Latin Uproar

When Hitler began to take over Europe eight years ago, cutting off chunk by chunk the biggest foreign markets for U. S. pictures, Hollywood started to eye Latin America with new respect, pondered ways to build up foreign markets in the western hemisphere.

But Latins have lately been taking fewer U. S. films, not more. In 1936 some 85% of all pictures shown in Latin America came from Hollywood. In 1939 U. S. films were about 70% of the total. Reasons:

> Increasing imports (until the war) from Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain.

> Increased production of domestic pictures, especially in Argentina (which made only 20 pictures in 1936, is now making around 60 features a year) and Mexico, where the native film industry is just hitting its stride.

The anti-Nazi picture cycle that began with Confessions of a Nazi Spy (see p. 70) has done U. S. cinema relations with Latin America no good. Latins are largely leery of any kind of propaganda that may give offense to Axis nations. Confessions of a Nazi Spy was banned in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, several Central American countries. Mortal Storm was prohibited in Costa Rica, Guatemala, has not yet been passed in Brazil.

Biggest furor aroused south of the border by any U. S. film to date was kicked up by The Great Dictator.* Promptly barred in Brazil, it was shown in Mexico City under a police guard. In Buenos Aires, two days after Christmas, Mayor Carlos Alberto Pueyrredon (a British sympathizer, member of the anti-Axis Action Argentina) announced that The Great Dictator was banned in Argentina by request of the Italian Ambassador.

Loud was the outcry from film exhibitors, labor men, party leaders, but the Argentine Government stood firm. Meanwhile, across the muddy estuary of the Plata, progressive Uruguay quietly passed The Great Dictator. Two big river boats were refitted to handle mobs of Portenos (citizens of Buenos Aires) who made the two-hour trip across the Plata to see the picture. One steamship company offered a special excursion, including a round trip over to the town of Colonia, dinner after the show. Some 100,000 Argentines were expected to see the picture in Uruguay.

Hollywood still was making hopeful gestures toward Latin America last week. In production were half a dozen films with Latin backgrounds, including M. G. M.'s The Life of Simon Bolivar with Robert Taylor, 20th Century-Fox's remake of Blood and Sand with Tyrone Power, Paramount's Mexican story, Rurales. In Washington, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Coordinator of Commercial and Cultural Relations between the American Republics, conferred with John Hay ("Jock") Whitney, who announced a new promotion drive for U. S. pictures in Latin America, "based solely on the presentation of entertainment films."

But Hollywood could never make the kind of pictures that Latins enjoy most. Typical of Latin taste is an Argentine film, Petroleo (Oil), now showing in Buenos Aires. A Grade B melodrama according to U. S. standards, it was hailed in Argentina as one of the best Latin films to date. Petroleo's villain is a suave Yankee imperialist (Sebastian Chiola) who turns up in Argentina, tries to do the natives out of their oil wells. Thanks to the keen eyes of an Argentine oilman's daughter (blonde, beautiful Luisita Vehil), Latin virtue triumphs over Yankee greed.

British Actor Wilfrid Lawson, World War I flier and World War II R. A. F. officer, tendered a job in Hollywood at $2,000 a week, offered to give his salary to the British Treasury, live on his officer's pay ($15 a week). Though Actor Lawson had twice before taken leave to make British films, this time the War Office answered: "No." No "exception could be made" for Actor Lawson, "even to collect dollars."

-* In Eire, when Prime Minister Eamon de Valera banned The Great Dictator, a Belfast theatre (in Northern Ireland) tried to advertise the film in Dublin newspapers, with a schedule of train service to Belfast. Eire's censors promptly killed the ad.

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