Film Review

The Mortal Storm (1940)

A story of the impact of Hitler’s insidious racial poison, as he begins to strangle

Germany in 1933, on a family in an Alpine University Village. The Roth family
consisting of the renown professor, his wife, their daughter, young son and two
adopted sons as well as their closest friends pleasant lives are dramatically changed
when the Nazi’s establish control. It is a well-designed story with most violence
done off screen but it will still send chills up your spine.
The professor a non-Aryan (Jewish) is disgraced and killed in a concentration
camp. The Junker wife and young son escape via train. The stepsons have become
Third Reich soldier puppets. The daughter is forbidden to leave since she was
found with her father’s final scientific manuscript that is considered seditious. Her
daring escape will tug at your heartstrings when she and her lover, a family friend
and veterinarian, ski to their freedom in Austria. A stark tale of the Nazi totalitarian
domination, that precipitates a savage World War.

Director: Frank Borzage

Writers: Claudine West
Hans Rameau
George Foreschel

Based on Book: The Mortal Strom by Phyllis Bottome

Stars: Margaret Sullavan

James Stewart
Robert Young
Frank Morgan

Rating: Advisory
Studio: MGM
Black and White
Running Time: 100 min.

Rating: 6

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Type: Drama/ Romance

November 29, 2009