The Propaganda Wars

History has no shortage of artists who put themselves in the service of an evil regime. An obvious example, though she and her apologists would deny it, is Leni Riefenstahl, whose grandiose tribute to Nazi Germany’s Third Reich in “The Triumph of the Will” (1935) outdid even Adolf Hitler’s fondest wish.

About 19 months after he had taken power, Hitler urged Riefenstahl to make a movie of the Nuremberg Party Rally, to be held during the first week of September 1934. It was designed to put the world on notice that the German people, the Nazi Party and the army were united behind Hitler. She complied, exalting Hitler as godlike and celebrating his ideology of Aryan supremacy.

Depending on who is talking, “The Triumph of the Will” is either a masterpiece of propaganda disguised as a documentary or a masterpiece of a documentary that served as propaganda. In both cases, however, it is widely regarded as a piece of historic filmmaking created by someone with a genius for movie production.

You can judge for yourself Tuesday at Chapman University’s Argyros Forum, Room 208, where a 60-minute version with English subtitles is being shown in tandem with Hollywood director Anatole Litvak’s “The Nazis Strike,” a 42-minute film produced in 1942 by Frank Capra as part of the U.S. Army’s “Why We Fight” series. (7 p.m., free. [714] 744-7018.)

“Seeing them together will show how some of the same footage can be used in a totally different context,” says Maureen Furniss, an assistant professor who teaches film history at Chapman.

In 1934, Riefenstahl was an ambitious filmmaker with an acting career behind her--a much bigger one at the time than Marlene Dietrich’s--and a budding career as a producer-director ahead of her.

She had already made “The Blue Light”--a prize-winning movie (Silver Medallion at the 1932 Biennale in Venice) in which she also starred--that told a mystical tale of the mountains while extolling the beauties of nature.

She had, moreover, been pressed into Hitler’s service before. She had made a short film of the Nuremberg Party Rally of 1933--”Victory of Faith”--that celebrated Hitler’s appointment as chancellor and which, apparently, has been lost.

Riefenstahl, who at 95 was honored for career achievement in September in Los Angeles by Cinecon (a small but respected film organization), claims in her autobiography, “Leni Riefenstahl: A Memoir” (St. Martin’s Press, 1992), that she begged Hitler not to force “The Triumph of the Will” on her.

She writes that she sped to Nuremberg, where Hitler was inspecting the rally site, “with only one thought in mind: to free myself from this project.” But Hitler insisted. “It sounded almost like an order,” she explains.

Realizing that she could not change his mind, Riefenstahl writes, “Now at least I had to try and obtain the best possible working conditions.” She got them, of course.

Among Hitler’s claque, architect Albert Speer helped her most. Speer, who designed the rally spectacle, had an elevator platform built for Riefenstahl on one of the many flagpoles that flew the blood-red Nazi bunting. It enabled her to get dynamic-motion aerial shots of the Hitler faithful. Their massed ranks, pictured on a gigantic scale, is one of the movie’s hallmarks.

Riefenstahl spent four years in Allied prison camps as a Nazi sympathizer. She contends she knew nothing of Auschwitz. As for “The Triumph of the Will,” she maintains it was strictly a work of art.

“I have so often been accused of having made propaganda films, but such charges are misguided,” Riefenstahl writes in her memoir. “This film was a factual documentary. . . . No one, not even the Party, gave me any sort of instructions on what to do. . . . During my work I never thought of propaganda even for an instant.”

So much the worse.

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Capra produced the “Why We Fight” series--so named because they consisted of orientation films designed to explain the Allied cause during World War II to American soldiers and sailors--under orders from Gen. George C. Marshall. “The Nazis Strike” was the second of seven films in the series made by the 834th Photo Signal Detachment, an Army unit that Capra, who rose to the rank of colonel, assembled and led.

One of the team’s chief members--Anatole Litvak, a Jewish, Russian-born director who had come to Hollywood in 1937 and who would make “Sorry, Wrong Number” and “The Snake Pit” after the war--directed “The Nazis Strike,” following Capra’s “Prelude to War.” Like “Prelude,” it exploited old newsreels and footage confiscated from the Axis powers.

But where “Prelude” summarized the early development of the Fascist movements in Europe, “Strike” focuses on German military might and geopolitical ambitions. With Walter Huston and Anthony Veiller narrating, it uses Riefenstahl’s footage of the 1934 Nuremberg rally to make its points, as well as footage of a mass rally in Madison Square Garden that featured the American “fuehrer,” Fritz Kuhn, addressing the crowd.

Viewers also witness the invasions of various European countries; they see British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declare “Peace in our time” after the infamous Munich Agreement, the signing of the equally infamous Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, and the devastation of Warsaw during Hitler’s blitzkrieg march on Poland in the summer of 1939.

The civilian public got to see the series, among other war films intended to bolster morale, at movie houses throughout the country. Marshall regarded the series as a masterful achievement.

Capra was awarded the highest American military decoration for noncombat service, the Distinguished Service Medal. Litvak, who ran the Capra unit’s combat photography during the invasion of Normandy, won the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d’Honneur.

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Pedro Almodovar’s “The Flower of My Secret” (1996)--presented tonight by the UC Irvine Film Society--is set in Madrid and tells the tale of a middle-aged pulp writer whose career and marriage go wrong.

Almodovar is best known for his outrageous farces “‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1987) and “Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!” (1989). But this time out, Times reviewer Kevin Thomas notes, “Almodovar tells his story in a lower key than ever before.” The picture is an intimate portrait of an intelligent, sensual woman at a crossroads in her life.

It screens in UCI’s Student Center, Crystal Cove Auditorium, West Peltason Drive and Pereira Road. 7 and 9 p.m. $2.50-$4.50. (714) 824-5588.

Also screening in Orange County this week:

* “Batman” (1989): Tim Burton’s blockbuster with Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader and Jack Nicholson as his arch nemesis, the Joker. Friday (call theater for show time) at Captain Blood’s Village Theatres, 1140 N. Tustin Ave., Tustin. (714) 538-3545.

* “The Dawn Patrol” (1938): Director Edmund Goulding’s remake of Howard Hawks’ 1930 World War I drama, this time with Errol Flynn and David Niven as fighter pilot buddies under the stern command of Basil Rathbone. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Cinemapolis, 5635 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim. (714) 970-6700.

* “The Story of Dr. Wassell” (1944): Gary Cooper and Laraine Day star in the biopic, from James Hilton’s book, about the WW II Navy doctor who saved the lives of troops fighting in Java. Part of the Cecil B. DeMille series that continues through Dec. 10. 7 p.m. Thursday. Argyros Forum Room 208 at Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. (714) 744-7018.

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IN L.A. AND BEYOND: The 14th annual Israel Film Festival runs through Nov. 20 at Beverly Hills’ Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd.--and around the corner at the Writers Guild, 135 S. Doheny Drive--offering more than 50 features, documentaries, TV movies and miniseries plus a student film program sponsored by AT&T; and Amblin Entertainment. The festival includes a series celebrating 50 years of Israeli cinema and got underway Wednesday at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Tickets: (310) 274-6869; program schedule and further information: (213) 966-4166.