half-brothers Otto and Erich. She tries to hold them together after the Nazis start splitting them apart.
24	* HeelRealization: Otto. After Freya's more thoroughly Nazified half-brother Erich rages against Martin, who is "free to fight against all we stand for," a repentant Otto says "Yes. Thank God for that."
25	* JustFollowingOrders: Fritz, who is obviously having problems with giving the order to shoot that killed his old girlfriend, says in a stricken voice, "I had no choice! I was only doing my duty!"
26	* LoveTriangle: Fritz, Martin, and Freya. Fritz appears to have emerged victorious in the beginning, but events prove that Martin is Freya's real soulmate.
27	* ObstructiveBureaucrat: Of the worst sort, as a Nazi dickhead on the train confiscates Viktor's manuscript, and another Nazi dickhead takes petty pleasure in refusing to let Freya leave the country.
28	* SilentCredits: No music plays over the cast list at the end.
29	* AStormIsComing: The meaning of the title, as further explained in the opening narration in which a LargeHam narrator talks about how thunderstorms used to make primitive man afraid.
30	* TemptingFate: "May our happiness continue as long as we live."
31	* TitleDrop: In the opening narration. "The tale we are about to tell is of the mortal storm in which man finds himself today."

Context Film / TheMortalStorm