"All Unquiet on the Hollywood Front": Actor Lew Ayres as Conscientious Objector

Frazer and O'Sullivan | "All Unquiet on the Hollywood Front" Heather Frazer and John O'Sullivan Florida Atlantic University "All Unquiet on the Hollywood Front": Actor LewAyres as Conscientious Objector As Paul Baumer, Ayres saw the cruelties ofwar. 34 I Film & History World War II in Film | Special In-Depth Section On 31 March 1942 the nation's largest circulation newspaper headlined a story by its Hollywood reporter , "U.S. Calls Dr. Kildare But He Won't Fight." Lew Ayres, who played the title role in the Kildare film series, had registered as a conscientious objector with his Beverly Hills draft board. His decision surprised and shocked many Americans who learned of it amidst the discouraging battlefield reports in their morning newspaper.1 Lew Ayres, at 33, had been a leading man in Hollywood films for a dozen years. His third film, the antiwar classic, All Quiet On The Western Front (1930), had established him as a star. Ayres sensitively portrayed Paul Baumer, a young German soldier overwhelmed by the carnage ofthe First World War. The film's demythologizing ofwar, expressed in Baumer's lament, "It's dirty and painful to die for your country. When it comes to dying for your country, it's better not to die at all," evoked a strong response at its Berlin showing. Nazis demonstrated against the film, setting offstench bombs and releasing mice in the theater.2 Ayres starred in a series of films in the 1930s, none ofwhich approached the substance ofAll Quiet on the Western Front. He shunned the Hollywood social whirl, preferring to pursue his interests in music , astronomy, and weather forecasting at his mountaintop home. His marriage to Ginger Rogers in 1934 ended two years later. In 1938, the first of the Dr. Kildare series was produced. Although low-budget films, they were consistently among MGM's most profitable productions. Dr. Kildare's Victory, the ninth in the series, had just been released when Ayres opted for conscientious objector status. A tenth Kildare film, Born to be Bad, had been completed but not yet distributed. Ayres, whose career was at a commercial , if not artistic peak, had now taken a step which jeopardized his film-making future. Ayres's pacifist position had evolved over the years since he had made AU Quiet on the Western Front. Ayres, interviewed on a train taking him to a conscientious objector camp in Oregon, acknowledged the "powerful influence" the film had on his thinking: "1 was twenty when I played the part of the German soldier who abhorred war and I thoroughly believe that the picture had much to do with my later thinking and my present step." Ayres accepted the consequences which might result from his decision, indicating that any other course ofaction would plunge him into a "nightmare ofhypocrisy and deceit."3 An angry response to Ayres's announcement appeared almost immediately. A Texas theater chain canceled showings ofhis latest picture "as a trial balloon to determine public reaction to Ayres's refusal to join U.S. military forces."4 A New Bedford, Massachusetts theater, acting at the insistence of an American Legion post, withdrew an Ayres film and replaced it with Joe Smith, American} The manager ofa Hackensack, New Jersey theater reported receiving more than one hundred telephone calls from persons threatening a boycott if Dr. Kildare's Victory was not removed from a double bill. He yielded, explaining that "public demand was so great I had no alternative ."6 Another New Jersey cancellation was headlined , "Lew Ayres Pictures Box Office Poison."7 Erich Maria Remarque, author of the novel All Quiet on the Western Front (1928), dissociated himself from Ayres's decision: "I am very sorry. I didn't expect it to have an effect like this. I think we all should fight against Hitlerism."8 Ayres's decision drew a more balanced editorial response from the New York Times: "Ifall Americans believed, as Lew Ayres does, the 'creed ofnon-resistance to evil,' the Nazis could do whatever they wished in this country. Ifall humanity believed the same creed there would be no Nazis and no war." The fact that mankind has not universally embraced these values should not...