Three Hollywood Films

The Last Train From Madrid (James Hogan, 1937, Paramount Pictures), a clip from which appears here, was one of three films about the Spanish Civil War made in Hollywood while the conflict was still under way. The others were Love Under Fire (George Marshall, 1937, Twentieth Century-Fox) and Blockade (William Dieterle, 1938, Walter Wanger/United Artists).

Traditional historiography has judged The Last Train From Madrid and Love Under Fire as harmless films, subject to the impartiality prescriptions of the Hays Office. In short, they have been deemed simple B-grade commercial melodramas in which the Spanish Civil War served merely as a backdrop. However, ideological positions can be detected in both cases.

The Last Train From Madrid attempts to balance the censurable acts of both sides. In fact, it contains actual footage from a Soviet newsreel—issue no. 10 of K Sobitiyam v Ispanii (On the Events in Spain, 1936, Roman Karmen and Boris Makasséiev, Soiuzkinochronica)—showing Nazi air raids on the civilian population of Madrid. Nevertheless, its plot, in which several of the protagonists refuse to fight for the Republic and become traitors and deserters from the democratic government, has a distinctly pro-Francoist tone. When it premiered in the United States, the left-leaning American press attacked it harshly, labeling it fascist. It was the only Hollywood film distributed in Republican Spain and met with indignation from critics, who even called for the negative to be burned.

For its part, Love Under Fire is not apolitical or neutral, as has often been assumed, but contains a clear anti-Franco, anti-fascist, and anti-Nazi subtext. In fact, it was conceived from the outset as opposed to the Axis powers. This ideology was deliberately woven into the film, even at the risk of undermining its commercial success, due to the strong mass rejection experienced by The Siege of the Alcazar, the studio’s previous project, whose stance had been entirely the opposite.

In contrast, Blockade, with a big budget and major stars—Madeleine Carroll and Henry Fonda—is the only Hollywood production that took a side in the conflict and openly showed support for the Republican cause, although its message is as encrypted and coded as that of the other two films.

Despite the Hays Office’s efforts to purge them of political content, the three films were banned by the Franco dictatorship. They were all abstract, unintelligible, and completely removed from the real struggle taking place in Spain. The Last Train From Madrid and Love Under Fire, moreover, are historically and politically illogical.

CG