Cinema: Images of War

The City That Stopped Hitler—Heroic Stalingrad (Central Newsreel Studios-Paramount), first Soviet film to be distributed by a major U.S. company, has been called the "mightiest war film ever" (by Manhattan's PM). It has also been called "objectionable in part" (by the Legion of Decency). Reason: the picture "tends to incite hatred of the persons of enemies and to be excessively gruesome." Stalingrad is not by a long shot the mightiest war film ever—Desert Victory (TIME, April 12), for one, was better. Neither can the Legion's objections be entirely brushed off. Nevertheless, the...