In Germany in March 1933 the newly installed National Socialist administration began flexing its muscles by banning its first film, Fritz Lang's 'Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse'. Two of its cast - Wera Liessem and Otto Wernicke - ironically also acted in this propaganda quickie from the small Bavaria Studio which just a couple of months later was the first (as well as one of the last) proselytizing Nazi feature film to hit German cinema screens; "to profound public indifference" according to David Stewart Hull in 'Film in the Third Reich'.
Whatever reissue value the film might conceivably have possessed abruptly evaporated a year later when the SA were terminated with extreme prejudice on Hitler's own orders during the Night of the Long Knives of June 1934; and although the title remains familiar to film historians, few seem actually to have bothered to watch it before badmouthing it. Hull himself says so little about this obviously historically significant film one wonders if even he actually saw it. It's a perfectly competent and well acted piece of work with decent production values; and is considerably more entertaining than that crashing, monstrously overrated bore, Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will'.
'S.A. Mann Brand' begins abruptly with a bizarre monologue by a wide-eyed SA member describing a dream he's had in which fallen comrades - "the dead of the brown army" - appear to him through the fog to remind him to look to Germany's future. (Too bad they didn't take the opportunity to warn them what their Führer personally had in store for them once they'd served their purpose.) Fallen comrades are also referred to at the finale in which they march triumphantly through the streets singing the 'Horst Wessel Lied'. Between these two bookends we see the brave, handsome SA standing up to bullying and intimidation by gurning communist bruisers whose violence is orchestrated on behalf of the Comintern by the sybaritic Alexandr Turow (Max Weydner), in a kimono and a perpetual haze of cigarette smoke. Turow is also shown to be sufficiently well connected to only have to have one 'phone call made and the hero immediately loses his job.
At this stage the Nazis' stated agenda was merely ending unemployment; the Jews' turn would come soon enough. It's possible I missed some coded references, but there didn't appear to be any overt anti-Semitism in 'S.A. Mann Brand' (there would be ample time for that later). Instead, flush with their new-found (and - as it would soon transpire - temporary) clout as an arm of the German state, the SA are shown celebrating the Nazis' victory at the polls by immediately apprehending Turow in his den and then herding his henchmen on to a lorry; with Dachau doubtless their eventual destination. Eighteen months' later it would be the turn of the SA themselves.
Whatever reissue value the film might conceivably have possessed abruptly evaporated a year later when the SA were terminated with extreme prejudice on Hitler's own orders during the Night of the Long Knives of June 1934; and although the title remains familiar to film historians, few seem actually to have bothered to watch it before badmouthing it. Hull himself says so little about this obviously historically significant film one wonders if even he actually saw it. It's a perfectly competent and well acted piece of work with decent production values; and is considerably more entertaining than that crashing, monstrously overrated bore, Leni Riefenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will'.
'S.A. Mann Brand' begins abruptly with a bizarre monologue by a wide-eyed SA member describing a dream he's had in which fallen comrades - "the dead of the brown army" - appear to him through the fog to remind him to look to Germany's future. (Too bad they didn't take the opportunity to warn them what their Führer personally had in store for them once they'd served their purpose.) Fallen comrades are also referred to at the finale in which they march triumphantly through the streets singing the 'Horst Wessel Lied'. Between these two bookends we see the brave, handsome SA standing up to bullying and intimidation by gurning communist bruisers whose violence is orchestrated on behalf of the Comintern by the sybaritic Alexandr Turow (Max Weydner), in a kimono and a perpetual haze of cigarette smoke. Turow is also shown to be sufficiently well connected to only have to have one 'phone call made and the hero immediately loses his job.
At this stage the Nazis' stated agenda was merely ending unemployment; the Jews' turn would come soon enough. It's possible I missed some coded references, but there didn't appear to be any overt anti-Semitism in 'S.A. Mann Brand' (there would be ample time for that later). Instead, flush with their new-found (and - as it would soon transpire - temporary) clout as an arm of the German state, the SA are shown celebrating the Nazis' victory at the polls by immediately apprehending Turow in his den and then herding his henchmen on to a lorry; with Dachau doubtless their eventual destination. Eighteen months' later it would be the turn of the SA themselves.
