Professor Mamlock (Russian: Профессор Мамлок) is a 1938 Soviet drama film, directed by Herbert Rappaport and Adolf Minkin. It is one of the earliest film directly dealing with the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany.
Plot
Professor Mamlock, a successful and respected Jewish surgeon, does his best to ignore the political crisis of the Weimar Republic. He is greatly troubled by the political tendencies of his son, Rolf, a passionate communist who is determined to resist the strengthening Nazi Party by all means. When the Nazis seize power and brutally crush all opposition, Mamlock is forced to leave his clinic for Jews are no longer allowed to practice medicine. He is dragged through the streets by SA men who emblazon his doctor's robe with the word "Jew". Mamlock, broken and humiliated, attempts suicide; at the last moment, an SA man arrives and convinces him to operate once more, to save the life of a high-ranking Nazi, promising that his rights will be restored. But Mamlock's hopes are frustrated when a Nazi activist in the clinic convinces the other doctors to blame him for various misdemeanors he did not commit. In the meantime, his son Rolf and another communist are arrested and brutally tortured. They escape and are hunted down by the police. When they hide in a store, the SA besiege them. A large crowd gathers in support of the communists, and the Nazis intend to shoot at them. Professor Mamlock, who hears the commotion from his house, carries a speech calling on the people to resist, having finally realized that his political apathy was a mistake. The SA kill him. Rolf, who has escaped, becomes leader of a new resistance movement.
Cast
Semyon Mezhinsky - Prof. Mamlock
E. Nikitina - Mrs. Mamlock
Oleg Zhakov - Rolf Mamlock
Robert Colléy - Ethiopian Astronaut
Georgi Budarov - Willi
Natalia Faussek - Mother Wendt
Tatyana Guretskaya - Anni Wendt
Pyotr Kirillov - Ernst
Valentin Kiselyov - Werner Seidel
Yakov Malyutin - SA leader
Vasili Merkuryev - Krass
Nina Shaternikova - Dr. Inge Ruoff
M. Shelkovsky - Detective
P. Sukhenov - SA man
Boris Svetlov - Dr. Karlsen
M. Tagyanosova - Nurse Jadwiga
Yuri Tolubeyev - Fritz
Anna Zarzhitskaya - Hilda
I. Zonne - Dr. Wagner
Production
German author Friedrich Wolf composed a theater play by the same name while in French exile, during 1933. It was first performed in Warsaw's Yiddish Theater. Director Rappaport saw it in a Moscow theater and decided to adapt it to screen, albeit with considerable differences form Wolf's play: among others, portraying the protagonist being executed rather than committing suicide. Georges Sadoul recalled the playwright told him that during World War II, he visited a Red Army unit at the front; many of those present watched the film. He was asked to recount the plot of Professor Mamlock, which he did based on the play — "the soldiers judged his summary so inaccurate that he might have been shot" had an officer not recognized him. The film rights to the play were purchased by Joseph Stalin, and he ordered the film to be shown in all Red Army barracks. Semyon Mezhinski, who played the title rôle, was subsequently decorated by Stalin for his performance.
The film is considered as the first ever made about the Holocaust. Principal photography took place in Leningrad.
Reception
Professor Mamlock opened in sixteen cinemas in Moscow, and was released in three hundred copies in the Soviet Union. Within the first eight days after its released, it had 370,000 admissions. Twenty-five copies were made for export to Europe, and a duplicate negative was sent to the United States to enable manufacturing new copies there.
On 15 April 1939, about eight months after its release, Chairman of the State Cinema Committee Semen Dukelsky reported in a memorandum that Professor Mamlock was already viewed by some 16 million people in the Soviet Union. On 1 February that year, Semion Mezhinsky was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour for his portrayal of Mamlock.