Blocus

John Howard Lawson joined the CPUSA in 1934 and announced that he would try to "present the Communist position" in his scripts. On the face of it, he didn't get far in "Blockade", a notoriously timid Spanish Civil War pic released while it was still being fought. Publicity promised that "the story does not attempt to favour any cause"; even the uniforms were ambiguous.

The factions are referred to only as "Them" (invaders) and "Us" (invaded). The casus belli is no more than Their attempt to purloin Our land, a valley near Granada. What ensues is personalised, studio-bound melodrama. Heroic amateur soldier Henry Fonda stiffens his fellow peasants' backs to resist the grab. He woos blonde White Russian adventuress Madeleine Carroll and finally demands foreign intervention in a Chaplinesque harangue to camera: "Where's the conscience of the world?"

It all savours of Hays Office intervention and the anxiety of Lawson's "progressive" producer, Walter Wanger, not to provoke the US public by charging them for a liberal sermon. But "Blockade" may be subtler agitprop than it seems.

By 1938 anybody who read a paper or watched "The March of Time" would infer that Fonda stands for the Republic fending off General Franco's Nazi- and Fascist-backed Nationalists-- not the other way round. And Lawson's emphasis on small farmers guarding their ancestral acreage is just what Stalin ordered. In reality the country round Granada was a hotbed of anarchist schemes for collectivising agriculture, but the Communist line was that the Republic's left-front government, including democratic socialists and liberals, must be sustained till the rebel generals were routed. Only then could land reform be considered; reform under the aegis of a Communist-dominated regime subservient to Moscow, which would nationalise the land, not parcel it out to dubious anarchic types.

Moreover, Lawson must have relished making Carroll's character an exiled daughter of Russia with a crooked anti-Red father, who sees the light in Fonda's arms.

We laugh at movies such as this and "Last Train from Madrid" for their superficial, sentimental view of a burning issue. But what right has today's supposedly more liberated Hollwood to laugh? Where were Vietnam films during the conflict, apart from John Wayne's "Green Berets"? How many Gulf War or Enduring Freedom stories have we seen? How many portrayals of radical Islam, pro or anti? Hollywood is more gutlessly evasive than ever during our dangerous times. Well, export markets provide more of its profit margin than 60 years ago...

To paraphrase the late great Father Coughlin's jibe at the Roosevelt government's provision of "relief that failed to relieve", this inept film on the Spanish Civil War provided propaganda that failed to propagandize. That, at least to this viewer, is the only thought that lingered after suffering through almost 90 minutes of Blockade. I say this with a great deal of reluctance because I have always considered myself a great fan of both the principals of this film, Madeleine Carroll and Henry Fonda, but, alas, not even these two cinematic greats could salvage this bummer. In my quest to apportion blame I suppose the the script writer, a certain John Henry Lawson, is as good a place as any to start. The clunky lines he puts in the mouth of Fonda, a peasant hero of the so-called "republican" cause--particularly his closing monologue--are grounds for confinement in the most austere of labor camps courtesy of his obvious favorite, Comrade Joseph Stalin. I was especially struck by the tepidity of the romantic interludes with the beautiful Carroll, suggesting that a proletarian partisan like Mr. Lawson has little feeling for the more sublime side of human emotions. All of this I could excuse if Blockade offered anything approaching effective political propaganda if that was what it offered; but, at the risk of being tedious, that was precisely where it failed the most.

For political propaganda that both entertains and persuades, let me suggest Casablanca. For political propaganda that offers only a few glimpses of the radiant Madeleine Carroll and nothing more, I recommend Blockade. That, unfortunately, is not enough to salvage this less than scintillating 1930s leftist pap.

In the spring of 1936 in Castelmare, the peasants Marco (Henry Fonda) and Luis (Leo Carrillo) help the aristocratic Russian Norma (Madeleine Carroll) that had a car accident while driving to the house of her father Basil (Vladimir Sokoloff) and Marco falls in love with Norma.

Sooner the Spanish Civil War begins and Marco leads a group of peasants to defend Castelmare and he is assigned lieutenant of the rebels' army. Meanwhile, Basil and Norma are forced to spy for Andre Gallinet (John Halliday). Marco suspects of Basil and follows him to his room. When Basil reacts, Marco kills him in a shooting.

Meanwhile, Castelmare is under siege and without supplies, and Norma escapes from Marco. But she is blackmailed by Gallibet and forced to return to Castelmare with information about the ship that is bringing supplies for the population.

"Blockade" is a shallow and corny melodrama during the Spanish Civil War (17 July 1936 to 01 April 1939). The dull romance between Marco and Norma has no chemistry and the author uses a historical event that is happening in 1938 in a neutral position and no references. The final speech of Henry Fonda's character is one of the awfullest conclusions that I have ever seen in a classic. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Bloqueio" ("Blockade")

The Fonda/Caroll romance is one of the weakest you can see in a thirties film.He seems to appear haphazardly at the most awkward moments.That leads us to a Corneille-like situation:Fonda has killed his love's father.

Politically,the film remains vague,always referring to the enemy as "they" like in Borzage 's 'three comrades" (but that was a great film though).The war was over on the first of March 1939;thus the film ,made in 1938,warns us ,in a clumsy way,that it's only the beginning:propaganda movies can be great,but it takes a strong screenplay (best example:"the mortal storm" Frank Borzage) and not a cat and mouse play between spies ,corrupt officers and profiteers of war.

In consequence ,the best scenes ,IMHO,are those which deal with the masses;the starving faces ,watching the ship sinking down are reminiscent of Eisenstein,whose influence was huge at the time.

Henry Fonda was roped into this -- he had a higher box office rating than the perfect actor for it, Gilbert Roland. There aren't many roles both of these men could play, and this wasn't one of them.

The story concerns the Spanish Civil War.

The script was written by an avowed Communist, John Howard Lawson who wanted to "present the Communist position" in his scripts. He doesn't really get to do that in Blockade, since it's deliberately ambiguous as to the different factions, referred to as "they" and "us." The costuming also doesn't suggest anything as far as sides.

The story concerns a place called Castelmare, where Marco and Luis (Fonda and Leo Carrillo) help a Russian woman, Norma (Madeleine Carroll) who has had a car accident on the way to her father's. For Marco, it's love at first sight.

When war begins, Marco is the head of a group of peasant attempting to defend Castelmare. Meanwhile, Norma and her father are forced to spy for the other side. Marco winds up killing Norma's father.

Castelmare cannot get any supplies, and Norma is being blackmailed to give information about the ship so that it can be sunk.

Probably the most striking thing are the closeups of the suffering peasants.

Casablanca it isn't. Fonda and Carroll have no chemistry. The dialogue is very stilted.

Henry Fonda at the end gives an impassioned speech right into the camera. It's embarrassing.