Customer Reviews

Hitler's Heroines: Stardom and Womanhood in Nazi Cinema (Culture and the Moving Image)

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This is a very well researched book with lots of information. But even though it is about film history, the text is accompanied by few photos, although those which were included were interesting and absolutely in context with the subject matter immediately at hand.

The author chose, unfortunately, to write it in such a grammatically convoluted style that it often required re-reading to understand things that could otherwise have been much more simply and directly expressed.

Additionally, one of the author's comments truly troubled me, that being a reference to Marika Rokk as presenting a "motherly" image in her Ufa films, in contrast to Lillian Harvey's "spritely" image. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Rokk was a sexy, leggy, comical song-and-dance sweetheart, full of energy and pouty self-assurance. I can give no better example than her exceptional performance in "Hallo Janine" (see my separate review of this film), where her persistance eventually won her the lead in one of the most spectacular musical numbers I've ever seen on film. She could also easily play the melodramatic, but in all the films of hers that I have been fortunate enough to view or read about, she eventually breaks out into song and triumphs over whatever circumstances have held her back---and in none of these films do I recall any reference to children or to any overly submissive role, in keeping with National Socialist policy for how women were to be portrayed on screen (i.e., careerless and in virtual subjugation to a dominant male/males, tied firmly to home and children rather than self-fulfillment).