The Mortal Storm
Accusations of ‘fascist’ have been thrown around far too readily since 2015, but from the perspective of 2026 there have been events that genuinely do appear to fit the adjective. THE MORTAL STORM is similarly based in a time and place where people are being asked to choose a side, in this case Germany of the early-to-mid 1930s. It is based on a novel I have not read. I did find a good summary of its contents, and will work with that. As with the recently viewed HOPSCOTCH, the film has taken liberties with the source text. The author, Phyllis Bottome, expressed content with these changes. Maybe, just maybe, she shouldn’t have
The film is riddled with a mawkish sentimentality that I find both deeply Hollywood and deeply off-putting. I felt a certain eagerness for the Nazis to come onto the scene and destroy the smug self-satisfaction of the affluent Roth family, itself already containing Hitlerite sympathisers. Professor Roth (Frank Morgan) is a university professor, a scientist who respects the ‘truth’. What a shame he couldn’t pass this along to his stepsons Otto (Robert Stack) and Erich (William T. Orr). They, along with Roth’s student Fritz Marberg (Robert Young), are Nazis. Marberg is also a suitor to Roth’s daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan). He manipulates her into accepting his offer of marriage, but his political views eventually cause her to end their engagement. As the Nazis become bolder and more demanding of expressions of loyalty, Freya turns to a defeated suitor, the veterinary student Martin Breitner (James Stewart), for support. Breitner himself has a couple of run-ins with Nazis and finds himself on the kind of list that brings more, not less, attention. By the end of the film, the Roth family has fallen apart, the cost of Nazi rule has been made clear and we’re not really offered much hope for the future. The pessimistic ending was perhaps my favourite part of the production, except it was spoilt by a Narrator (Shepperd Strudwick), who had opened the film, returning to voice some anodyne nonsense about trusting God. King George VI thought appropriate to a country facing war, but it was a return the appalling mawkishness with which the film began. I may be a believer in God, but to fight fascism I’m going to put my faith in the communists. (Although, to be fair, at the time of the film’s release the Soviet Union was technically allied with the Hitlerites. I’m fairly sure Moscow would have fallen had the Germans started their invasion at the 1939 Polish-Soviet border, but this would not be evident until December 1941.)
This brings me to why the author perhaps should have been less enthusiastic about the adaptation. The Hans Breitner of the novel is not the Christian liberal pacifist portrayed by the devoutly Republican James Stewart, but is a Communist. The fact is, a film in the United States in the 1940 that presented a Communist as the heroic enemy of Nazis would have been dismissed out of hand, and not merely because of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact. Like all of the future Allied Powers, the average American in the 1930s was likely to have far more enthusiasm for Hitler than for the Soviet Union, and quite a few probably didn’t like Jewish people either. It’s regrettable to write that, but the fact that the majority can be on the wrong side of history is why it is better for Art to show the ‘scientific truth’ that Professor Roth uses as his standard in the film.
As well as concealing Breitner’s real identity, the film also infamously changed the Jews of the novel into ‘non-Aryans’. This was the decision of one man, Louis B. Mayer, who may well have believed that the average American wouldn’t be bright enough to connect ‘non-Aryan’ with ‘Jew’. As it was, the book is quite forthright in showing the hostility of the Nazis towards Jewish people. By writing Communists and Jews out of the story, Mayer made it possible for the film to ‘play in Peoria’ more successfully. (Arguably it broadens the Nazi threat to cover non-Germans more generally, which is a fair comment.) There are a few clues that remain to indicate the real nature of the Roths, of which the most overt is the presence of a ‘J’ (for Juden) on the sleeve of Roth’s camp uniform. There is nothing to remind us that Breitner is a commie. I know which side this film is on.
The final element of Hollywood gutlessness in adapting the novel comes in the transformation of Freya from something of a feminist archetype into a woman who almost (but not quite) recognises her place in the house. Marberg clearly intends to be the leader in their relationship and Freya’s courage, preserved from the novel, allows her to reject him. She never questions Marberg’s love for her nor his prospects of being the proverbial ‘good provider’. Marberg freely chooses his Naziism, and Freya freely chooses a less secure future because she cannot live with it. However, the script’s concealment of her Jewish identity makes her decision seem more intellectual that visceral. It loses some of its power that way.
More pedantically, perhaps, I would note that the novel makes clear that Mrs Roth is Austrian by birth, and Otto and Erich are sons of her previous marriage to an Austrian aristocrat. (A casualty of the First World War, perhaps? The absence of the impact of this conflict on Germans in the 1930s will only make sense to a people who are indifferent to history.) However, omitting this useful piece of information leaves us with the mystery of why they would choose to flee Germany for Austria, which was developing a Nazi problem of its own in the middle Thirties. (The chronology of the film is a bit sketchy, beyond starting on 30 January 1933, although I don’t think it gets much past early 1936, based on the publication date of the novel. We’ve certainly got some time before the Anschluss.) Also, I’m rather puzzled why Otto and Erich are so happy to be stepsons to a Jewish man, given their political views. I’m not sure this is handled well in the novel, either, so I merely note the matter.
Are there any good things I can say about this film? Actually, quite a few. Apart from the non-Aryan trick, everything about the film succeeds on Golden-Age Hollywood terms. Just about everyone writing about this rightly acknowledges the great restraint of the film. Otto, Erich and Marberg are not unremittingly evil (although maybe Erich is), even as much as their deeds are. The young Nazis are, perhaps, victims of their youthful wish to overthrow what seems to be holding things back. As Nazi rule develops, they find themselves prisoners of decisions that they were perhaps too young to make. For me, that was the real tragedy of the film. The depiction of violence, whether physical or emotional, is also carefully controlled. We see beatings mostly at a distance. The torture of one character takes place entirely off-screen, although we hear things. In fact, in keeping with the closing narration, the emotion director Frank Borzage seems to evoke most is a tenderness towards one another. Even Marberg, as possessive as he acts towards Freya during their courtship, still regards her with affection.
The score is also relatively restrained, which caught me by surprise. I expected to be hammered with sentimentality matching the early scenes of the film, but its use remains measured throughout.
For all its technical prowess – and it is quite a well-made film – I found it deeply unlikable. Too many unfortunate decisions were taken with the script, as an adaptation, and the casting of James Stewart never works for me. (Why, oh why couldn’t he have been the Nazi Marberg? I honestly think that would have worked better.) Neither did Margaret Sullivan’s hair-style. But ultimately it is the characteristic Hollywood combination of mawkishness and spineless politics that render the film a failure for me.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
The film is riddled with a mawkish sentimentality that I find both deeply Hollywood and deeply off-putting. I felt a certain eagerness for the Nazis to come onto the scene and destroy the smug self-satisfaction of the affluent Roth family, itself already containing Hitlerite sympathisers. Professor Roth (Frank Morgan) is a university professor, a scientist who respects the ‘truth’. What a shame he couldn’t pass this along to his stepsons Otto (Robert Stack) and Erich (William T. Orr). They, along with Roth’s student Fritz Marberg (Robert Young), are Nazis. Marberg is also a suitor to Roth’s daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan). He manipulates her into accepting his offer of marriage, but his political views eventually cause her to end their engagement. As the Nazis become bolder and more demanding of expressions of loyalty, Freya turns to a defeated suitor, the veterinary student Martin Breitner (James Stewart), for support. Breitner himself has a couple of run-ins with Nazis and finds himself on the kind of list that brings more, not less, attention. By the end of the film, the Roth family has fallen apart, the cost of Nazi rule has been made clear and we’re not really offered much hope for the future. The pessimistic ending was perhaps my favourite part of the production, except it was spoilt by a Narrator (Shepperd Strudwick), who had opened the film, returning to voice some anodyne nonsense about trusting God. King George VI thought appropriate to a country facing war, but it was a return the appalling mawkishness with which the film began. I may be a believer in God, but to fight fascism I’m going to put my faith in the communists. (Although, to be fair, at the time of the film’s release the Soviet Union was technically allied with the Hitlerites. I’m fairly sure Moscow would have fallen had the Germans started their invasion at the 1939 Polish-Soviet border, but this would not be evident until December 1941.)
This brings me to why the author perhaps should have been less enthusiastic about the adaptation. The Hans Breitner of the novel is not the Christian liberal pacifist portrayed by the devoutly Republican James Stewart, but is a Communist. The fact is, a film in the United States in the 1940 that presented a Communist as the heroic enemy of Nazis would have been dismissed out of hand, and not merely because of the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact. Like all of the future Allied Powers, the average American in the 1930s was likely to have far more enthusiasm for Hitler than for the Soviet Union, and quite a few probably didn’t like Jewish people either. It’s regrettable to write that, but the fact that the majority can be on the wrong side of history is why it is better for Art to show the ‘scientific truth’ that Professor Roth uses as his standard in the film.
As well as concealing Breitner’s real identity, the film also infamously changed the Jews of the novel into ‘non-Aryans’. This was the decision of one man, Louis B. Mayer, who may well have believed that the average American wouldn’t be bright enough to connect ‘non-Aryan’ with ‘Jew’. As it was, the book is quite forthright in showing the hostility of the Nazis towards Jewish people. By writing Communists and Jews out of the story, Mayer made it possible for the film to ‘play in Peoria’ more successfully. (Arguably it broadens the Nazi threat to cover non-Germans more generally, which is a fair comment.) There are a few clues that remain to indicate the real nature of the Roths, of which the most overt is the presence of a ‘J’ (for Juden) on the sleeve of Roth’s camp uniform. There is nothing to remind us that Breitner is a commie. I know which side this film is on.
The final element of Hollywood gutlessness in adapting the novel comes in the transformation of Freya from something of a feminist archetype into a woman who almost (but not quite) recognises her place in the house. Marberg clearly intends to be the leader in their relationship and Freya’s courage, preserved from the novel, allows her to reject him. She never questions Marberg’s love for her nor his prospects of being the proverbial ‘good provider’. Marberg freely chooses his Naziism, and Freya freely chooses a less secure future because she cannot live with it. However, the script’s concealment of her Jewish identity makes her decision seem more intellectual that visceral. It loses some of its power that way.
More pedantically, perhaps, I would note that the novel makes clear that Mrs Roth is Austrian by birth, and Otto and Erich are sons of her previous marriage to an Austrian aristocrat. (A casualty of the First World War, perhaps? The absence of the impact of this conflict on Germans in the 1930s will only make sense to a people who are indifferent to history.) However, omitting this useful piece of information leaves us with the mystery of why they would choose to flee Germany for Austria, which was developing a Nazi problem of its own in the middle Thirties. (The chronology of the film is a bit sketchy, beyond starting on 30 January 1933, although I don’t think it gets much past early 1936, based on the publication date of the novel. We’ve certainly got some time before the Anschluss.) Also, I’m rather puzzled why Otto and Erich are so happy to be stepsons to a Jewish man, given their political views. I’m not sure this is handled well in the novel, either, so I merely note the matter.
Are there any good things I can say about this film? Actually, quite a few. Apart from the non-Aryan trick, everything about the film succeeds on Golden-Age Hollywood terms. Just about everyone writing about this rightly acknowledges the great restraint of the film. Otto, Erich and Marberg are not unremittingly evil (although maybe Erich is), even as much as their deeds are. The young Nazis are, perhaps, victims of their youthful wish to overthrow what seems to be holding things back. As Nazi rule develops, they find themselves prisoners of decisions that they were perhaps too young to make. For me, that was the real tragedy of the film. The depiction of violence, whether physical or emotional, is also carefully controlled. We see beatings mostly at a distance. The torture of one character takes place entirely off-screen, although we hear things. In fact, in keeping with the closing narration, the emotion director Frank Borzage seems to evoke most is a tenderness towards one another. Even Marberg, as possessive as he acts towards Freya during their courtship, still regards her with affection.
The score is also relatively restrained, which caught me by surprise. I expected to be hammered with sentimentality matching the early scenes of the film, but its use remains measured throughout.
For all its technical prowess – and it is quite a well-made film – I found it deeply unlikable. Too many unfortunate decisions were taken with the script, as an adaptation, and the casting of James Stewart never works for me. (Why, oh why couldn’t he have been the Nazi Marberg? I honestly think that would have worked better.) Neither did Margaret Sullivan’s hair-style. But ultimately it is the characteristic Hollywood combination of mawkishness and spineless politics that render the film a failure for me.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
Mini Review: For all its technical prowess – and it is quite a well-made film – I found it deeply unlikable. Too many unfortunate decisions were taken with the script, as an adaptation of the Bottome novel. It is the characteristic Hollywood combination of mawkishness and spineless politics that render the film a failure for me.