Cinema: For the Record

A strange, frightening, fascinating film came to the U.S. last week. Few people will see it—at least for the time being. Four hours long, it is full of hysterical rhetoric, forced hurrahs, goose-stepping and the sort of public pageantry that most Americans find boring. Called The Nazi Plan, it is the first full-length picture ever used as evidence in a criminal trial. Assembled by the Office of Strategic Services from Nazi propaganda films, this cinema history of the Nazi Party was made to help convict the accused at the Nürnberg war criminal trials.

To assemble the curious document, U.S. moviemen, including Commander Ray Kellogg and Lieutenant Budd (What Makes Sammy Run) Schulberg, tracked down film which was hidden in cellars, locked in vaults and plastered in farmhouse walls throughout Europe. The result is a pretty full record of the little group of Nazi orators from bustling youth to beribboned age.

The original of the film has been impounded for court evidence in Nürnberg; the one extra print will be kept in the National Archives at Washington.