Copyright 14 July 1937 by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Hollywood Theater, 11 August 1937. U.S. release: 2 October 1937. U.K. release: October 1937. Australian release: 3 February 1938. 13 reels. 116 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Emile Zola secures a new trial for the unjustly condemned Captain Alfred Dreyfus.NOTES: Academy Award, Best Picture (defeating The Awful Truth, Captains Courageous, Dead End, The Good Earth, In Old Chicago, Lost Horizon, 100 Men and a Girl, Stage Door and A Star Is Born).Academy Award, Supporting Actor, Joseph Schildkraut (defeating Ralph Bellamy in The Awful Truth, Thomas Mitchell in Hurricane, H. B. Warner in Lost Horizon and Roland Young in Topper). Academy Award, Best Screenplay (defeating The Awful Truth, Captains Courageous, Stage Door and A Star Is Born).Other Academy Award nominations: Paul Muni, Best Actor (winner was Spencer Tracy for Captains Courageous): William Dieterle, Directing (winner was Leo McCarey for The Awful Truth); Anton Grot, Art Direction (winner was Stephen Goosson for Lost Horizon); Sound Recording (winner was The Hurricane); Music Score (winner was 100 Men and a Girl). New York Film Critics Awards: Best Motion Picture; and Best Male Performance, Paul Muni. Best Picture of 1937, voted by the film critics of America in The Film Daily annual poll. Negative cost: $1,000,000. Domestic gross: $1,600,000 (including the 1938 re-issue). For another treatment of the Dreyfus case, see José Ferrer's I Accuse! (1958).COMMENT: The awards say it all. I think it's a marvelous movie: persuasive, forceful, compelling, compassionate, a rich emotional experience, with Muni, Schildkraut, Sondergaard and all the supporting players — with Dieterle and the whole array of his superlative Warner Bros. technicians — at the absolute peak of their form. One of the most stirring, involving and absolutely suspenseful films ever made. I was moved, thrilled, excited, fascinated — and that surely is what movies are all about. Lavishly produced and zestfully directed, The Life of Emile Zola is easily the most passionately powerful film of the 1930s.OTHER VIEWS: The fusing of realism and social consciousness into a high-charged entertainment was a specialty of the Warner Bros. studio during the 1930s. Not that other studios — even MGM — did not attempt this type of movie. They did. But it was Warner Bros. who not only led the way but crafted more movies in this category than all other production houses combined. The Life of Emile Zola is one of the most eminent examples of these superb entertainment skills. Muni gives the stand-out performance of his career (how Tracy's ridiculously phony Portuguese fisherman tipped Muni out of the Academy Award is a mystery I'll never solve) and Dieterle his most polished, pacey and pictorially dramatic job of imaginative directing.

. . . was cleverly disguised as a general interest Bio-Pic--THE LIFE OF EMILE ZOLA. This movie glosses over most of Zola's biography, doing the bare minimum to establish him as one of France's most famous and beloved citizens (with no particular affinity for Jewish people). Then he blows the whistle on all the top generals of his country's anti-Semitic Army, which has framed a random Jewish Army captain (Alfred Dreyfuss) for the treasonous espionage crimes of a Christian colonel. Though the colonel is a bitter malcontent turned German spy caught red-handed, the French Army refuses to admit its general incompetence in overlooking such an obvious and damaging traitor so high up on its general staff for so long. Instead, it rips uninvolved bystander Alfred away from his family to an all-but-certain death-by-torture on Devil's (Prison) Island. Just as many if not most Americans, when polled, say they now believe two Texas oil men then in the White House allowed if not facilitated the 9-11 Attacks, Hollywood's non-Christian elite knew that France in the late 1930s was so anti-Semitic that they would welcome any Nazis crossing the French border with open arms, helping them to herd French Jews to whatever form of doom German brains formulated. This, of course, actually came to pass as feared within a few years of ZOLA's release, as the French took a full measure of revenge against their Jews for being so embarrassed internationally by the so-called Dreyfuss Affair. I own copies of Readers' Digest Magazine from this period containing articles which predict most if not all of the main events of WWII, including the "sneak" attack on Pearl Harbor (let me emphasize these warning stories were published in many of America's leading magazines months and years before the Nostradamus-like predictions came true!). Obviously, the non-Christian segment of Hollywood moguls--as well as the Academy (which voted ZOLA "Best Picture" of 1937) read their Readers' Digests. ZOLA is even gassed to death himself at the end of this warning cry, showing that the screenwriters knew Germans would prove too cheap to eradicate their millions of victims with individual bullets. As history teaches us, Hitler controlled the oddly nicknamed "Grand Old Party" in the U.S. Congress, making European Jews "toast"--despite Hollywood's brave efforts to save millions (for which these same Fascists punished most of the Hollywood heroes the minute WWII ended, with the infamous American "Blacklists," as well as a long string of suspicious and shockingly premature deaths among Tinsel Town's human rights sympathizers as names like Wayne, Heston, Kazan, and Reagan came to control American culture and the White House for nearly a century to come).

This Movie remains elusive in two regards. Paul Muni, one of the most exalted and honorable Actors of the Thirties (hardly a name mentioned or even recognized among Cinema goers Today) and Emile Zola a Crusader for Human Rights and "The Truth" who was very popular and influential in late Nineteenth Century France (is virtually unknown, unread and forgotten).But not in 1937, just a few decades after His Death, His Legacy was much more in the Public Conscientious. So, Muni was given the Role (Won the Oscar the Year before as Louis Pasteur) and Zola was given the Royal Hollywood Studio treatment and managed to garner many Oscar Nominations and did Win for Best Picture of the Year.It is a straightforward, Low-Key presentation that is glossy and finely Produced with all the Studio Craftsman contributing to accessibility and appeal as Social Commentary Entertainment. Viewers Today may opine with such things as overrated, unremarkable, slow, stodgy, hammy, and lacking in what has become an ever increasing, over the Years, reliance of less nuance and more crackling and crisp Cinema.But the Message is the Medium here and without doubt it is delivered with intelligence. That is the remaining residue of this Film. A no frills introspection of one Freedom Fighter that used a Pen as His Weapon. It is just as Mighty coming from the Heart and in the hands of Zola and this Hollywood Ography.

The first quarter of the film is a brief biography of most of the adult life of Zola. That's because the final portion centers on the last years of Zola's life and his attempt to gain Dreyfus his release from prison. Dreyfus had been sent to Devil's Island--convicted of sending French military secrets to foreign powers. Amazingly, when the true perpetrator was learned, the highest officers in the military decided NOT to punish the man responsible and keep Dreyfus in prison so they wouldn't lose face for convicting the wrong man!! I really enjoyed "The Life of Emile Zola" though could see that a very important part of the story is missing. I am NOT talking about the film taking a few artistic liberties--I certainly expected that. Instead, I am talking about a deliberate effort by the studio to misrepresent a major part of the story to make it more palatable to the general public. You see, about 3/4 of the movie concerns Zola and the Dreyfus Affair--yet it really makes no real effort to talk about the heart of why Dreyfus was convicted for a crime he clearly did not commit--because he was a convenient scapegoat because he was Jewish. The film BRIEFLY mentions he was Jewish but completely downplays this angle--mostly because I assume they were afraid antisemites in the US and abroad might find this unacceptable. Sadly, it makes this exceptional film just a bit less exceptional.What I liked about the film was the overall quality of the picture. It was well written, acted and just screams quality. Plus, compared to many other biopics of the era, this one is a little more accurate--as the facts of the story are essentially true (though rearranged and interpreted for dramatic effect). Still, I find it hard to believe it won the Oscar for Best Picture--though I must concede that Paul Muni was exceptional. If I could have picked, I would have given the nod to either "Lost Horizon" or "A Star is Born".