Pastor Hall (1940)

Directed by

Roy Boulting

Genre

drama film

Country

United Kingdom

Runtime

1h 35m

Rating

8.0 of 10 from 10 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A pastor in Nazi Germany stands up to the regime and faces persecution. The film shows his resistance and the consequences for him and his community.

tenseseriouspolemicalgrittysomberrestrainedperiod

What happens

Pastor Hall is a 1940 British drama film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Wilfrid Lawson, Nova Pilbeam, Marius Goring, Seymour Hicks and Bernard Miles. The film is based on the play of the same title by German author Ernst Toller who had lived as an emigrant in the United States until his suicide in 1939. The U.S. version of the film opens with an added prologue denouncing the Nazis narrated by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a performance arranged by her son James Roosevelt who was working in Hollywood as a producer. Samuel Goldwyn planned to distribute the film through United Artists but would not go against Production Code Administration (Hays Code) officials, who declared the film "avowedly British propaganda." Committed to the film's importance, James Roosevelt hired screenwriter Robert Sherwood to write the prologue, engineered his mother's involvement, and removed the most violent scenes. PCA officials bowed to the President's son, and the film received approval. United Artists distributed it. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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