After the frightening scenes of European politics and of droughts, fires, and earthquakes around the world, we move to America’s rule of law. The News Parade of 1934 makes an emotional argument through its organization alone, which moves from chaos to confident solutions.
The reel’s largest gaff in hindsight seems to be its praise for Benito Mussolini’s military response to this assassination as “a significant gesture that calls a halt to Germany’s ambitions.” In 1934, Mussolini’s Italian form of fascism was still widely praised in the United States for its “efficiency.” Austria’s “Diminutive Chancellor Dollfuss”-a typically irreverent newsreel alliteration-was murdered by Nazis in July. (Film of the event was one of the great scoops in newsreel history, although the killing itself was best captured by the rival Fox-Movietone News). Yugoslavia’s Alexander I was murdered on a state visit to Marseilles, France, in October. The two now obscure European dictators whose 1934 assassinations are recounted had also dismantled their countries’ constitutions. Hitler had come to power the previous year, and the reel laments the 1934 death of Germany’s ineffectual president, Paul von Hindenburg. In Europe, despotic leaders offered quick fixes that seemed to elude bickering democracies. Roosevelt was two years into his first term, his New Deal reforms affirmed by the 1934 congressional elections. One response was to look to strong leaders, a yearning evident in the content and also the structure of this News Parade of 1934. Each December, in place of a regular issue, Hearst Metrotone News usually put together a year-end summary, with editing and voice-over even more fast-paced.Īt the close of 1934, there were few signs that the Depression would ever end. It was controlled by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, who had been producing silent newsreels since 1914. Hearst Metrotone News began with the coming of sound film in 1929 and survived into 1967, the final year of newsreel production. As evident from the issue seen here, a roundup of the year 1934, newsreels had arguments to make. Released to theaters once or twice a week and running about ten minutes, newsreels at their best were more than loose anthologies of political and sporting events, scandals and ceremonies.
Running Time: 10 minutes.įor most of the twentieth century, the moviegoing experience was inconceivable without a newsreel. Transfer Note: Copied from a 35mm print preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive. Production Co.: Hearst Metrotone News (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, distributor).