Overview

Between 1929 and 1942, Hungary's motion picture industry experienced meteoric growth. It leapt into Europe's top echelon, trailing only Nazi Germany and Italy in feature output. Yet by 1944, Hungary's cinema was in shambles, internal and external forces having destroyed its unification experiments and productive capacity. This original cultural and political history examines the birth, unexpected ascendance, and wartime collapse of Hungary's early sound cinema by placing it within a complex international nexus. Detailing the interplay of Hungarian cultural and political elites, Jewish film professionals and financiers, Nazi officials, and global film moguls, David Frey demonstrates how the transnational process of forging an industry designed to define a national culture proved particularly contentious and surprisingly contradictory in the heyday of racial nationalism and antisemitism.

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9781780764511

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Reviews

[The book's] contribution to both cinema and political history is both original and invaluable. * Slavonic and East European Review *

'In his wonderful study of the Hungarian film industry which, among other things, provided Hollywood with some of its greatest directors, producers and actors, David Frey demonstrates the corrosive effect of German National Socialist culture and politics on the Hungarian film industry. Hungarian anti-Semites and German Nazis caused the Hungarian government to put the Jewish Question in the forefront of pre-World War II and wartime Hungarian film-making; still, both the country's government and Hungarian movie industry preserved enough autonomy to dominate the Balkan market and even to influence German film-making. David Frey shows us an artistic world dominated by extraordinary talent and one that did not always succumb to evil.' - Istvan Deak, Seth Low Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, 'This well-researched book is a much-needed reminder of the significant position Hungary's cinema occupied on the European film market in the 1930s and the first years of the Second World War. One of the particular strengths of this work lies in David Frey's ability to analyse and describe complex national and transnational processes in clear prose, linking his study to important debates and research strands in historical and media studies. This is a mandatory read, not just for film scholars interested in the production and distribution of sound cinema in Europe (1929-1945) but also for students of 'national cinemas' and cultural industries.' - Roel Vande Winkel, KU Leuven, Belgium, 'Jews, Nazis and the Cinema of Hungary is a wonderful and thoughtful study of the relationship between Hungarian cinema and politics in one of the darkest periods of the history of Hungary. David Frey's powerful approach and his serious scholarship makes his work essential reading for everyone interested in the impact of ideological dictatorship on culture, and a precious contribution to Hungarian film historiography.' - Andras Balint Kovacs, ELTE University, Budapest

Author Information

David Frey is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, United States Military Academy at West Point.

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