The Brothers Warner (TV Movie 2007) - Steven J. Ross as Self - history professor, University of Southern California

Self - history professor, University of Southern California : "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" was definitely a milestone in American cinema. It's the first American movie that is an explicitly anti-Nazi film. They were writing it in 1938, shooting it in the beginning of 1939, and it premiered in April 1939. Until the the Production Code Administration had consistently turned down every project that had to do with Nazis. They would not let the studios make anything attacking Hitler.
Self - history professor, University of Southern California : What happened in February 1938, the FBI uncovered a Nazi spy ring operating in the United States. And they brought them to trial in early October in New York. And the Warner Brothers realized that this was their opportunity to come in and make their anti-Nazi film. Because, now they would making a film about a real case. It was an FBI story. They flew out one of their writers to watch the trial in New York. They then signed up Leon Turrou who had been the FBI agent who broke the case. And Turrou flew out to Los Angeles as a consultant, were he wrote in a number of articles how impressed he was by the Warner Brothers and by the real dedication of the studio and everyone involved with the production to make an anti-Nazi film.

Steven J. Ross: Self - history professor, University of Southern California