268 Pastor Hall

[MichaelB]

PASTOR HALL
(Roy Boulting, 1940)
Release date: 20 June 2022
Limited Edition Blu-ray

Pre-order here

When the quiet German village of Altdorf is taken over by an SS platoon which proceeds to enforce Hitler's ideals upon its inhabitants, a kindly pastor questions the agenda of ‘The New Order’ while members of his parish turn a blind eye to the insidious indoctrination. Before long, he is punished for his vocal opposition and is sent to Dachau, where, despite the abuse and brutality which he suffers, he refuses to give in to the madness and inhumanity of National Socialism.

Adapted from Ernst Toller’s 1939 play of the same name, and based on the true story of Protestant minister Martin Niemöller, Pastor Hall is the impressive third feature from the Boulting brothers (Brighton Rock). Starring Wilfrid Lawson (Pygmalion) as the iconic pastor, and Nova Pilbeam (Young and Innocent) as his formidable daughter, the film was one of the first anti-Nazi dramas ever made and had its original production delayed by British censors who were not yet ready to be openly critical of Hitler's regime.

A bold and stirring tribute to the universal power of faith, courage and personal conviction, Pastor Hall has been newly restored from 4K scans of the nitrate duplicate negative by Powerhouse Films and is finally available on Blu-ray for the first time in the world.


INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES

• New restoration from a 4K scan of the nitrate duplicate negative by Powerhouse Films
• Original mono audio
• Matthew D Hockenos on Martin Niemöller (2022): the author of Then They Came for Me: Martin Niemöller, the Pastor Who Defied the Nazis discusses the life and legacy of the German pastor
• Richard Falcon on ‘Pastor Hall’ (2022): the ex-BBFC examiner discusses the film’s history with the British Board of Film Censors
• Newsreel footage (1946): extract from Welt in Film featuring Niemöller speaking about post-war German guilt
• The Dawn Guard (1941): short film directed by Roy Boulting and starring Pastor Hall actors Percy Walsh and Bernard Miles as members of the Home Guard
• Minefield! (1944): documentary short film produced by Roy Boulting for the Army Film Unit
• New and improved subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Fiona Kelly, archival articles, new writing on the short films, and film credits
• World premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited edition of 4,000 copies for the UK and US
• All extras subject to change

#PHILTD268
BBFC cert: TBC
REGION FREE
EAN: 5060697922257

[colinr0380]

Great news! Here is the introduction by Alex Cox from when it was shown in the BBC's "Forbidden Weekend" season of controversial films in 1995:

One of the untold stories of the years between the wars is the extent to which certain members of the British ruling class gave active or passive aid and comfort to the Nazis. Of course, appeasement of Nazi Germany was the official policy of the Conservative government right up until the day war was declared. Perhaps simply for these reasons, or perhaps for other ones, the British Board of Film Censors sought to be especially fair and even-handed towards the Nazis and routinely forbade depictions of the jack-booted swine that were in any way unflattering or impolite.

In 1934 the Russian anti-Nazi feature Refugees was banned outright by the BBFC. Hitchcock's classic thrillers The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes were not allowed to mention the nationality of their Nazi villains. In 1936 the BBFC's principal Script Examiner, Col. Hanna, halted production of a World War One spy film with the words "I think the German Embassy should be approached about it". That's rather like approaching Boris Yeltsin for permission to make a film about the Chechen genocide.

In 1938 Miss Shortt, also of the British Board of Film Censors, insisted that the refugees fleeing an unnamed totalitarian state in The Exiles "must not look like Jews", and when in 1936 the Boulting Brothers - two of the finest and most patriotic British filmmakers of the day - approached the Board about their intention to make a film based on the persecution of Pastor Martin Niemöller, who had been sent to Dachau for criticising Hitler from his pulpit, Miss Shortt did not "consider this play suitable for production as a film. Even with the nationality disguised it is anti-Nazi propaganda". After war broke out and British soldiers were actually in France fighting the Nazis, the Board softened its attitude. The Boultings resubmitted Pastor Hall in 1939 and were allowed to make the film. Minister of Information Duff Cooper said it was "a great film, showing the nature of our present struggle". Even then it was saddled with a cumbersome prologue, assuring the viewers that it was based on authentic, verified facts. It was the first time that a concentration camp appeared in a dramatic film. So surprising was Pastor Hall to American audiences, who had also been kept largely in the dark about Nazi atrocities, that the US version began with a prologue read by Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the American President, opposing Hitler and his rule.

Pastor Hall is a low budget film. It relies heavily on sets and lacks the technical excellence of, say, Dead of Night. But it is a wonderful film, unfairly neglected in the years after the war. It stars Wilfrid Lawson who is outstanding as the Pastor. Other familiar faces are Sir Seymour Hicks, a very young Marius Goring and an even younger Bernard Miles. The concentration camp scenes are not particularly realistic, but how could they be? How could the essential 1930s British decency which permeates Pastor Hall conceive of the true horrors of Belsen, Auschwitz or Treblinka?

Perhaps another reason that Pastor Hall gave the Board of Censors problems was its theme. Individual freedom of speech versus the power of the state. This is also the theme of The Devils, Realm of the Senses, The Trip and a number of other banned and censored films. Watch out also for the sympathetic treatment of abortion. It is recommended by a kindly doctor for a young girl who has been raped by a Nazi. Unfortunately abortion is "a crime against the state wanting soldiers for the next war". I wonder if any modern British movie would be as forthright on the subject... certainly no American film would be.

I'm not too sure about the veracity of the comment about Refugees in that introduction since it appears that the film is both German made and pro-German in nature!

(with thanks to GaryC and jlnight about the correct spelling of the names!)

[Finch]

I'm much more interested in this film than the Bogie Noir set. Thank you for sharing the intro, Colin! It sounds like Paster Hall might make a good double bill with Went The Day Well?

[colinr0380]

I don't think it is as good as Went The Day Well?, which has the benefit of four years to clarify its attitude to the Nazis and a more clearer general approach of the country towards any encroaching threat to tailor its propaganda to, but Pastor Hall is certainly worth watching and very historically important just for the BBFC element that will hopefully be talked about in detail in its extra with the ex-Examiner, and which perhaps ties this release together with the previous Indicator release of No Orchids For Miss Blandish and that film's issues with the British censors.

Pastor Hall is quite didactic (and seems to think that concentration camps are just normal prisons with extra lashes of prisoner whipping) but builds to quite a powerful final scene in which an entire community's wilful blindness in the face of persecution going on right in front of them, and the sacrifices of those who stand up against such persecution, is portrayed in a novel and surprisingly forgiving and understanding way (and is weirdly superficially satisfying with an underlying bleakness of what comes straight afterwards in a manner that is similar to the ironic censor-mandated 'happy' ending of the Boulting Brothers' later adaptation of Brighton Rock). In some ways I think it works well watched together with something like Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! in that it feels rather theatrically constructed, has everyone not even attempting to do anything like a German accent, and sort of focuses as much on the daughter of the persecuted family trying to bargain for their loved one's life (and in danger of being morally sullied because of that desperate attempt at bargaining) as on the fate of their incarcerated father, who always has a Higher Power on his side. But rather than (arguably) consciously Brechtian as in the Lang film, this feels unintentionally so in its staging! When the main character is making his grandstanding monologues towards injustice he is not (entirely) breaking the fourth wall but more playing to his audience attentively but impotently watching him putting himself out there for his principles, and his God. So it seems to be earnestly theatrical rather than using theatricality as a distancing tool, if that makes any sense.

[Jonathan S]

Odd that Alex Cox's quoted introduction refers to "a very young Marius Goring and an even younger Bernard Miles". Goring was born in 1912 and Miles in 1907!

[colinr0380]

There are quite a few seeming inaccuracies in that introduction (such as that "Exiles" film mentioned in passing, which I cannot find a trace of; and the idea that the Boulting Brothers came with the script to Pastor Hall in 1936, when the play was apparently only produced in 1939!) which betrays its status as a pre-internet piece where fact checking was perhaps not as rigorous as it would have to be these days! But I thought it was worth posting for its emotional tenor more than its factual one.

Amusingly there seems to be no footage of this introduction on the internet compared to how most of the rest of the BBC's "Forbidden Weekend" is archived on YouTube (incidentally I like that in that opening introduction to the whole weekend that Cox suggests that Pastor Hall and A Clockwork Orange are somewhat similar in their message!), which is perhaps because whilst there were three evenings across the long Bank Holiday weekend in May 1995 (Saturday was Peter Jackson's Bad Taste, followed by the Good Taste making of documentary and the 1932 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Sunday was the first half of Empire of the Censors, Doing Rude Things, The Night Porter, Performance and Beat Girl; and Monday evening was Children of the Censors, the second half of Empire of the Censors, The Devils and Ingmar Bergman's The Silence), Pastor Hall turned up tucked away at 9 a.m. on that Bank Holiday Monday!

[MichaelB]

Pastor Hall is quite didactic (and seems to think that concentration camps are just normal prisons with extra lashes of prisoner whipping)

Not "seems to think", did think, based on the evidence available at the time. But for a film prepped in 1939 and released in 1940, that's entirely forgivable - Charles Chaplin famously said that if he'd had any inkling of what really went on in the camps when he made The Great Dictator at roughly the same time, he'd never have done it.

[GaryC]

There are quite a few seeming inaccuracies in that introduction

Another one is a spelling error. "Miss Short" should be "Miss Shortt". She later became Mrs (Nora) Crouzet. She worked for the BBFC from 1934 to 1946 and was the daughter of Edward Shortt, who had been (LIberal) Home Secretary from 1919 to 1922 and was President of the BBFC from 1929 to 1935. Amongst other things he introduced the H certificate for "horrific" content. He banned thirty-five films in one year, 1931, an apparent record for the Board.

ETA: Confirmed here so above now revised.

[colinr0380]

That's my fault as I just transcribed it phonetically listening to the introduction, as with "Colonel Hannah" and "Minister of Information Doug Cooper". I will amend the post in light of your information GaryC.

[jlnight]

Exiles could be a film from 1938 from the Kulturkampf Association, a "20 minute film appealing for help and money for the Christian (so-called Non-Aryan) refugees from Germany".

I remember asking Colin for the intro to this a few years ago and he generously obliged with the transcript! He appeared to be the only one to record this and it is probably the rarest of the Cox intros (maybe the Film Club intro to Point Blank rarer still). I have a copy of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde intro.

Apparently it is Col. Hanna and Duff Cooper!

A timely release in light of what is happening in Ukraine.

[MichaelB]

Final specs:

[MichaelB]

A rave review of Pastor Hall from CineSavant:

Kudos to Powerhouse Indicator for releasing this dramatic propaganda piece based on an actual German churchman imprisoned for refusing to kowtow to the Nazi authorities. It’s a primer on fascist power from early in the war, one of the first features by the Boulting Brothers. PI’s extras package enlarges our interest ten-fold: the pastor’s objection to the Nazis was grossly misrepresented and the politics of his incarceration were very different. An added bonus are other wartime short subjects by Roy Boulting, from the Imperial War Museum.

I'm very pleased with how this disc turned out; as Glenn Erickson says, the extras are at least as interesting as the main feature, not least the fact that the real-life Pastor Martin Niemöller was a vastly more complicated and morally ambivalent person than you'd suspect from his most famous work (which, let's face it, is the only thing most of us know about him). Who would have guessed that the author of "First they came..." was once enthusiastically pro-Hitler and an outspoken anti-Semite?

[MichaelB]

Pastor Beaver:

The Indicator Blu-ray is the world premiere of a chilling masterwork of essential history and cinema. It shares themes of persecution, guilt, repentance, and personal responsibility. I was floored. It has our absolute highest recommendation of a film that YOU must see. Wow.

[Finch]

EDIT: Michael had already posted the Glenn Savant link above.

[Finch]

Cine Outsider review

A fascinating, well made, solidly performed, and important early work from one of British cinemas most crucial and creative teams. Pastor Hall has stood the test of rather time well, thanks to its unsensational approach, its sympathetic presentation of the German villagers, and the decision to portray Gerte not as an inhuman monster but an ordinary man who has been morally corrupted by the Nazi propaganda machine. It's another welcome, high quality release from Indicator, with a strong transfer backed up by some excellent special features, the cream of which for me is the Roy Boulting interview. Warmly recommended.

[Jonathan S]

Most reviews have mentioned minor jump-cuts in the surviving material, so it may be worth the BFI or the rightsholders investigating the 35mm print, at least of Parts 4-6 according to the cans, apparently among the titles included in a job lot on eBay, though the seller notes some of the prints - described as "mostly nitrate" - have "broken down". Only two days left (even if no offer is accepted) and I think the listing went live only yesterday.