When one thinks of the Third Reich and its movies, the first thing that comes to mind is "Triumph of the Will," or "Olympia," both by Leni Riefenstahl and usually the only cinematic examples from the Third Reich shown on television.

It might surprise many to note that the vast majority of the over 1,000 films produced in the Third Reich contained no overt propaganda whatsoever. It might also surprise many to read that the Third Reich also produced musicals and even screwball comedies.

This is just one of the little known facts presented in this extremely important and entertaining book. The Nazis never had to invent a cinema from the ground up; the Germany they inherited had perhaps the most sophisticated film industry this side of Hollywood. Add the fact that the Nazi hierarchy were film fanatics and it is somewhat easier to see why the cinema of the Third Reich developed as it did.

Eric Rentschler points out that instead of overt propaganda, Joseph Goebbles preferred as subliminal message instead. Too many preachy films would turn off the audience; instead, if films were enrobed in traditional German values, the message is all the easier not only to get across, but to gain acceptance. The most frightening aspect of "Jew Suss" (the most notorious Anti-Semitic film ever made)is how the message is presented so matter-of-factly. No over the top drama, but an effective use of melodramatic elements to get the point across.

An added bonus for film researchers is a listing of films released by year and a filmography of the more noted directors. Essential for those interested in film or the social hisotry of Nazi Germany.

So you are interrested in silent movies, at an internatioonal scale, too? Then you definately should take a look at this book! The Austrian director Georg Wilhelm Past has made movies in nearly every country that took to the cinematic phenomena since its invention. G.W.Pabst was born in 1885 in Raudnitz, today's shattered Czechchenia, went to Vienna to take acting lessons. From there he went on to make movies in Germany (Republic of Weimar), France, America, The Third Reich-Germay and Italy. Nearly the same international audience (excluding the Nazis) which came together in 1986 in Vienna, in the Stadtkino am Schwarzenberplatz, Austria to reconsider the importance of G.W.Pabst's cinematic work to the history of film making. This was the event which triggered a still growing scientific and poetic interest in the works of G.W.Pabst. Well, one might say that Siegfried Krakauer and some others have written about Pabst, too. Yes, but Krakauer and especially THE OTHERS made severe mistakes in their reception of Pabst's movies which rendered them useable for the basic facts and approaches only. But with the realization of this book the mark has been made towords a scientific and more profound understanding of G.W.Pabst's films. Also the topics selected for this book do not cover all important movies of Pabst, the content of the articles included are carefully handling the problematic issues, of the life and work of Pabst, that is so essential to scientific writing and authoring. The authors who took to this project with care, knowledge and the sprit of breaking new ground overcame oldfashioned receptions of the silent movie. The authors are Eric Rentschler (on: the director directed by history), Bernhard Riff (on: obsession and opposition in:The Treasure(1923)), Patrice Petro (on: the female spectator in: The Joyless Street(1925)), Anne Friedberg (on: psychoanalysis in: Secrets Of A Soul (1926)), David Bathrick (on: melodrama, history and Dickens in: The Love Of Jeanne Ney (1927)), MARY ANNE DOANE (on: the erotic barter in: Pandora's Box (1929)), Heide Schülpmann (on: the brothel as arcadian space in: Diary Of A Lost Girl (1929)), Michael Geisler (on: battlegound of modernity in: Westfront 1918)(1930 )), THOMAS ELSAESSER (on: transperant duplicities in: The Three Penny Opera (1931)), Russel A. Berman (on: solidarity of repression in: Kameradschaft (1931)), Karl Sierek (on: the primal scene in: The Mistress of Atlantis(1932)), GERTRUD KOCH (on: stairway to exile in: High and Low (1933)), Jan-Christopher Horak (on: Pabst in Hollywood in: A Modern Hero (1934)), Karsten Witte (on: China and not yer China in: Shanghai Drama (1938)), Anke Gleber (on: masochism and wartime in: Komödianten (1941)), Regine Mihal Friedman (on: ecce ingenium teutonium in: Paracelsus (1943)) this movie is forbidden in Germany because it was made during the Third Reich period, so this article weighs in twice to make a conclusions about Pabst's work during this time, Karl Prümm (on: shadows and pale victory of reason in: The Trial (1948)), Marc Silberman (on: the late Pabst in: The Last Ten Days (1955)) and Hans-Micheal Bock (on: Documenting a Life and a Career, a biography of Pabst). May be it is time to add a few words to Pabst's time in the Third Reich. In his own creative life and work Pabst was always intentionally socialistic. During his work in America, while working at A Modern Hero, he refused several offers from Nazi Germany to return and make movies for them. When he return to Europe to attempt the funeral of his father-in-law in 1938 he decides to emigrate to the USA for good. To say goodbye to his mother he visited her in then annexed Austria, where he was surprised by the beginning of World War II at 8th September 1939, an attempt to escape via Italy to America failed. Leni Riefenstahl, the director who became notoiously famous for her work for the Nazi regime, had worked with Pabst on The White Hell On Piz Palu in 1929. When she worked with him again in 1940 she found their relationship totally shattered and recalls Pabst's appearance as cold, empty and broken. Also after the ending of the Third Reich Pabst was never the same again, he had lost most of his great director abilities. As far as Pabst aethetic is considered he made his films right out of his time. The themes sex, moral and power, seen as obsessions an desires that drive people, are substantial to all of Pabst's movies. And it is these affets that compose the movies' subliminal strukture that is almost diametrical to the structure and formalism constituted by S.M. Eisenstein (based on Dave Griffith). The scences are rather composed by the struggle of desire of the actors than and an external story. So let's come to the final conclusion and the question why should you buy this book? First, the book is profound on the issues it touches, even it does not cover the whole of the topic of G.W.Pabst. Also this book is now 14 years old and has never been revised , updated or edited, it still contains some important keys to exploring Pabst's inheritance and this is where all the following research on Pabst starts. Second, this book is still easy and enjoyable to read but still satifying the more firm reader, too. And third, at a price of about $18 this is a bargain. Here in Germany I spent about $100 more to get the little more Information I needed for my scientific treatise about Pabst. So if you are in aesthetic movies, including European silents and especially into G.W.Pabst, the extraterritorial cinema is the book for you.