title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" is a parody of the stereotypical comic book superhero duo done in the style of Saturday morning cartoons like "Super Friends". The characters are clad in matching pastel turquoise tights, dark blue domino masks, and bright yellow coordinated gauntlets, boots and trunks. The shorts were intended to satirize suggestions that early Batman comics implied a homosexual relationship between the eponymous title character and his field partner and protégé Robin, a charge most infamously leveled by Fredric Wertham in his 1954 book, "Seduction of the Innocent," the research methodology for which was later discredited.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: The typical episode usually begins with the duo's arch-nemesis Bighead, a criminal mastermind with an abnormally large cranium. Bighead is usually briefing his henchmen on a plot for some grandiose plan for world domination, interrupted by a debate as to whether or not Ace and Gary (The Ambiguously Gay Duo) are gay. Once the crime is in process, the police commissioner calls on the superheroes to save the day, often engaging in similar debates with the chief of police.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: Ace and Gary set out to foil the evil plan, but not before calling attention to themselves with outrageous antics and innuendo, and behaving in ways perceived by other characters to be stereotypically homosexual, as in this conversation from the first episode:


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: Episodes not following this general formula have featured Ace and Gary answering fan mail or offering child safety tips. One such episode entails Ace and Gary giving children a ride home in their Duocar and offering home decorating tips, all while blithely making various suggestive gestures and comments.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: In June 2020, Robert Smigel told The Daily Beast that the engine of the show was an "obsession with sexuality" and that he thought that it was funny because the homophobes and everyone are obsessed with finding out whether the superheroes are gay or not, calling it "sport and titillation." He added that the point of the cartoon was that it doesn't matter whether the superheroes have sex or not and said that since there has been "an incredible amount of progress" since the series premiered, he would not write the cartoon today.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: In May 2011, a live-action skit based on the series appeared in a "Saturday Night Live" episode, with Jon Hamm playing Ace and Jimmy Fallon playing Gary. Daniel Villarreal criticized the skit as biphobic and questioned whether two non-gay actors portraying the parts was progressive or problematic.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: In 2015, Bif Bang Pow Toys produced and released a new 8" retro action-figure line of Ace and Gary titled the Ambiguously Gay Duo 8" retro action figure series. They were both individually packaged on a card but sold together in a set at the Entertainment Earth Catalog and website and at other toy and comic book stores as well. That same year, Bif Bang Pow Toys produced the Ambiguously Gay Duo Tin Tote (Lunchbox) action figure set of three 5" action-figures of Ace, Gary, and Bighead.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: Matt Goldberg of Collider said that the series was a "one-note joke" but that it worked well as a "great parody of superhero cartoon shows."


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: Adam Polaski of The Good Men Project praised the animation and the live-action sketch in 2011 as a satire that spoofs "the inherently homoerotic nature of superheroes...[and the] stereotype that gay men are obsessed with sex."


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: Francis Rizzo III of DVD Talk called the cartoons "silly" and "formulaic" praised the voice work from Colbert and Carrell, along with how the series served as a "visual parody of old cartoons," especially the homoerotic theories about Batman and Robin.


title: The Ambiguously Gay Duo

text: "TV Line" writers said in 2018 that if the crime fighters had reappeared that year, viewers might have found out if the two protagonists had changed, if they'd be "out and proud, rebranded as the Unambiguously Gay Duo," and if they'd fight to mend "the social divisions in our country."


title: Rajasthani cuisine

text: Rajasthani cuisine () is the cuisine of the rugged Rajasthan region in North West India. It was influenced by both the warlike lifestyles of its inhabitants and the availability of ingredients in an arid region. Food that could last for several days and could be eaten without heating was preferred. Scarcity of water and fresh green vegetables have all had their effect on the cooking. It is also known for its snacks like Bikaneri bhujia, Mirchi bada and Pyaaj kachori. Other famous dishes include "Dal Baati", "malaidar special lassi" (lassi) and "Lashun ki chutney" (hot garlic paste), "Mawa lassi" from Jodhpur, Alwar ka mawa, "Malpauas" from Pushkar and rasgulla from Bikaner, "paniya"and "gheriya" from Mewar. Originating for the Marwar region of the state is the concept Marwari Bhojnalaya, or vegetarian restaurants, today found in many parts of India, which offer vegetarian food of the Marwari people. The history also has its effect on the diet as the Rajputs preferred majorly a non-vegetarian diet while the Brahmin, Jains, and others preferred a vegetarian diet. So, the state has a myriad of both types of delicacies.


title: Rajasthani cuisine

text: According to a 2014 survey released by the registrar general of India, Rajasthan has 74.9% vegetarians, which makes it the most vegetarian state in India.


title: Rajasthani cuisine

text: Rajasthani cuisine is also influenced by the Rajputs, who are predominantly non-vegetarians. Their diet consisted of game meat and dishes like Laal maas (meat in red gravy), Safed maas (meat in white gravy) and Jungli maas (game meat cooked with basic ingredients).


title: Rajasthani cuisine

text: Sweet dishes are never referred to as 'dessert' in Rajasthan, because unlike desserts which are served after the meal, Rajasthani sweets are served before, during and after the meal.


title: The Lettermen

text: The Lettermen are an American male pop vocal trio. The Lettermen's trademark is close-harmony pop songs with light arrangements. The group started in 1959. They have had two Top 10 singles (both No. 7), 16 Top 10 singles on the Adult Contemporary chart (including one No. 1), 32 consecutive "Billboard" chart albums, 11 gold records, and five Grammy nominations.


title: The Lettermen

text: In 1958, the stage revue "Newcomers of 1928" was produced, a nostalgia act which starred 1920s stars Paul Whiteman, Buster Keaton, Rudy Vallée, Harry Richman, and Fifi D'Orsay. The show required three male singers to impersonate The Rhythm Boys, the vocal group that traveled with Whiteman and his orchestra in the late 1920s, and gave Bing Crosby his initial fame. The three singers selected were Mike Barnett, Dick Stewart, and Tony Butala. Jackie Barnett, who was chief comedy writer for the Jimmy Durante TV show, had auditioned the singers, and he decided to name the group "The Lettermen" for the show. "Newcomers of 1928" opened on February 28, 1958, at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas, Nevada. They played to sell-out audiences and were held over for many weeks. Continuing with a six-week tryout at the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, the idea continued to be a smash. Barnett and Russell were replaced midway through the run by Gary Clarke and Jerry Paul. When the show ended, Butala landed a job as singer/bass player in a lounge group, "Bill Norvis and the Upstarts", along with Clarke. After a few months, Clarke left the group and was replaced by Jim Pike (November 6, 1936 – June 9, 2019). Pike and Butala decided to leave the Upstarts and form a new group, although they had not yet decided on a name. Pike envisioned a group where each member was an excellent soloist as well as a great group singer. Pike and Butala joined with Bob Engemann (February 19, 1935 – January 20, 2013), a singer that Pike had met when he attended Brigham Young University a few years earlier. (Pike and Engemann had come to Los Angeles, California, and had sung together until Engemann had to go into the California National Guard for 6 months. That's why Pike joined Bill Norvis and there met Butala.) The combination of Pike, Engemann and Butala first recorded in 1960.


title: The Lettermen

text: They secured a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records through Bob Engemann's older brother, Karl Engemann, who was a record producer there, and for whom Pike had earlier released a record called "Lucy D", which was not successful. Karl Engemann years later became Marie Osmond's personal manager for many years. Pike, Butala, and Engemann as "The Lettermen" released two singles in 1960 for Warner Bros. The A-sides were "Two Hearts" and "Their Hearts Were Full of Spring". They were not successful. After Warner Bros., Karl Engemann moved on to Capitol Records as President of A&R. He got them out of their contract at Warner Bros. and made an appointment for them to see Nick Venet, a producer at Capitol. The audition was successful in getting them another record contract.


title: The Lettermen

text: There was another "Lettermen" group in the late 1950s and early 1960s that recorded for Liberty Records (which was a major record label at the time), an R&B group with five members, and their not-so-successful single was called "Hey Big Brain". About that same time, there was a third group called the Lettermen Trio, headed up by Sammy Vandenburg, who also had no record success. But the "Lettermen" of Pike, Engemann, and Butala had the first hit record, so, by law, they were entitled to use the "Lettermen" name exclusively.


title: The Lettermen

text: The Lettermen were unknown until they signed with Capitol Records in 1961. Their first single for Capitol, "The Way You Look Tonight," succeeded on the "Billboard" Hot 100 pop chart and climbed to No. 13. Their next, "When I Fall in Love," reached the Top 10 in late 1962 and hit No. 1 on AC. They had several other Top 10 AC hits, such as 1965's "Theme From A Summer Place". In late 1967, Bob Engemann resigned and was replaced by Jim Pike's younger brother, Gary Pike. The hits continued with the 1967 medley "Goin' Out of My Head"/"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" and in 1968 with "Put Your Head on My Shoulder", plus 1969's "Hurt So Bad", which reached No. 12 and lasted 21 weeks on the Hot 100, second only to the 22 weeks for The Archies' "Sugar, Sugar" within that calendar year. The last successful single was in 1971, John Lennon's "Love", a solo by Jim Pike.


title: The Lettermen

text: The Lettermen have had two Top 10 singles (both No. 7), 16 Top 10 Adult Contemporary singles, including one Adult Contemporary No. 1, 32 consecutive "Billboard" Hot 200 charted albums, 11 gold records, five Grammy nominations, an Andy Award, and a Cleo Award.


title: The Lettermen

text: The Lettermen were featured on the TV show "Dobie Gillis" in the episode "Vocal Boy Makes Good" which originally aired on January 16, 1963.


title: The Lettermen

text: In 1976, Jim Pike left the group because of vocal problems and sold the Lettermen name to Butala. After Gary Pike left the Lettermen in 1981, the Pike brothers along with Ric de Azevedo sang The Lettermen hits, billed as "Reunion".


title: The Lettermen

text: In 1961, The Lettermen started performing live concerts, doing over 200 shows a year, an unbroken string that continues to the present.


title: The Lettermen

text: Over the decades, the group has had various line-ups, replacing members who left for various reasons with new people to maintain a trio. Tony Butala has stated that the group ethos is that of three strong soloists that harmonize, and that the group encourages individual singing and songwriting. Butala has stated that the combination of himself, Donovan Tea (thirty-eight years) and Bobby Poynton (sixteen years) "is the best combination of voices, and best sounding group since the original trio." Butala also said this of the previous line-up of himself, Tea, and Mark Preston (eleven years) thus highlighting the high standard of vocalists The Lettermen had always had. This is also evident in the addition of Rob Gulack to the group in 2019 as Butala eased into retirement.


title: The Lettermen

text: Among their many songs include renditions of several traditional Filipino "kundimans" such as "Dahil sa Iyo" ("Because of You"), "Sapagkat Kami Ay Tao Lamang" ("For We Are Only Human"). Their enunciation and pronunciation in the language has developed over the decades that they have interpreted these love songs.


title: The Lettermen

text: In 1969, in light of The Doors' singer Jim Morrison's arrest in Miami for indecent exposure, the Lettermen performed at a concert against indecency, along with Anita Bryant, Kate Smith, and Jackie Gleason. President Nixon supported the concert. (Source: "Rock Almanac", 1983) The Lettermen had covered songs by the Doors in 1968.


title: The Lettermen

text: On December 9 and 10, 2012, The Lettermen Society Convention was held at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The members had dinner and breakfast with the current group of Tony Butala, Donovan Tea, and Bobby Poynton. They attended the soundcheck and Lettermen Holiday Show with ticketed audience members in the casino showroom. This celebration was the 31st annual convention.


title: The Lettermen

text: The 32nd annual Lettermen convention was a four-day event at the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa in Las Vegas between October 10 and October 13, 2013. Hundreds of Lettermen Society members and fans were invited to attend.


title: The Lettermen

text: Bob Engemann died on January 20, 2013, in Provo, Utah, at age 77, of complications from his December 13, 2012, heart bypass surgery.


title: The Lettermen

text: Jim Pike died from complications of Parkinson's disease on June 9, 2019, at his home in Prescott, Arizona. He was 82.


title: Video rental shop

text: A video rental shop/store is a physical retail business that rents home videos such as movies, prerecorded TV shows, video game discs and other media content. Typically, a rental shop conducts business with customers under conditions and terms agreed upon in a rental agreement or contract, which may be implied, explicit, or written. Many video rental stores also sell previously viewed movies and/or new, unopened movies.


title: Video rental shop

text: In the 1980s, video rental stores rented VHS and Betamax tapes of movies, although most stores dropped Beta tapes when VHS won the format war late in the decade. In the 2000s, video rental stores began renting DVDs, a digital format with higher resolution than VHS. In the late 2000s, stores began selling and renting Blu-ray discs, a format that supports high definition resolution.


title: Video rental shop

text: Widespread adoption of video on demand and video streaming services such as Netflix in the 2010s sharply reduced the revenues of most major rental chains, leading to the closure of most locations. Due to the precipitous drop in demand, few rental shops have survived into the present day. As of 2022, the small number of remaining stores tend to cater to film buffs seeking classic and historic films, art films, independent films, and cult films that are less available on streaming platforms.


title: Video rental shop

text: The world's oldest business renting out copies of movies for private use was a film reel rental shop opened by Eckhard Baum in Kassel, Germany in the summer of 1975. Baum collected movies on Super 8 film as a hobby and lent pieces of his collection to friends and acquaintances. Because they showed great interest in his films, he came up with the idea of renting out films as a sideline. Over the years, videotapes and optical discs were added to the range. Baum still operates the business as of September 2015 and was portrayed in the June 2006 documentary film "Eckis Welt" by Olaf Saumer.


title: Video rental shop

text: The first professionally managed video rental store in the U.S., Video Station, was opened by George Atkinson in December 1977 at 12011 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. After 20th Century Fox had signed an agreement with Magnetic Video founder Andre Blay to license him 50 of their titles for sale directly to consumers, amongst them "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "M*A*S*H", "Hello, Dolly!", "Patton", "The French Connection", "The King And I" and "The Sound Of Music", Atkinson bought all the titles in both VHS and Beta formats, and offered them for rent. Such stores led to the creation of video rental chains such as West Coast Video, Blockbuster Video, and Rogers Video in the 1980s.


title: Video rental shop

text: Sony released its first commercially available video recorders in the United States on June 7, 1975, and the following year, on October 25, 1976, Universal and Disney filed a lawsuit against Sony in the case known as Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. The two studios tried to ban the sales of VCRs, and later the rental of movies, which would have destroyed the video rental business in the US. Justice Harry Blackmun sided with the studios, while Justice John Paul Stevens ruled in Sony's favor. Eventually, on January 17, 1984, the Supreme Court overruled the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor changed her mind, leading to a 5-to-4 ruling.


title: Video rental shop

text: Video games started being rented in video shops from 1982. Some of the earliest game cartridges available for rental included "Donkey Kong", "Frogger" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". However, not many stores made them available for rental at the time. In Japan, Nintendo Entertainment System games could be rented as early as 1983. However, in response to rental stores making unauthorized copies of game cartridges, video game companies, as well as the Recording Industry Association of Japan and trade associations, lobbied for an amendment to the Japanese Copyright Act that banned the rental of video games in Japan in 1984.


title: Video rental shop

text: By mid-1985, the United States had 15,000 video rental stores, and many record, grocery, and drug stores also rented videotapes. By May 1988, the number of specialty video stores was estimated to be 25,000, in addition to 45,000 other outlets that also offered video rentals. Grocery stores in the US rented tapes for as little as $0.49 as loss leaders. The press discussed the VCR "and the viewing habits it has engendered — the Saturday night trip down to the tape rental store to pick out for a couple of bucks the movie you want to see when you want to see it". Video rental stores had customers of all ages and were part of a fast-growing business. By 1987, for example, Pennsylvania had 537 stores that primarily rented videotapes, with annual spending per resident of $10.50. By 1989, six years after its founding, Philadelphia's West Coast Video operated over 700 stores in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In 1987, home video market revenues for the year surpassed box office revenues.


title: Video rental shop

text: In the 1980s, it was common for shops to rent equipment—typically VHS recorders—as well as tapes. Some video shops also had adults-only sections containing X-rated videos. Some video


title: Video rental shop

text: stores exclusively sold X-rated sex films, often along with related sex shop items. To cope with the videotape format war of the 1970s and 1980s, some stores initially stocked both VHS and Betamax cassettes, while others specialized in one format or the other. During the 1980s, most stores eventually phased out their Betamax section and became all-VHS, contributing to the eventual demise of Beta as a home video format (nevertheless, Betamax remained in use as a professional video format in broadcasting).


title: Video rental shop

text: In the late 1990s, DVDs began appearing in video rental stores. The format was smaller than tapes, allowing stores to stock more movies. As well, the thin, lightweight discs could be mailed, which made mail DVD services feasible.


title: Video rental shop

text: In the late 1990s, Netflix offered a per-rental model for each DVD but introduced a monthly subscription for DVDs concept in September 1999. The per-rental model was dropped by early 2000, allowing the company to focus on the business model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees (a source of annoyance for bricks and mortar video store customers), shipping and handling fees, or per-title rental fees.


title: Video rental shop

text: Rogers Video was the first chain to provide DVD rentals in Canada. Other chains and independent stores later transitioned to the newer format. Similarly, many video stores rented Blu-ray Disc movies after the high definition optical disc format war ended in the late 2000s.


title: Video rental shop

text: Some firms rented DVDs from automatic kiosk machines such as Redbox. Customers selected a movie from a list using buttons, paid by credit card, and the movie popped out of a slot. While traditional brick and mortar video rental stores were closing at a high rate, Redbox moved into existing retail locations such as supermarkets, and placed kiosks within them or outside of them to gain access to that consumer base. As well, with Redbox, consumers could rent the movie at one kiosk (for example, one near their work) and return it to any Redbox kiosk (for example, one near their home), thus increasing convenience. Redbox surpassed Blockbuster in 2007 in the number of US locations, passed 100 million rentals in February 2008, and passed 1 billion rentals in September 2010.


title: Video rental shop

text: Automatic DVD kiosks still required consumers to leave home twice, to rent the movie and return it. Widespread availability of video on demand (VOD) on cable TV systems and VHS-by-mail and DVD-by-mail services offered consumers a way of watching movies without having to leave home. Consumers preferred the convenience of choosing movies at home.


title: Video rental shop

text: With the advent of the World Wide Web, Internet services which streamed content as Netflix became increasingly popular starting in the mid–2000s. All the new ways of watching movies greatly reduced demand for video rental shops, and many closed as a result. In 2000, there were 27,882 stores renting videos open in the US, by late 2015, the number was down to 4,445. Over 86% of the 15,300 U.S. stores (specializing in video rentals) open in 2007 were reported to have closed by 2017, bringing the total to approximately 2,140 remaining stores. The total income from brick and mortar rentals for 2017 was about $390 million.


title: Video rental shop

text: In mid-June 2020, Malaysian video rental chain Speedy Video closed its 14 remaining shops in response to competition from satellite television and streaming platforms. In Asia, video rental stores faced the additional challenge of dealing with rampant video piracy.


title: Video rental shop

text: On January 5, 2021, Glenview, Illinois-based Family Video announced it was closing all its remaining video rental stores. The company was the last remaining video rental chain in the United States; its closing marked the end of large video rental chains.


title: Video rental shop

text: In the 2020s, some video stores facing the loss of their business model have adapted by becoming non-profit organizations that focus on preserving an archive of film heritage and educating people about cinema. Operating as a non-profit enables a video store to use volunteer personnel and apply for foundation grants, which can make it feasible to operate with less rental revenue.


title: Video rental shop

text: Meanwhile, as of December 2022, there are still more than 2,000 video rental stores in Japan, including Tsutaya and Geo. However, as is typical, the number is decreasing year by year. In addition, Redbox


title: Video rental shop

text: According to Daniel Herbert, a film professor at University of Michigan who has written about the history of video rental stores, "[t]rips to the video store helped cement a local “movie culture” and contribute to the social fabric of a community in small but meaningful ways", in that customers sought advice from staff on what film to rent or chatted with other customers about "what to watch and why."


title: Video rental shop

text: Film critic Collin Souter states that video stores gave "film lovers [a place] to congregate" and make "discoveries by browsing" the racks of film shelves, with the store providing a "film school, a social gathering, a place of cinematic discovery, date nights, and rites of passage." He underscores the impact that video stores had by noting that when film director Quentin Tarantino, a former video rental store employee, learned that Video Archives in Hermosa Beach California (the store he had worked at) was closing, he bought the entire "inventory and recreated the store in his basement", as for him, "that place [was] a lifesaver."


title: Video rental shop

text: A 2018 article about video stores states that they are appealing because "people crave being together to pick entertainment" and the chance to "chat with a staff member" "who can be relied upon for reviews and recommendations and who truly love what they do", while at the same time being "part of a "community of like-minded individuals." One argument for video stores is the element of investment; if "you’re taking time to walk into a physical place, grab something and take it home, you’ll be at least a little bit invested."


title: Video rental shop

text: As well, there is the "allure of browsing" the physical copies on the shelves (an appeal likened to the resurgence of interest in vinyl records in the 2020s).


title: Video rental shop

text: Video rental stores such as Toronto's Bay St Video have a selection that is larger than a streaming platform's movie list. The owner of Bay St Video states that they "have movies that go back to the beginning of filmmaking, from the first silent films ever made to stuff that was just in theatres – and everything in between. We have the history of cinema.” He calls the store's selection of films "libraryesque – almost like an archive or a museum.” Benjamin Owens, the owner of Film is Truth, a non-profit video rental outlet, points out that video stores may carry a larger selection of films than streaming platforms; he notes that while the "largest streaming provider, Netflix, has only 6,000 titles", Film is Truth has over 20,000 titles. An additional benefit that video stores provide to communities is that they give access to films to people with poor access to Internet and those who are not comfortably with adapting to online consumption.


title: Video rental shop

text: In 2010, the small number of remaining video stores have launched International Video Store Day, which is on the third Saturday in October, to promote awareness of video rental stores and their unique contribution to film culture.


title: Video rental shop

text: Film professor Daniel Herbert says that the demise of the video store may affect independent film production; he states that when the "large [video store] chains collapsed, studios lost a major channel


title: Video rental shop

text: for [low-budget, feature-length] indie movies", a format that streaming services are less likely to produce, as they prefer to make binge-watching-orientated television serials. Richard Brody argues that from "1985 and 1995... [there was] a generation of filmmakers that included Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, whose first films, "Reservoir Dogs" and "Sex, Lies, and Videotape", respectively, were financed" by the home video market. Brody argues that for aspiring filmmakers, video stores they worked at became "launching pads of true outsiders", and provided "counter-programming" to film school training by valorizing "anti-academic values of disorder, spontaneity, and enthusiasm."


title: Video rental shop

text: The impact of video rental stores on popular culture is attested to by filmmakers' use of video stores as a setting for a number of films from the 1980s to the 2000s. Examples include "Be Kind Rewind" (2008), in which Jack Black and Mos Def play rental store staff in a shop scheduled for demolition; "Clerks" (1994), which depicts a day in the life of two bored, annoyed video store clerks; "Speaking Parts" (1989), a film directed by Atom Egoyan about a video rental store customer whose obsession with a minor actor pushes her to rent every film he has a bit part in; "Remote Control" (1988), a science fiction film about alien brainwashing scheme that uses a message hidden in a VHS tape, in which Kevin Dillon plays the role of a video store clerk; "Air Doll" (2009) a Japanese film about a blow-up doll that comes to life and begins working in a video rental store; "Bleeder" (1999), a Nicolas Winding Refn film in which Mads Mikkelsen plays a lonely video store clerk; and "Watching the Detectives" (2007), a film in which Cillian Murphy plays a video store clerk who is a film buff who tries to get his customers interested in cinema.


title: Video rental shop

text: Renting books, CDs, tapes, and movies is covered by copyright law. Copyright owners sometimes put warning notices on the packaging of products such as DVDs to deter copyright infringement. In some cases, consumer rights in Europe and the US are in fact significantly broader than those described in such warnings. "[N]either the rental nor purchase of a movie carries the right to exhibit it outside of one’s home". "A license is required for all public performances regardless of whether admission is charged"; as such, a person showing a rental video outside their home must pay for an exhibition license.


title: Video rental shop

text: Courts have ruled on the issue of how to define "private"; it generally includes a home or hotel room, and attendees could be family and those in your normal social circle. However, if you invite a broader range of people, such as people from your neighborhood, then the exhibition of the movie becomes a public exhibition.


title: Video rental shop

text: Some types of video exhibition in public may fall under the Fair use exception, which "allows the use of copyrighted material in a reasonable manner without the consent of the owner" is if is being viewed for "commentary, criticism, education or research."


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The French protectorate of Tunisia (; '), commonly referred to as simply French Tunisia, was established in 1881, during the French colonial Empire era, and lasted until Tunisian independence in 1956.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The protectorate was established by the Bardo Treaty of 12 May 1881 after a military conquest, despite Italian disapproval. It was part of French North Africa with French Algeria and the Protectorate of Morocco, and more broadly of the French Empire. Tunisian sovereignty was more reduced in 1883, the Bey was only signing the decrees and laws prepared by the Resident General of France in Tunisia. The Tunisian government at the local level remained in place, and was only coordinating between Tunisians and the administrations set up on the model of what existed in France. The Tunisian government's budget was quickly cleaned up, which made it possible to launch multiple infrastructure construction programs (roads, railways, ports, lighthouses, schools, hospitals, etc.) and the reforms that took place during the Beylik era contributed to this, which completely transformed the country above all for the benefit of the settlers, mostly Italians whose numbers were growing rapidly. A whole land legislation was put in place allowing the acquisition or the confiscation of land in order to create lots of colonization resold to the French colonists.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The first nationalist party, Destour, was created in 1920, but its political activity decreased rapidly in 1922. However, Tunisians educated in French universities revived the nationalist movement. A new party, the Neo Destour, was created in 1934 whose methods quickly showed their effectiveness. Police repression only accentuated the mobilization of the Tunisian people. The occupation of the country in 1942 by Germany and the deposition of Moncef Bey in 1943 by the French authorities reinforced the exasperation of the population. After three years of guerrilla, internal autonomy was granted in 1955. The protectorate was finally abolished on 20 March 1956.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: In 1859, Tunisia was ruled by the Bey Muhammad III, and the powerful Prime Minister, Mustapha Khaznadar, who according to Wesseling "had been pulling the strings ever since 1837." Khaznadar was minister of finance and foreign affairs and was assisted by the interior, defence, and naval ministers. In 1861, Tunisia was granted a constitution with a clear division of ministerial powers and responsibilities, but in practice, Khaznadar was the absolute sovereign. He pursued reformist policies promoting economic development, specifically aimed at improving, infrastructure, communication, and the armed forces. The Tunisian economy did not, however, generate enough revenue to sustain these reforms. Central administration, additionally, was weak. Tax collection was devolved onto tax-farmers, and only one-fifth of the revenues ever reached the national treasury. Many hill tribes and desert nomads lived in quasi-independence. Economic conditions deteriorated through the 19th century, as foreign fleets curbed corsairs, and droughts perennially wreaked havoc on production of cereals and olives. Because of accords with foreign traders dating back to the 16th century, custom duties were limited to 3 per cent of the value of imported goods; yet manufactured products from overseas, primarily textiles, flooded Tunisia and gradually destroyed local artisan industries.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: In 1861, Prime Minister Mustapha Khaznadar made an effort to modernise administration and increase revenues by doubling taxes. The primary effect, only fully felt by 1864, was widespread rural insurrection, coupled with great hardship for the general population. The government had to negotiate a new loan from foreign bankers. In 1867, an attempt to secure money failed; government revenues were insufficient to meet annual interest payments on the national debt. Tunisia plunged towards bankruptcy. Two years later France, Italy and Britain set up an international finance commission to sort out Tunisia's economic problems and safeguard Western interests. Their actions enjoyed only partial success, largely because of opposition from foreign traders to increases in customs levies. In 1873, Khaznadar again undertook reforms and attacked the widespread financial abuses within the bureaucracy. The results were initially promising, but bad harvests and palace intrigue led to his downfall.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The Bey reigned over Tunisia, whose southern borders were ill-defined against the Sahara. To the east lay Tripolitania, province of the Ottoman Empire, which had made itself practically independent until Sultan Mahmud II successfully restored his authority by force in 1835. The Bey of Tunisia became worried of the strengthening of Ottoman authority in the east, and was therefore not too unhappy in 1830 when another country, France, had settled on his western borders. According to Wesseling, the bey considered the conquest of his country by the Porte would be worse than a possible conquest by France.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: At the time, Tunisia had just over a million inhabitants. Half of these were sedentary farmers who lived mainly in the northeast, and the other half were nomadic shepherds who roamed the interior. There were several towns, including Tunis with nearly 100,000 inhabitants, and Kairouan with 15,000, where traders and artisans were active, despite being severely affected by foreign competition. The traditional Tunisian textile industry couldn't compete with imported goods from industrialized Europe. The financial world was dominated by Tunisian Jews, while a growing number of Europeans, almost exclusively Italians and Maltese, settled in Tunisia. In 1870, there were 15,000 of them. The economic situation of Tunisian townsmen may accordingly have been under pressure, but it was flourishing in comparison with that of the "fellahin", peasants who laboured under a whole series of taxes and requisitions. From 1867 to 1868, crop failure, subsequent famine, and epidemics of cholera and typhus combined to kill some 20 percent of the population.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: These circumstances made the Tunisian government unable, despite all levies and demands, to collect the tax revenues they deemed necessary to modernise Tunisia.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The Congress of Berlin, held in 1878, convened to reorganise the states in the Balkan Peninsula after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, which had been won by Russia.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: At the Congress arrangements were also understood, e.g., by Germany and Britain, wherein France would be allowed to incorporate Tunisia. Italy was promised Tripolitania in what became Libya. Britain supported French influence in Tunisia in exchange for its own protectorate over Cyprus (recently "purchased" from the Ottomans), and French cooperation regarding a nationalist revolt in Egypt.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: In the meantime, however, an Italian company apparently bought the Tunis-Goletta-Marsa rail line; yet French strategy worked to circumvent this and other issues created by the sizable colony of Tunisian Italians. Direct attempts by the French to negotiate with the Bey their entry into Tunisia failed. France waited, searching to find reasons to justify the timing of a preemptive strike, now actively contemplated. Italians would call such strike the "Schiaffo di Tunisi".


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: Italy had a strong interest in Tunisia since at least the early 19th century, and had briefly entertained the idea of invading the country in the 1860s. Italians had lived in Tunisia for centuries, including slaves and their descendants, merchants, and members of the bey's court. Italian was the lingua franca of Tunisian diplomacy well into the 19th century, and of the various expatriate communities in Tunis that did not speak Arabic.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: For this reason, the first foreign policy objective of Benedetto Cairoli's government was the colonisation of Tunisia, to which both France and Italy aspired. Cairoli, like Agostino Depretis before him, never considered to proceed to occupation, being generally hostile towards a militarist policy. However, they relied on a possible British opposition to an enlargement of the French sphere of influence in North Africa (while, if anything, London was hostile about a single country controlling the whole Strait of Sicily).


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: In the beginning of 1881 France decided to militarily intervene in Tunisia. The motivations of this action were provided by Jules Ferry, who sustained that the Italians wouldn't have opposed it because some weeks before France had consented to a renewal of the Italo-French trade treaty, Italy was still paying debts contracted with France and primarily it was Italy that was politically isolated despite its tentatives towards Berlin and Vienna. Ferry confirmed that it was Otto von Bismarck to invite Paris to act in Tunisia precising that, in case of action, Germany wouldn't have raised objections. While in Italy there was a debate about the reliability of the news about a possible French action in Tunisia, a twenty-thousand-men expeditionary corp was preparing in Toulon. On 3 May a French contingent of two thousand men landed in Bizerte, followed on 11 May by the rest of the forces. The episode gave an ulterior confirm of the Italian political isolation, and rekindled the polemics that had followed the Congress of Berlin three years before. The events, in effect, demonstrated the irrealisability of the foreign policy of Cairoli and of Depretis, the impossibility of an alliance with France and the necessity of a rapprochement with Berlin and with Vienna, even if "obtorto collo".


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: However, such an inversion of the foreign policy of the last decade, couldn't be led by the same men, and Benedetto Cairoli resigned from office on 29 May 1881, thus avoiding that the Camera would openly distrust him; since then he "de facto" disappeared from the political scene. The Italians called these events The Schiaffo di Tunisi (literally Slap of Tunis).


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: After the establishment of French protectorate, Italian immigrants in Tunisia would have protested and caused serious difficulties to France. However, little at a time, the problem was solved and the immigrants could later opt for French nationality and benefit from the same vantages as French colonists. Italo-French relation dangerously fractured. Among the hypotheses weighed by the Italian military staff a possible invasion of the Italian Peninsula by French troops was not excluded.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: Taking the pretext of border incidents between the Algerian tribe of Ouled Nahd and the Tunisian tribe of Kroumirs on 30 and 31 March 1881, the French government led by Jules Ferry decided to send a force of 24,000 soldiers placed under the command of General Léonard-Léopold Forgemol de Bostquénard on the border between Tunisia and French Algeria.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: On 24 April 1881, French troops entered Tunisia from the north (Tabarka), the center of Kroumirie and Sakiet Sidi Youssef. Tabarka was invaded on 26 April, as well as Le Kef on the same day. The three armies can then join together to eliminate the mountain tribes who resisted until 26 May.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: Encouraged by the inertia of the Tunisian army, which had not moved to defend the town of Le Kef against the French attack, Jules Ferry decided to send a force of 6,000 soldiers under the command of General to land at Bizerte from 1 May 1881. The city had no resistance and on 8 May 8, the military force took the road to Tunis. On May 12, the French soldiers encamped at La Manouba, not far from the Bardo Palace.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: At 4 p.m., escorted by two squadrons of hussars, Bréart presented himself in front of the Bey's palace accompanied by his entire staff and most of the senior military officers. Tunisian soldiers honored them. They are introduced into the living room where Sadok Bey and the French consul Théodore Roustan are waiting for them. Fearing being deposed and replaced by his brother Taïeb Bey, the monarch signed the treaty at 7:11 p.m. However, he managed to prevent the French troops from entering the capital.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: By this text, France deprived the Tunisian State of the right of active legation by entrusting diplomatic and consular agents of France in foreign countries with the protection of Tunisian interests and nationals of the Beylik. As for the Bey, he can no longer conclude any act of an international nature without having first informed the French State and without having its permission. By this treaty, France also undertook to ensure the durability of the monarchical regime and to preserve the Bey's status as sovereign and head of state; article 3 indicated that "the Government of the French Republic undertakes to lend constant support to H.H the Bey of Tunis against any danger."


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The last shots were fired on 26 May where 14 French soldiers and an unknown number of Tunisians died.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The return to France of half of the military force encouraged the country to take up arms. The signal for the revolt was given by Sfax on 27 June. The local authorities were overwhelmed and the Europeans have to evacuate the city in disaster. The rebellion was put down by marines from the Mediterranean squadron who retook the city on 16 July after four hours of street fighting, as well as Gabès on 30 July.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The whole country imitated the example of the Sfaxiens. In August, Kairouan was taken over by the rebels.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The Kef military camp was besieged by 5,000 fighters led by the chief of the Ouled Ayar tribe, Ali Ben Ammar. Near Hammamet, a French military force was harassed by 6,000 insurgents between 26 and 30 August and lost 30 soldiers. European civilians were not spared. On 30 September, the Oued Zarga station was attacked and nine employees were massacred. Following this massacre, Tunis was occupied on 7 October by French troops to reassure the foreign population.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: Troops are sent as reinforcements from French Algeria. On 26 October, Kairouan was recaptured from the insurgents by the French forces. Ben Ammar's fighters were routed on 22 October; the last resisters were surrounded on 20 November. The last fighting stops at the end of December 1881.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: In northwest Tunisia, the Khroumir tribe episodically launched raids into the surrounding countryside. In the spring of 1881, they raided across the border into French Algeria, attacking the Algerian Ouled-Nebed tribe. On 30 March 1881 French troops clashed with the raiders. Using the pretext of "droit de poursuite" (right of pursuit) France responded by invading Tunisia, sending an army of about 36,000. Their advance to Tunis was rapidly executed, though tribal opposition in the far south and at Sfax continued until December.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The Bey was soon compelled to come to terms with the French occupation of the country, signing the first of a series of treaties. These documents provided that the Bey continue as head of state, but with the French given effective control over a great deal of Tunisian governance, in the form of a protectorate.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: With her own substantial interests in Tunisia, Italy protested but would not risk a confrontation with France. Hence Tunisia officially became a French protectorate on May 12, 1881, when the ruling Sadik Bey (1859–1882) signed the Treaty of Bardo (Al Qasr as Sa'id). Later in 1883 his younger brother and successor 'Ali Bey signed the al-Marsa Convention.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: France did not enlarge its Maghreb domain beyond Algeria for half a century. The next area for expansion, at the beginning of the 1880s, was Tunisia. With an area of 155,000 square kilometers, Tunisia was a small prize, but it occupied strategic importance, across the Algerian frontier and only 150 kilometers from Sicily; Tunisia offered good port facilities, especially at Bizerte. France and Italy, as well as Britain, counted significant expatriate communities in Tunisia and maintained consulates there. Ties were also commercial; France had advanced a major loan to Tunisia in the mid-19th century and had trading interests.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The opportunity to seize control of Tunisia occurred following the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). Paris did not act immediately; the French parliament remained in an anti-colonial mood and no groundswell of popular opinion mandated a takeover of Tunisia. Several developments spurred France to action. In 1880, the British owners of the railway linking Tunis with the coast put their company up for sale. An Italian concern successfully bid for the enterprise, leaving France worried about possible Italian intervention. Another incident, also in 1880, concerned the sale of a 100 000 hectare property by a former Tunisian prime minister. Negotiations involved complicated arrangements to forestall preemption of the sale by the Bey's government or by proprietors of adjacent tracts of land. A French consortium buying the property believed the deal had been completed, but a British citizen, ostensibly representing neighbouring landholders, preempted the sale and occupied the land (though without paying for it). A judge sent by London to investigate discovered that the British purchaser was acting on behalf of the Bey's government and Italian businessmen; moreover, he discovered that the Briton had used fraud to stake his claim. The sale was cancelled, and French buyers got the property. Paris moved to protect French claims, as London and Berlin gently warned that if France did not act, they might reconsider their go-ahead for French occupation.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: French diplomats scrambled to convince unenthusiastic parliamentarians and bureaucrats, all the while looking for a new incident to precipitate intervention. In March 1881, a foray by Tunisian Khroumir tribesmen across the border into Algeria caused the deaths of several Algerians, and four French, providing a pretext for the French. By mid-April, French troops had landed in Tunisia and, on 12 May 1881, forced Bey Muhammad III as-Sadiq to sign the Treaty of Bardo granting France a protectorate over Tunisia. Although soldiers took until May 1882 to occupy the whole country and stamp out resistance, Tunisia had become a new French holding. Germany and Britain remained silent; Italy was outraged but powerless. French public opinion was largely supportive, and the Treaty of Bardo was passed with only one dissenting vote in the Chamber of Deputies and unanimously in the Senate.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: As a protectorate, Tunisia's status differed from that of Algeria. The Bey remained in office as head of state, and Tunisia was deemed nominally independent, while existing treaties with other states stayed in force. France, however, took control of Tunisia's foreign affairs, finances, and maintained the right to station military troops within its territory.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The Conventions of La Marsa, signed in 1883, by Bey Ali Muddat ibn al-Husayn, formally established the French protectorate. It deprived the Bey of Tunis of control over internal matters by committing him to implement administrative, judicial, and financial reform dictated by France.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: In "Tunisia: Crossroads of the Islamic and European World", Kenneth J. Perkins writes: "Cambon carefully kept the appearance of Tunisian sovereignty while reshaping the administrative structure to give France complete control of the country and render the beylical government a hollow shell devoid of meaningful powers."


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: French officials used several methods to control the Tunisian government. They urged the Bey to nominate members of the pre-colonial ruling elite to such key posts as prime-minister, because these people were personally loyal to the Bey and followed his lead in offering no resistance to the French. At the same time, the rulers obtained the dismissal of Tunisians who had supported the 1881 rebellion or had otherwise opposed the extension of French influence. A Frenchman held the office of Secretary-General of the Tunisian government, an office created in 1883 to advise the Prime Minister and oversee the work of the bureaucracy. French experts answerable only to the Secretary-General and the Resident-General managed and staffed those government offices, collectively called the Technical Services, which dealt with finances, public works, education, and agriculture. To help him implement the reforms alluded to in the Conventions of La Marsa, the Resident-General had the power to promulgate executive decrees, reducing the Bey to little more than a figurehead.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: To advise the Resident-General, a consultative conference representing French colonists was set up in 1891, and expanded to include appointed Tunisian representatives in 1907. From 1922 until 1954, Tunisian delegates to the Tunisian Consultative Conference were indirectly elected.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The French authorities left the framework of local government intact, but devised mechanisms to control it. "Qaids", roughly corresponding to provincial governors, were the most important figures in local administration. At the outset of the protectorate, some sixty of them had the responsibility of maintaining order and collecting taxes in districts either defined by tribal membership, or by geographical limits. The central government appointed the "qaids", usually choosing a person from a major family of the tribe or district to ensure respect and authority. Below the qaids were "cheikhs," the leaders of tribes, villages, and town quarters. The central government also appointed them but on the recommendation of the qaids. After the French invasion, most qaids and cheikhs were allowed to retain their post, and therefore few of them resisted the new authorities.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: To keep a close watch on developments outside the capital, Tunisia's new rulers organised the "contrôleurs civils." These French officials replicated, at the local level, the work of the Resident-General, closely supervising the qaids and sheikhs. After 1884, a network of contrôleurs civils overlay the qaids' administration throughout the country, except in the extreme south. There, because of the more hostile nature of the tribes and the tenuous hold of the central government, military officers, making up a "Service des Renseignements" (Intelligence Service), fulfilled this duty. Successive Residents-General, fearing the soldiers' tendency toward direct rule — which belied the official French myth that Tunisians continued to govern Tunisia — worked to bring the Service des Renseignements under their control, finally doing so at the end of the century.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: Shoring up the debt-ridden Tunisian treasury was one of Cambon's main priorities. In 1884, France guaranteed the Tunisian debt, paving the way for the termination of the International Debt Commission's stranglehold on Tunisian finances. Responding to French pressure, the Bey's government then lowered taxes. French officials hoped that their careful monitoring of tax assessment and collection procedures would result in a more equitable system and stimulate a revival in production and commerce, generating more revenue for the state.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: In 1883, French law and courts were introduced; thereafter, French law applied to all French and foreign residents. The other European powers agreed to give up the consular courts they had maintained to protect their nationals from the Tunisian judiciary. The French courts also tried cases in which one litigant was Tunisian, the other European. The protectorate authorities made no attempt to alter Muslim religious courts in which judges, or qadis, trained in Islamic law heard relevant cases. A beylical court handling criminal cases operated under French supervision in the capital. In 1896, similar courts were instituted in the provinces, also under French supervision.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The protectorate introduced new ideas in education. The French director of public education looked after all schools in Tunisia, including religious ones. According to Perkins, "Many colonial officials believed that modern education would lay the groundwork for harmonious Franco-Tunisia relations by providing a means of bridging the gap between Arabo-Islamic and European cultures." In a more pragmatic vein, schools teaching modern subjects in a European language would produce a cadre of Tunisians with the skills necessary to staff the growing government bureaucracy. Soon after the protectorate's establishment, the Directorate of Public Education set up a unitary school system for French and Tunisian pupils designed to draw the two peoples closer together. French was the medium of instruction in these Franco-Arab schools, and their curriculum imitated that of schools in metropolitan France. French-speaking students who attended them studied Arabic as a second language. Ethnic mixing rarely occurred in schools in the cities, in which various religious denominations continued to run elementary schools. The Franco-Arab schools attained somewhat greater success in rural areas but never enrolled more than a fifth of Tunisia's eligible students. At the summit of the modern education system was the Sadiki College, founded by Hayreddin Pasha. Highly competitive examinations regulated admission to Sadiki, and its graduates were almost assured government positions.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: Many Tunisians took satisfaction in France's defeat by Germany in June 1940, but the nationalist parties derived no more substantive benefit from the fall of France. Despite his commitment to terminate the French protectorate, the pragmatic independence leader Habib Bourguiba had no desire to exchange the control of the French Republic for that of Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany, whose state ideologies he abhorred. He feared that associating with the Axis would bring short-term benefit at the cost of long-term tragedy. Following the Second Armistice at Compiègne between France and Germany, the Vichy Government of Marshal Philippe Pétain sent to Tunis as new Resident-General Admiral Jean-Pierre Esteva, who had no intention of permitting a revival of Tunisian political activity. The arrests of Taieb Slim and Habib Thameur, central figures in the Neo-Destour party's political bureau were a result of this attitude.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The Bey Muhammad VII al-Munsif moved towards greater independence in 1942, but when the Axis were forced out of Tunisia in 1943, the Free French accused him of collaborating with the Vichy Government and deposed him.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The accession of Muhammad VII on 19 June 1942 was a surprise for the Tunisians. Very popular since he convinced his father to defend the Destour in April 1922, he had a reputation for being close to the people. From 10 August, he did not hesitate to enter into conflict with Jean-Pierre Esteva by presenting him with a memorandum grouping together 16 demands inspired by his nationalist friends. On 15 September, the Vichy government sent an end of inadmissibility in response to the monarch. On 12 October, it was the absence of Tunisians among the French directors of the administration that provoked his anger.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: The end of the World War II means the return in force of the French protectorate in Tunisia. The first victim was Moncef Bey who took advantage of the weakening of the French to publicize the Tunisian cause. Little suspected of having collaborated with the Axis powers, he can only be blamed for the decorations awarded on 12 April to German and Italian generals. He was however deposed by a decree of the general of Free France, Henri Giraud, on 13 May 1943 and exiled to Laghouat in the Franco-Algerian South.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: He was replaced by Lamine Bey who accepted the throne despite the conditions under which his predecessor was forced to abdicate. Rejected by a large part of the Tunisian population, he only gained his legitimacy on the death of Moncef on 1 September 1948, which put an end to the hopes of Tunisians to see the "Nationalist Bey" return to the throne.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: Decolonisation proved a protracted and controversial affair. In Tunisia, nationalists demanded the return of the deposed Bey and institutional reform. In 1945, the two Destour parties joined other dissident groups to petition for autonomy. The following year, Habib Bourguiba and the Néo-Destour Party switched their aim to independence. Fearing arrest, Bourguiba spent much of the next three years in Cairo, where in 1950, he issued a seven-point manifesto demanding the restitution of Tunisian sovereignty and election of a national assembly. A conciliatory French government acknowledged the desirability of autonomy, although it warned that this would come only at an unspecified time in the future; Paris proposed French and Tunisian ”co-sovereignty” over the protectorate. An accord signed the next year, which granted increased powers to Tunisian officials, fell short of satisfying nationalists and outraged settlers. New French prime ministers took a harder line and kept Bourguiba under house arrest from 1951 to 1954.


title: French protectorate of Tunisia

text: A general strike in 1952 led to violent confrontation between the French and Tunisians, including guerrilla attacks by nationalists. Yet another change in French government, the appointment of Pierre Mendès-France as Prime Minister in 1954, brought a return to gentler approaches. International circumstances — the French defeat in the First Indochina War and insurgency of the Algerian War — spurred French efforts to solve the Tunisian question quickly and peacefully. In a speech in Tunis, Mendès-France solemnly proclaimed the autonomy of the Tunisian government, although France retained control of substantial areas of administration. In 1955, Bourguiba returned to Tunis in triumph. At the same time, the French protectorate of Morocco was terminated which further paved way for Tunisian independence, as decolonisation gained pace. The next year, the French revoked the clause of the Treaty of Bardo that had established the protectorate in 1881 and recognised the independence of the Kingdom of Tunisia under Muhammad VIII al-Amin on 20 March.


title: Jud Süß

text: The film has been characterized as "one of the most notorious and successful pieces of antisemitic film propaganda produced in Nazi Germany." It was a great success in Germany, and was seen by 20 million people. Although its budget of 2 million Reichsmarks was considered high for films of that era, the box office receipts of 6.5 million Reichsmarks made it a financial success. Heinrich Himmler urged members of the SS and police to see it.


title: Jud Süß

text: After the war, some of the leading cast members were brought to trial as part of the denazification process. They generally defended their participation in the film on the grounds that they had only done so under duress. Despite significant evidence to support their arguments, Susan Tegel, author of "Nazis and the Cinema", characterizes their postwar attempts to distance themselves from the film as "crass and self-serving"; she argues that their motives for accepting the roles seem to have been more driven by opportunistic ambition than by antisemitism. Harlan was the only major movie director of the Third Reich to stand trial for crimes against humanity. After three trials, he was given a light sentence because he convinced the courts that the antisemitic content of the film had been dictated by Goebbels and that Harlan had worked to moderate the antisemitism. Eventually, Harlan was reinstated as a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany and made nine more films. He remained a controversial figure and the target of protests.


title: Jud Süß

text: Together with "Die Rothschilds" and "Der ewige Jude", both released in 1940, the film remains one of the most frequently discussed examples of the use of film to further the Nazi antisemitic agenda. In the 2000s, two documentary films and a drama were released that explore the history and impact of the film.


title: Jud Süß

text: Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was an 18th-century court Jew in the employ of Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg in Stuttgart. As a financial advisor for Duke Karl Alexander, he also gained a prominent position at the court and held the reins of the finances in his duchy. He established a duchy monopoly on the trade of salt, leather, tobacco, and liquor and founded a bank and porcelain factory. In the process, he made multiple enemies who claimed, among other things, that he was involved with local gambling houses.


title: Jud Süß

text: When Karl Alexander died suddenly, Oppenheimer was arrested and accused of fraud, embezzlement, treason, lecherous relations with the court ladies, accepting bribes, and trying to reestablish Catholicism. The Jewish community tried unsuccessfully to ransom him. After a heavily publicized trial during which no proofs of his guilt were produced, he was sentenced to death. When his jailers demanded that he convert to Christianity, he refused. He was taken to the gallows on 4 February 1738, and given a final chance to convert to Christianity, which he refused to do.


title: Jud Süß

text: Although the story of Duke Karl Alexander and Joseph Süß Oppenheimer constituted a relatively obscure episode in German history, it became the subject of a number of literary and dramatic treatments over the course of more than a century; the earliest of these having been Wilhelm Hauff's 1827 novella. The most successful literary adaptation was Lion Feuchtwanger's novel titled "Jud Süß" (1925) based on a play that he had written in 1916 but subsequently withdrawn. As a Jew, Feuchtwanger did not intend his portrayal of Süß to be antisemitic but rather as a study of the tragedy caused by the human weaknesses of greed, pride, and ambition. With an interest in exploring the challenges confronting Jews in the Diaspora, Feuchtwanger was particularly concerned with the issues of conversion and antisemitism. He was particularly struck by the fact that Süß could have saved himself by converting to Christianity but had steadfastly refused to do so, opting instead to return to formal Jewish observance and piety.


title: Jud Süß

text: Ashley Dukes and Paul Kornfeld wrote dramatic adaptations of the Feuchtwanger novel. A German-born American director, Lothar Mendes, directed a British film adaptation of the novel in 1934. This film (entitled "Power" in the U.S.) starred Conrad Veidt, and was an early effort to expose Nazi anti-semitism. It prompted the Nazi propaganda ministry to make their own version of the film, which starred the distinguished German star Werner Krauss, who had played the title role in "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari".


title: Jud Süß

text: Karl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg (Heinrich George), a man much beloved by his Swabian people is crowned Duke and swears an oath to obey the laws of the duchy "according to the traditional Württemberg loyalty and honesty." However, the Duke soon becomes frustrated because the Württemberg Diet (the provincial council) refuses him the funds needed to maintain a lifestyle comparable to his neighboring sovereigns; in particular, he wants a personal bodyguard, an opera company, and a ballet company. Lacking funds even to purchase coronation gifts for the Duchess (Hilde von Stolz), the Duke sends a courtier to Frankfurt to borrow money from Joseph Süß Oppenheimer (Ferdinand Marian). Süß shows the emissary jewels and jewelry that are obviously beyond the Duke's means and then says that it would be his honor to provide the Duke with jewelry at a substantial discount. However, Süß insists on presenting the items to the Duke personally despite a ban against Jews ("Judensperre") entering the city that has been in force for over a century. Armed with a pass from the Duke, Süß cuts his hair, shaves his beard, and dons "Christian" clothes so that he can enter Württemberg disguised as a Christian. As his carriage is involved in an accident, Süß gains a lift from Dorothea Sturm (Kristina Söderbaum) to the city.


title: Jud Süß

text: The Duke is delighted with the jewelry, and Süß willingly defers payment. Süß offers to provide financing for the Duke's bodyguard, opera, and ballet as well. Eventually, the Duke discovers that he owes Süß 350,000 thalers, but Süß demurs, saying that all he wants in "payment" is the authority to maintain the roads and bridges of the duchy for 10 years—and the right to levy tolls for their use and upkeep. The Duke will receive a percentage of the proceeds, thereby freeing him from the financial limits imposed by the council.


title: Jud Süß

text: The new tolls cause the price of food and other essentials to rise, enriching both Süß and the Duke. Süß gains the authority to levy taxes on salt, beer, wine, and wheat as well. He also assists in procuring local women for the Duke, thus engaging in the corruption of their morals. The increase in the price of basic necessities causes the people of Württemberg to suffer great privation.


title: Jud Süß

text: The oppressive taxes and brutal collection methods incite sporadic rebellions that are suppressed harshly. Süß goes so far as to destroy half of a blacksmith's house to prove his power to punish those who refuse to pay their taxes. When the blacksmith attacks Süß's coach with a sledgehammer, Süß has the blacksmith hanged on the grounds that an attack on the Duke's minister is tantamount to an attack on the Duke himself.


title: Jud Süß

text: After some initial resistance, the Duke yields to Süß's request for the repeal of the law prohibiting Jews from living in Württemberg; a horde of dirty, disreputable Jews are then shown moving into the city. Süß enables them to enrich themselves at the expense of the populace. The aged rabbi Loew (Werner Krauss) criticizes Süß for his excessively opulent lifestyle as the Duke's finance minister and warns that it could be his downfall, warning that, “The Lord punishes Jews who forget who they are!” but Süß pays him no heed.


title: Jud Süß

text: Süß relentlessly pursues Dorothea Sturm and schemes to marry her but his plans are frustrated when her father, the council chairman (Eugen Klöpfer), intervenes. Dorothea and her fiancé, Faber (Malte Jaeger), marry in secret. Süß then has Dorothea's father imprisoned—on the grounds that he is a leader of the conspiracy against the Duke.


title: Jud Süß

text: When the council objects to the Duke's increasing usurpation of power and abrogation of the constitution, Süß suggests to him that this challenge to his authority can be suppressed by dismissing the council and restructuring the government so that the Duke can reign as an absolute monarch. Süß tells the Duke that he can accomplish this by hiring mercenaries and that, as a sign of their gratitude, the Jews of Württemberg will provide all the requisite funds. Süß argues that he would be most effective if the Duke were to give him a letter granting him immunity from the laws of Württemberg. The Duke refuses at first, but ultimately grants Süß's request.


title: Jud Süß

text: As part of an attempt to thwart the Duke's planned coup d'état, Faber is sent on a mission to get help from outside the city but is arrested as he tries to leave the city. Despite being tortured, he refuses to reveal the identities of his co-conspirators. Dorothea goes to Süß to beg for her husband's release but Süß demands that she have sex with him as the price for her husband's freedom. Süß rapes Dorothea, who then escapes and drowns herself. Süß keeps his promise to free Faber who subsequently discovers his wife's drowned corpse.


title: Jud Süß

text: Süß suggests to the Duke that the two of them go to Ludwigsburg on the pretext of meeting the emperor's emissary and return to Württemberg only after the planned coup has established him as an absolute monarch. However, before the foreign mercenaries arrive to effect Süß's coup, the people of Württemberg rise up under the leadership of Obrist Röder. The Württemberg soldiers refuse to fire on their fellow citizens and several of the townspeople go to Ludwigsburg to confront the Duke and Süß. As they are presenting their grievances, the Duke suffers a fatal heart attack. Süß is taken into custody by the rebels and subjected to a lengthy trial on charges that include treason and financial improprieties. However, he is ultimately convicted primarily on the charge that he had sex with a Christian woman. Süß is executed, pleading to the last that he was nothing more than a "faithful servant" of the late Duke. All the other Jews are then given three days to leave Württemberg. As the film draws to a close, a citizen of Württemberg, observing the Jews leave, comments, "May the citizens of other states never forget this lesson."


title: Jud Süß

text: Adolf Hitler and the Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels believed that film was a very potent tool for molding public opinion. The Nazi Party first established a film department in 1930 and Goebbels had taken a personal interest in the use of film to promote the Nazi philosophy and agenda. Soon after the Nazi takeover, Goebbels was insisting in speeches that the role of the German cinema was to serve as the "vanguard of the Nazi military" as they set forth to conquer the world. He asked them to "produce films with ... sharp racial contours" that portrayed men and society "as they are in reality."


title: Jud Süß

text: According to Richard Levy, "Of the 1,100 feature films produced under the Nazis, only a handful demonstrated explicit antisemitic content and even there, the antisemitism was often secondary to the film's plot. ... Two films, however, were designed to translate National Socialism's antisemitic ideology to a popular audience: "Der ewige Jude" ("The Eternal Jew", 1940) and "Jud Süß" ("Jew Süß", 1940)."


title: Jud Süß

text: In November 1938, Goebbels made a series of attacks against the Jews in the German media that after the murder of a German diplomat in Paris by a Jew resulted in the anti-Jewish riots known as "Kristallnacht". Kristallnacht was considered by Hitler to have been a political disaster both within Germany and internationally, and he became furious with Goebbels. Not only did the brutality instigated by Goebbels evoke harsh criticism internationally, the mixed reaction in the German media evidenced a lack of broad-based support among Germans for antisemitic violence. Hitler expressed his frustration and anger at the mixed response from the German media and insisted that, instead of openly calling for violence against the Jews as Goebbels had in instigating the pogrom, Nazi propaganda should "elucidate events of foreign policy" in such a way that the German people themselves would call for violence against the Jews.


title: Jud Süß

text: In response to Hitler's reprimand, Goebbels launched a campaign to promote the antisemitic views of the Nazis to the German populace. He ordered each film studio to make an antisemitic film. Hitler preferred films such as "Der ewige Jude" which presented the Nazi antisemitic agenda openly and directly; however Goebbels disliked the crudeness of such straight-forward approaches, preferring the much more subtle approach of couching antisemitic messages in an engaging story with popular appeal.


title: Jud Süß

text: Although Goebbels did not usually have an active role in the production of particular films, he elected to do so in the case of major propaganda films such as "Jud Süß". Saul Friedländer suggests that Goebbels' intent was to counter three films whose messages attacked the persecution of Jews throughout history by producing antisemitic versions of those films with identical titles. After viewing Lothar Mendes' sensitive 1934 British film "Jew Süss" starring an exile from Nazism, Conrad Veidt, Goebbels was adamant that "a new film version had to be made."


title: Jud Süß

text: The impetus for the movie came from Joseph Goebbels' desire to make an antisemitic response to Mendes' philo-semitic film adaptation of Lion Feuchtwanger's 1925 novel "Jud Süß". Because Mendes' movie was sympathetic to the subject, the scriptwriters shifted their model to Wilhelm Hauff's 1827 novella. However, even after Harlan rewrote the original script, the result was not antisemitic enough to suit Goebbels' propaganda needs, so he personally intervened in the editing process to the point of dropping some scenes and rewriting others, including making a substantial change to the film's ending to show Süß as humbled rather than defiant. Thus, the message of the film was diametrically opposed to the intent of Feuchtwanger's novel. At the same time, however, the film evokes Feuchtwanger’s texts, twisting and reversing the core of the Jewish writer’s work. Although inspired by the historical details of Süß's life, the novel, novella, and film only loosely correspond to the historical sources available at the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg.


title: Jud Süß

text: Christiane Schönfeld, who examines the connections between Feuchtwanger's "Jud Süß" play and novel and Veit Harlan's propaganda film, writes: "Lion Feuchtwanger [...] considered Harlan’s film an adaptation of his novel "Jud Süß" that perverted and reversed the intentions of his text, as he writes in his open letter to seven Berlin actors after having read a review of the film in an NSDAP newspaper [...]. Even without having seen the film, Lion Feuchtwanger had no doubt that Veit Harlan and his collaborators had expropriated his novel and adapted it to the purposes of Nazi propaganda. The synopsis of the film narrative provided in the review highlighted a perversion of the plot of Feuchtwanger’s text that the author instantly recognised. He identifies the focal point of the distortion when he refers to the desperate young woman and the sexual abuse she endures. She is indeed a prime example of the Nazis’ ruthless misrepresentation, and her character, her rape, and tragic death prove the Nazis’ deliberate abuse of the Jewish writer’s work."


title: Jud Süß

text: Susan Tegel ascribes the genesis of the project more to opportunism than to ideological antisemitism. Tegel's assessment echoes Klaus Kreimeier's assertion that the "recognized stars of the (German) stage and screen" were less aligned with the Nazi philosophy and more motivated by professional ambition and the "illusion that Goebbels would fulfill them."


title: Jud Süß

text: Ludwig Metzger had been trying to promote his proposal for a film on the life of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer since as early as 1921 but without any success. The publication of Feuchtwanger's book and Mendes' film adaptation of it irritated Metzger because of his inability to move forward such a project.


title: Jud Süß

text: In January or February 1939, Metzger, now a screenwriter for Terra Filmkunst, mentioned his idea to Wolfgang Ebbecke with whom he was working on the script for "Central Rio". Ebbecke shot down the idea, raising a number of objections including the existence of Mendes' British film on the same topic and the concern that German audiences might confuse the proposed film with Feuchtwanger's novel which was not antisemitic.


title: Jud Süß

text: Undaunted by Ebbecke's objections, Metzger took his idea to Teich, the story editor at Terra but was once again turned down. Finally, Metzger approached Goebbels directly where his proposal was received like a "bomb hitting its target." Teich was informed that Terra should proceed with Metzger's proposal and so he reluctantly presented the idea to the head of the studio. When the studio head refused to approve the project, Goebbels ensured he was fired and replaced by Peter Paul Brauer, a minor director with no experience in producing films. As head of the studio, Brauer assigned himself the task of directing the film. However, the project stalled out for a number of reasons including challenges in recruiting a suitable cast and difficulties in producing a script acceptable to Goebbels.


title: Jud Süß

text: At Goebbels' direction, Metzger was given a contract by Terra to write a script for the proposed film. He decided to base his script on the 1827 Hauff novella rather than the more recent and better known 1925 Feuchtwanger novel. However, when Goebbels read Metzger's draft of the script, he deemed it to be insufficiently antisemitic for his propaganda campaign. To remedy the script's deficiencies, Goebbels assigned playwright Eberhard Wolfgang Möller to assist Metzger, even though Möller had no experience as a screenwriter. Möller's role was to ensure that the script met Goebbel's ideological objectives. Möller decided to abandon Hauff's novella as the basis of the script, dismissing Hauff as too sentimental about the "emancipation of Jews and Poles."


title: Jud Süß

text: In the meantime, Brauer was working on recruiting a cast but had little success. The actors being considered for the lead role of Joseph Süß Oppenheimer included Gustaf Gründgens, René Deltgen, Rudolf Fernau, Richard Häusler, Siegfried Bräuer, Paul Dahlke and Ferdinand Marian. Gründgens declined, citing his responsibilities as director of the Prussian State Theatre. Marian also declined.


title: Jud Süß

text: When Nazi Germany occupied Poland in September 1939, it now had the country's Jewish population of 3 million under its direct authority. In view of the German populace's tepid response to the orchestrated violence of Kristallnacht, the Nazis perceived an urgent need for films that would move German popular sentiment in favor of the Nazi Final Solution to the 'Jewish question'. Frustrated with the delays on the "Jud Süß" project, Goebbels ordered Fritz Hippler, the head of his film department, to sack Brauer and bring in Veit Harlan to take over as director.


title: Jud Süß

text: After the war, Harlan claimed that no other director would touch the project and that he himself had tried to decline the role of director. The filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, in her 1987 memoir, wrote that Harlan had told her of Goebbels's insistence that he direct the film and of his ardent desire to avoid involvement in the project. Harlan had written to Goebbels volunteering for military service to this end. Goebbels' responded to this by informing Harlan that, if he enlisted, he would do his military service at the front. According to Harlan, Goebbels screamed at him, "I can crush you like a bug on the wall!" When Harlan asked Riefenstahl to intercede for him with Goebbels, she demurred citing her own conflicts with the propaganda minister. Instead of intervening on his behalf, Riefenstahl wrote that she advised Harlan to move to Switzerland; however, Harlan expressed fear for his life and the impact it would have on his wife.


title: Jud Süß

text: According to Harlan's postwar testimony, he told Goebbels that the Metzger/Möller script was nothing more than "dramatized "Stürmer"", referring to the Nazi weekly propaganda publication. He argued that such a piece of poor writing would lead not to the portrayal of a "despicable Jew" but rather to just a "despicable film."


title: Jud Süß

text: Goebbels wanted Harlan to include sequences depicting Jewish ritual slaughter but Harlan demurred, arguing that portraying such cruelty would "make audiences sick to their stomachs." Harlan complained to Goebbels that all the characters were negative; to this, Goebbels retorted that Harlan would not turn down the role of Richard III just because he was a negative character. However, Goebbels acceded to Harlan's insistence on rewriting the script and Harlan spent from November 1939 to March 1940 revising the script although he kept much of what Metzger and Möller had written.


title: Jud Süß

text: After the war, Harlan claimed that his script was less antisemitic than the Metzger/Möller script. He even claimed that the Mendes' script was more antisemitic than his. However, in rebuttal, Haggith and Newman point out that Harlan added an important sequence in which Süß is responsible for the execution of a blacksmith, a sequence which served to increase the audience's hatred for Süß.


title: Jud Süß

text: Feeling that a project of this significance required top-caliber actors and frustrated at the delay in casting the film, Goebbels personally participated in the recruitment of the lead actors. For example, he insisted that Ferdinand Marian and Werner Krauss take on key roles in the film. However, Goebbels had to employ a combination of accommodation, generous compensation, pressure, intimidation and even threats of reprisal in order to fill the lead roles in the film with the top German cinema stars of the day. Harlan claimed that "virtually every actor was performing under duress."


title: Jud Süß

text: Daniel Azuelos ascribes the cast's reluctance to an unwillingness to be typecast as Jews. David Welch identifies Werner Krauss as having asked Goebbels to make a public pronouncement stating that Krauss was not Jewish but merely "playing a part as an actor in the service of the State." In order to address their concerns, Goebbels issued a disclaimer stating that those actors playing the parts of Jews were in fact of pure 'Aryan' blood.


title: Jud Süß

text: Similarly, Josef Škvorecký also notes that all the major cast members as well as Harlan himself tried in various ways to avoid participation in the project; however Škvorecký ascribes a rather different motivation to the cast than the one that Azuelos propounds. Škvorecký attributes the reluctance of actors to participate in what he characterizes as a "politically-most-correct film" as an indication of "how aware most German artists were of the fact that antisemitism under Hitler changed from prejudice to murder." While cast members could have declined the roles that were offered to them, Škvorecký asserts that such action would have required "extraordinary courage: the dire consequences of such an act of defiance were only too easy to imagine." According to Škvorecký, "Goebbels either outwitted [the actors he desired for the cast], or knew about compromising circumstances in their lives and used this knowledge for bludgeoning them into acceptance." Elaborating on the "compromising circumstances", Škvorecký writes, "One of the paradoxes of this sinister film is how many participants in the violently racist project had either Jewish spouses or relatives, were disciples of Jewish artists and known friends of Jews, or had been—before the Nazi takeover—left-leaning intellectuals, even communists." For example, Škvorecký points out that Veit Harlan's first wife was Dora Gerson, a German-Jewish actress and cabaret singer (who was later murdered in Auschwitz). Harlan himself had flirted with socialism. Although Werner Krauss was openly antisemitic and an ardent Nazi, his daughter-in-law was Jewish. Ferdinand Marian had a half-Jewish daughter from his first marriage and the former husband of his second wife was a Jew.


title: Jud Süß

text: Heinrich George was active in the Communist party before the Nazi takeover. He had worked with fellow left-wingers, the theatre director Erwin Piscator and dramatist Bertolt Brecht and had starred in the lead role of the film "Berlin-Alexanderplatz" (1931). After the Nazi takeover, George was identified as a "non-desirable" actor because of his earlier political affiliations and was barred from working in cinematic productions; however, he was able to reach an accommodation with the Nazi regime and was eventually appointed director of the Schiller Theater, Berlin in 1938. From that point onwards, George actively collaborated with the Nazis and agreed to star in Nazi propaganda films such as "Jud Süß" and "Kolberg" (1945) as well as appearing in numerous newsreels.


title: Jud Süß

text: George had a stocky build and a Berlin accent which made him readily recognizable to German audiences. His prestige as a leading actor of the day made him an "extraordinarily valuable catch for the Nazis." Cooke and Silberman describe him as "the actor most closely tied with fascist fantasies of the autocratic and the populist leader". George's affiliation with the Nazis would have fatal consequences for him after the war when the Soviets arrested him as a Nazi collaborator. He died in 1946 while interned in NKVD special camp Nr. 7 located in Sachsenhausen.


title: Jud Süß

text: According to Harlan, it was Goebbels who insisted that Harlan's wife, Kristina Söderbaum, play the leading female role. According to Antje Ascheid, Soderbaum is frequently identified as "most singularly representative of the Nazi ideal, as the quintessential Nazi star." As a beautiful Swedish blonde, Söderbaum had the baby-doll looks that epitomized the model Aryan woman. In fact, she had already played the role of the innocent Aryan in a number of feature films and was well-known to German audiences. Her youth and beauty made her a symbol of health and purity, and thus an exemplary specimen of the Nazi ideal of womanhood. In a number of her films, she had been imperiled by the threat of "rassenschande" ("racial pollution"). Because two of her films ended with her committing suicide by drowning, she was given the mock honorary title "Reichswasserleiche" ('Drowned Corpse of the Reich').


title: Jud Süß

text: Harlan argued to Goebbels that Söderbaum, having just given birth, was too weak to take on the role. Goebbels countered that a special room could be set up as a nursery and that a wet-nurse could be hired to care for the infant. He further offered to halt shooting if Söderbaum became ill. Harlan later reported that Söderbaum was so upset by the entire affair that she considered fleeing back to her native Sweden to avoid having to play the part of Dorothea. In the end, however, she decided to stay and performed the role.


title: Jud Süß

text: The story was different in the case of Ferdinand Marian who is often characterized as having established a reputation as a "matinee idol". Initially, Marian was repulsed by the proposal that he play the title role of Jud Süß and demurred for almost a year. As a result, he was not confirmed in the role until about a week before shooting was scheduled to begin. According to Kristina Söderbaum, Marian was afraid that playing such an unappealing character would damage his image with film audiences. She recalled that Marian had told Goebbels that his stage persona was one of a bon-vivant and a lover and that Süß, in contrast, was a "truly unpleasant character". Goebbels rebutted Marian's argument by pointing out that he had just seen Marian's portrayal of Iago, asking "Was he a nice bon-vivant?" When Marian responded "But that was Shakespeare, Herr Minister!", Goebbels screamed into his face saying, "And I am Joseph Goebbels!"


title: Jud Süß

text: Marian finally agreed to play the part of Süß for fear of reprisal against members of his family. Marian had a daughter from his first marriage to the Jewish pianist, Irene Saager. The former husband of his second wife was also Jewish, making her son (and Marian's stepson) half-Jewish.


title: Jud Süß

text: Goebbels, however, used not only intimidation but also cajoling and generosity to achieve his goals. Ferdinand Marian requested compensation of 50,000 marks for taking on the role of Süß, an amount double anything he had received for previous roles. When asked to approve this amount, Goebbels did so citing the importance of the film and the need for a high-caliber cast to ensure its success.


title: Jud Süß

text: According to his biographer, Friedrich Knilli, Marian never forgave himself for having accepted the role of Süß. Knilli ascribes Marian's alcoholism and alleged suicide after the war to his feelings of guilt.


title: Jud Süß

text: Of all the cast members, Werner Krauss was the one most clearly identified as an antisemite. His consummate skills in characterization had earned him the title of "the man with a thousand faces". There is some difference of opinion regarding the number of roles that Krauss played in the film. While it is generally recognized that, with the exception of Marian's title role, the other five speaking parts that depicted Jews were all played by Krauss, Gottfried Reinhardt asserts that Krauss played "no less than thirteen Jews" in the movie. The roles that Krauss played in the film are often characterized as portraying antisemitic stereotypes. In an interview, Harlan explained that the decision to have Krauss play all the roles was "meant to show how all these different temperaments and characters—the pious patriarch, the wily swindler, the penny-pinching merchant, and so on—were all ultimately derived from the same (Jewish) root". describes Krauss' face as eerily appearing in different guises whenever the camera pans across a crowd of Jews, creating what Sieg calls a "paranoid effect of déjà vu".


title: Jud Süß

text: Shooting began in March 1940 and, with the exception of some scenes which were shot on location in Prague, most of the filming took place at the UFA studios in Berlin Babelsberg. The scenes showing the entry of the Jews into Württemberg and worshipping in a synagogue were filmed in Prague where Jewish extras were coerced into performing.


title: Jud Süß

text: The total cost of production was approximately two million Reichsmarks, a rather high figure for German feature films of that era. However, between 1940 and 1943, it grossed over 6.2 million Reichsmarks thus making it a blockbuster in contrast to the commercial failure of "Der Ewige Jude".


title: Jud Süß

text: David Culbert attributes the film's box-office success in large part to "its lavish sets, its effective crowd scenes, its skillful script, and the splendid acting by most of the principals."


title: Jud Süß

text: According to Harlan's postwar testimony, Goebbels was infuriated when he saw Harlan's first version of the film because it was not antisemitic enough for his purposes. Harlan reported that Goebbels accused him of being "incapable of thinking in political terms". Goebbels told him that he "should produce political films and not [the kind of] films that he would make in peacetime." Goebbels' dissatisfaction was centered on the relationship between Dorothea, the leading female character and Süß. He complained that Harlan had "transformed Süß, a monster, into a Romeo."


title: Jud Süß

text: Harlan testified that Goebbels removed him from the editing process and insisted on many changes, mostly with the intent of making Süß more unambiguously evil. The film was extensively re-edited to remove ambiguities that portrayed Süß in too sympathetic a light to suit Goebbels' antisemitic agenda. For example, Goebbels insisted on dropping a scene in which Dorothea responds to Süß's wooing with a smile. Scenes in which Süß was depicted as "too pleasant" were simply dropped. In some scenes, new lines were scripted for Marian to read in order to make his character less sympathetic. Other scenes were added including a new ending to replace the original one written by Harlan. Harlan claimed that he had wanted to make the hanging of Süß appear to have been a "great injustice." For the final execution scene, Harlan had written a defiant speech in which Süß condemned the German authorities. When Goebbels was shown a rough-cut copy, he was infuriated, insisting that Süß must not be portrayed in any way as a martyr. Demanding that Süß must be humbled and humiliated at the end, he had Harlan's speech replaced with one in which Süß cravenly begged for his life.


title: Jud Süß

text: While Harlan's account of Goebbels' involvement in the film has been treated by a number of sources as factual, Haggith and Newman assert that "it is difficult to find any evidence of significant interference (by Goebbels) aside from casting and the appointment of Harlan." They point out that it was in Harlan's interest to shift the blame to Goebbels after the war.


title: Jud Süß

text: The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival on 8 September 1940 and received rave reviews, earning the top award.


title: Jud Süß

text: Unlike most of the other major antisemitic films produced during the Third Reich, it was a great box-office success in Germany and abroad. It ranked sixth out of the thirty most popular German films of the war years.


title: Jud Süß

text: Within the Third Reich, it was the number one film of the 1939–1940 season, viewed by audiences totaling over twenty million at a time when the population of Germany was some seventy million. In France, the film was released in February 1941, and was screened until 1944, gaining an estimated one million viewers.


title: Jud Süß

text: Heinrich Himmler ordered that the film be shown to SS units about to be sent against Jews, to non-Jewish populations of areas where Jews were about to be deported, and to concentration camp guards.


title: Jud Süß

text: Children under the age of fourteen were prohibited from seeing the film. There were reports of anti-Jewish violence after audiences viewed the film; in particular, teenagers seemed particularly prone to be instigated to violence by the film. Stefan Baretzki, a guard at Auschwitz concentration camp, later said that after they were shown "Jud Süß" and similar films, guards would beat up Jewish prisoners the next day.


title: Jud Süß

text: In early 1941, the company Nordisk Tonefilm sought permission to distribute the film in Sweden but it was banned by the Censor. During the war the movie was never screened in public in Sweden, although the German embassy arranged screenings for special invitees.


title: Jud Süß

text: Feuchtwanger was horrified and incensed at the way in which his work had been manipulated and distorted, calling Harlan's film a "Schandwerk" ("a shameful work"). In 1941, he wrote an open letter to seven actors. Based on the sentiments expressed in the letter, it appears that Feuchtwanger was shocked that these men, whom he considered colleagues and who he knew were familiar with his work, would agree to participate in Goebbels' antisemitic propaganda film.


title: Jud Süß

text: In 1945, exhibition of the film in Germany was banned by decree of the Allied Military Occupation. In fact, the film was banned throughout the western world and most of the extant copies were destroyed.


title: Jud Süß

text: Harlan, who had later directed the propaganda movie "Kolberg" (1945), was the only film director of the Third Reich to be charged with crimes against humanity. Harlan defended himself asserting that he had been neither Nazi nor antisemitic. He claimed that Goebbels had controlled his work and that he should not be held personally responsible for its content. He recounted the ways in which he had been forced to endure Goebbels' constant haranguing and meddling in the production of the film. In the end, the court condemned the film but exonerated the director. While Harlan had not acted nobly, the court recognized that he had operated under duress and should not be held responsible for the content of the film.