 This was unlike many other movie studios during this period that did not want to antagonize foreign governments.The film was released on September 22, 1939, the day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Neutrality Act allowing "Cash and Carry" provisions for countries fighting Germany and a little over four months after another Warner Bros. anti-Nazi film "Confessions of a Nazi Spy".The film opens with a description of the Black Tom explosion of a munitions supply located in Jersey City on the Hudson River.