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The Blue Angel (UFA, 1929) b&w, 92 min. The film"The Blue Angel", starring Emil Jannings and Marlene Dietrich, was made in Germany in 1929, in the period when the Weimar Republic was under attack from both left and right. The film was adapted from a novel by Heinrich Mann, brother of Thomas Mann. This is the story of a hypocritical petty tyrant - a high school teacher who not only enforces stern discipline in the classroom but also invokes his authority to guard his students morality after school hours, by following them to a low class cafe, "The Blue Angel", whose main attraction is a singer named Lola Lola. When Professor Rath succumbs to Lola's attractions, his pupils' fear turns to contempt and in a scene of almost sadistic torment they turn on him in the classroom where he has intimidated and dominated them. The film is excellent in helping to set the background for pre-Hitler Germany: it presents the authoritarianism of petty German Bureaucracy, the respect for authority, and at the same time is an attack on the facade of middle class morality which many regarded as completely hypocritical.... (German with English subtitles) (Course, Western Civilization & Middle Class in Society) Marjorie Gottheimer; CW. Post College, Greenvale, N.Y. The Life of Emile Zola (Warner Brothers, 1937) b&w, 118 min. This is a sentimental and somewhat romanticized life of Zola centering around the Dreyfus Affair. Zola is of course the hero, attacking the lies and injustices of the "Establishment", particularly the General Staff and heads of the French army. Despite some inaccuracies in detail, it conveys fairly accurately the impact of the Dreyfus Affair on liberals of that day and of the 1930' s . Its greatest defect is that it virtually neglects the broader implications of the Affair, particularly anti-Semitism and the role of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, with students familiar with the Dreyfus Affair I found the film generated good discussion and illustrated in striking fashion the significance of the Affair outside France over a generation later. The significance of the date of production, 1937, is vividly brought home in a scene in which an antiDreyfusard mob piles up and burns Zola's books. Student reaction (the Calley trial was at its peak) to army officers talking about "the honor of the Army", need for national security, etc. was strong. (Course, "France Since 1870") Robert L. Melka, Hope College; Holland, Michigan This will be the last Newsletter before the Fall. The questionaires have been coming in slowly but steadily, and the results will be reported in the next issue. In the meantime, we invite (indeed we urgently solicit) your comments, letters, memberships, completed questionaires and film reviews. We will be at our regular address for the entire summer:' Historians Film Committee c/o History Faculty ^^_^ ------ Newark College of Engineering. Newark, N.J= 07102* ...

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