What does it mean for someone or something to be Hungarian? People in Hungary grappled with this far-reaching question in the wake of the losses and transformation brought by World War I. Because the period also saw the rise of cinema, audiences, filmmakers, critics, and officials often looked at films with an eye to that question, too. Did the Hungary seen on screen represent the Hungary they knew from everyday life? And-crucially-did the major role played by Jewish Hungarians in the film industry make the sector and its creations somehow Jewish rather than Hungarian? Jews, it was soon decided, could not really be Hungarian, and acts of Parliament soon barred them from taking major roles in cinema production. This book tells the troubled story of that period in Hungarian cinematic history, taking it up through World War II.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on Accents, Pronunciation, Names, and Spellings
- Preface
- Introduction
- No Dividing Wall between Hungarian and Hungarian
- Setting the Scene
- Key Questions
- The Nation as Auteur
- Structure
- 1. Key Concepts in Pre-1945 Hungarian Cinema
- A Nation in Search of an Identity
- Fragment of Empire: Borders
- An Imagined Community: Nemzeti
- Land of the Living Dead: Nemzethalál
- Race and Racism
- 2. A Contested Film History
- Contemporary Commentators
- Communist Critics
- Post-Communist Film Scholarship
- Non-Academic Revisionism
- Fruit of the Poison Tree
- English-Language Scholarship
- 3. An Industry Emerges 1931-1935
- Before the Sound: Silents
- Then There Was Sound
- István Székely and Hyppolit
- What the Well-Dressed Jew is Wearing
- Family Fortunes
- Local Films for Local People!
- 4. Boom, Crisis and Anti-Semitic Reorganization 1936-1941
- Whose Film Is It Anyway?
- Modern… But Not Too Modern
- Stars
- A Hungarian Invention
- Trade Unionization Efforts
- Two Faces of Gyula Kabos
- The Nobility of the Hurt Little Man
- The Worm in Our Bosom
- A Downtrodden Majority
- Arguments for the Implementation of Anti-Jewish Measures
- A Need Well Met
- Act 15 of 1938
- The Film Chamber
- Hungarian Resurrection
- Act 4 of 1939
- Hitler’s Motorways
- Films about the Land: Inside/Outside
- 5. From War Boom to Bust 1941-1944
- What They Can Do, We Can Do Better
- New Stars
- Bánky and Páger
- The Hungarian Military Ideal: Representing War
- Pinnacle of Hungarianness: Mountain Films
- Seeing the Light
- Fighting an Unseen Enemy: Doctors in Wartime Cinema
- To the Glory of the Race
- Arc Lights in the Blackout
- Epilogue: Industry Reboot and the Myth of a New Start 1945-1947
- Green Shoots
- Out with the Bad Air, in with the Good
- Justice and Ambition
- Somewhere in Europe
- Concluding Remarks
- Bibliography
- Index
- List of Illustrations
- Illustration 1. The Riding School and Krisztinaváros in ruins. 1945.
- Illustration 1.1. ‘Jewry and the Soviet = Hungary’s Death’, 1944.
- Illustration 1.2. View of irredentist floral centrepiece of Szabadság tér Trianon memorial. Photo by Swiss diplomat and humanitarian Carl Lutz. 1942.
- Illustration 2.1. Szeleczky on cover of Mozi magazine. 1943.
- Illustration 2.2. Erzsi Simor with fans outside Corvin Cinema in Budapest. 1940.
- Illustration 3.1. Sound-enabled MFI news truck at Tát Speed Race in 1934.
- Illustration 3.2. Miklós Horthy at the head of the St Stephen’s Day procession flanked by the Royal Guard. 1938.
- Illustration 3.3. Hunnia truck on location. 1940.
- Illustration 4.1. Pál Jávor in Életre Ítéltek/Sentenced to Life (Endre Rodriguez, 1941). 1941.
- Illustration 4.2. Géza Bolváry (left), Jenő Laki Farkas (with violin) and Gustav Fröhlich on the set of Stradivari (Bolváry, 1935). 1938.
- Illustration 5.1. Hollywood films continued to be released in Hungary well after the outbreak of the Second World War. The large hoarding advertises The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939). 1940.
- Illustration 5.2. Mária Tasnády-Fekete and Géza Radványi in 1940.
- Illustration 5.3. László Szilassy with his private secretary and Aero coupe outside the Hunnia complex on Pasaréti út in Budapest. 1942.
- Illustration 5.4. ‘Spy Exhibition.’ Held four months after the June 1942 release of Sabotage.
- Illustration 5.5. Notices pinned to the door of a Budapest confectionery. Top: ‘No dogs allowed inside.’ Middle: ‘Under H. R. Ministry of Interior statutory instrument 500/1944. B.M. persons legally obligated to display the yellow star on their clothing m
- Illustration 1. Ruins of Budai Apolló Cinema on Hattyú utca in Budapest. 1945.
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