Belgian window card for the movie “Pastor Hall” (1940)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 21.375 inches (54.293 cm) | Width: 14.500 inches (36.83 cm)
Creator(s)
- Charter Film Productions (Production Company)
- United Artists Corporation (Distributor)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
- Grand National Pictures (Distributor)
- L.&.H. Verstegen Printers (Printer)
Biographical History
The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
Archival History
The window card was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
Scope and Content
Belgian window card for the British feature film “Pastor Hall,” released in the United States on September 13, 1940. Window cards were mass-produced promotional materials used until the mid-1980s. They included a blank section at the top for individual theaters to write in dates and show times, and placed in locations outside of the theaters. “Pastor Hall” was an adaptation of the 1938 play written by Ernst Toller, a Prussian Jewish veteran of World War I. After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Toller was declared an enemy of the state and immigrated to England, and moved again to the United States in 1936. In the film, a Lutheran minister resists the Nazification of German Protestant churches, and is imprisoned in a concentration camp as a result. He manages to escape, but is eventually killed. It equates Hitler with the Antichrist, bent on destroying not only the Jewish people, but Christianity as well. The protagonist is based on Rev. Martin Niemöller, who was arrested in 1936 and sent to Dachau concentration camp. ”Pastor Hall” was brought to the United States by James Roosevelt, son of First Lady Eleanor and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The producers had to cut 5 minutes of the most brutal scenes before it was given approval by the American censors. The First Lady recorded a prologue to the film, informing the American viewers that it was representative of actual events. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Color window card printed on rectangular, off-white paper with photographic images from the film “Pastor Hall.” The top of the poster has a wide margin with several lines of blue, handwritten Dutch text. Below, is a large rectangle with a collage of images over an abstract blue and yellow background. The top left section is filled with a large image of the face of a man, wearing a black biretta. In the top right corner, there is a small scene depicting a man in a blue suit holding a book and pointer while standing in front of rows of schoolchildren sitting at desks. In the bottom left corner, in shades of blue and green, is an image of two men and a woman, depicted from the knees up. The woman is in the center, embracing the man on the right, who is wearing a uniform. He is holding onto the hand of a man in a suit, standing behind the woman. On the center right of the poster are the names of the film’s stars, printed in red and green. Below, in the bottom right corner, is the film title and credits. Affixed to the bottom center of the poster is a green and white revenue stamp, with a blue ink stamp on top. There is small, blue text printed in the bottom corners of the margin. On the reverse is a section from a larger, English-language map of Norway, including the city of Oslo. There is blue ink transfer along the front, right margin and a stain at the top center. Depicted: Wilfrid Lawson as Pastor Frederick Hall, Nova Pilbeam as Christine Hall, Seymour Hicks as General von Grotjahn
front, top, handwritten, blue crayon : Cinema De Volkslust Tongerloo / Zaterdag 16 April te 8 mir / Zondag Taschen te 4 en 8 mir / Edelste Opoffering / Trachtig Taas programma (Cinema De Volkslust Tongerloo / Saturday April 16 at 8 a.m. / Sunday Taschen at 4 and 8 a.m. / Noblest Sacrifice / Beautiful Taas program] front, bottom, stamped over revenue stamp, blue ink : Louis BI[?]SEMANS / CINEMA VOLKSLUST / TONGERLOO front, bottom, revenue stamp, printed, red, black, and green ink : 0.20 / 9 T 495135 / BELGE FISCALE TAXES•BELGIQUE TAXES FISCALES/ 0.20 / 9 T 495135 [Belgium Fiscal Taxes]
People
- Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.
- Toller, Ernst, 1893-1939.
- Roosevelt, James, 1907-1991.
- Pilbeam, Nova, 1919-2015.
- Hicks, Seymour, 1871-1949.
- Goring, Marius, 1912-1998.
- Lawson, Wilfrid, 1900-1966.
- Niemöller, Martin, 1892-1984.
Corporate Bodies
Subjects
- Belgium.
- United States.
- Nazis in motion pictures.
- Foreign films.
- Political violence in motion pictures.
- Germans in motion pictures.
- Imprisonment in motion pictures.
- Clergy--Crimes against.
- Anti-Nazi movement in motion pictures.
- Film adaptations.
- Great Britain.
Genre
- Object
- Information Forms
- Display cards.