Hollywood's Rogue Neighbor: The Argentine Film Industry During the Good Neighbor Policy, 1939-1945
Lawrence, Kansas
During World War II, the United States created a political, economic, and cultural policy aimed at improving hemispheric relations between the U.S. and Latin America. Dubbed the "Good Neighbor Policy," its objectives were twofold: 1) to insure that nations in Latin America were joined in the Allied war effort and were not associated with the Axis or Communist sympathizers, and 2) to allow the U.S. access to Latin America as a source of raw materials and a market for goods, including films. Because Argentina did not side with the Allies, instead preferring neutrality, it was castigated by an economic boycott. Beginning in 1941, the U.S. sold small rations of raw film stock to Argentina, and over time, refused to sell it all together. The film industry in Argentina, at the time considered the most profitable and advanced in Latin America, began to lose its hold on the Spanish-language market.
This study examines the standard understanding of the period, which is that the United States (vis à vis the Good Neighbor policy agencies, the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA), and its Hollywood counterpart, the Motion Picture Society of the Americas (MPSA)) withheld film stock from the Argentine film industry because of Argentina's pro-Axis sentiments. For example, some charged that Argentina produced pro-Axis newsreels and other propaganda on behalf of the government. However, my research demonstrates that although there was one film studio—Argentina Sono Film—that produced newsreels sympathetic to the Axis, by and large, the industry remained firmly democratic and did not sympathize [End Page 245] with the government's censorship tactics against U.S. pro-Allied films. The Argentine government during wartime was headed by a succession of conservative military leaders who admired the Spanish fascist leader Francisco Franco and Italy's leader, Il duce, Benito Mussolini. While the Castillo government (1940-1943) declared neutrality mainly to continue trade with both Britain and Germany, they censored Hollywood wartime films such as Billy Wilder's Five Graves to Cairo (1943) for its anti-Axis references. Later, government officials instituted protectionist policies such as the imposition of Argentine newsreel requirements in all movie theatres and finally, a screen quota was mandated in 1944 limiting the amount of U.S. theatrical releases that could be imported. After the enactment of these restrictive policies, the U.S. acted in its best interests. For these reasons as well as economic self-interest, the State Department decided to limit, and later ban, the sale of raw film stock to Argentina—much to the dismay of Argentina's democratic and highly developed film industry. The Argentine cinema has never been as highly organized or as financially successful as during this "golden age," the historical moment before the U.S. ban on the sale of raw film stock.
A final, but no less important factor in explaining the U.S. boycott against Argentina was way the Argentine film industry posed a threat to the U.S. Hollywood industry: it was powerful and could compete quite well against its Hollywood counterparts for the profitable Spanish-language market. Hollywood looked to Latin America as a potential market to replace the European market collapse. Film historian Tino Balio writes that "to offset conditions in the war-torn European countries, Hollywood turned to Latin America. There, although the industry had a near-monopoly, the market had never been fully exploited."1 These external forces hastened the decline of the Argentine film industry during WWII.
This case study serves to shed light on the ways in which the success of cultural products, such as film, are affected by political and economic forces; one cannot judge the success of a nation's film production, exhibition and distribution solely on the laws of supply and demand. In this instance there were larger...
