Blockade

original title:
Blockade
country / year of production:
USA / 1938
original length:
85 min. , black/white
premiere:
16 June 1938
genre:
melodrama
based on:
director:
William Dieterle
film script:
James Mallahan Cain , John Howard Lawson
producer:
Walter Wanger
cinematographer:
Rudolph Maté
editor:
composer:
cast (role):
Madeleine Carroll (Norma) , Henry Fonda (Marco) , Leo Carrillo (Luis) , John Halliday (Andre Gallinet) , Vladimir Sokoloff (Basil, Norma's Father) , Madeleine Carroll , Leo Carrillo , Henry Fonda , John Halliday , Vladimir Sokoloff
more:
plot synopsis:
The film concentrates on the destruction and the suffering of the civilians caused by modern warfare as well as on the importance of spies in enforcing a blockade under uboat surveillance.
Norma, daughter of an international spy, falls in love with Marco, a peasent fighting for his country. When Norma discovers what misery she has helped to bring about, she reveals the spies' hiding place to Marco. Meanwhile high-ranking officers are in collusion with enemy agents.
keywords:
espionage
war:
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
literature:
Tom Conley. „Blockade Sin Embargo“. Kathleen Vernon (ed.). The Spanish Civil War and the Visual Arts. Itheca: Center for Internat. Studies, Cornell University, 1990, 25-36.

Greg M. Smith. „Blocking Blockade: Partisan Protest, Popular Debate, and Encapsulated Texts“. Cinema Journal 36 (1996), 1, 18-38.
remarks:
Probably the first American movie that deals explicitly with the Spanisch Civil War. The Hays Office, Hollywood's self-impopsed censorship committee, demanded several changes in order to avoid protests of foreign countries. Despite the changes the film received a very divided echo. While American communists welcomed the movie, the catholic press condemned it. In New York City protesters gathered in front of Radio City Music Hall to prevent its presentation.
availability:
DVD