This film warned of the terrors of anti-Semitism – who would dare make it now?

Long before the invasion of Europe, the British public were well aware of the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis: Anthony Eden had made a solemn statement to the House of Commons about it in December 1942, to the shock and distress of those present.

But while British cinema had alluded to the persecution, it did not deal with it directly until 1944’s Mr Emmanuel, directed by Harold French, and based on a 1938 novel by Louis Golding, written before the genocide had begun to be enacted but long after the Nuremberg Laws had sought to make the lives of Jews in Germany unbearable. The action of the film takes place pre-war, but it is made with the benefit (if it can be called that) of six years of hindsight, in the full knowledge of how the gruesome story had unfolded.

Isaac Emmanuel, played by Felix Aylmer, is an elderly Jewish man who in the late 19th century escaped from the pogroms of Tsarist Russia and settled in England, where he became a pillar of society; a conscientious worker for, and selfless member of, his community, displaying values the average Nazi would not have understood in a million years. As war approaches he has retired, and is assisting an organisation which is helping to rescue and settle Jewish children from Germany.

One boy in the group catches his attention. His father has been murdered by the Gestapo and his mother has stopped writing to him, and he fears she has fallen victim to them too. Mr Emmanuel decides to go to Germany to see whether he can find her. Even if he is unable to comprehend the recklessness of his intentions, his friends both within and without the Jewish community are not, and they seek to dissuade him: but he insists on travelling, and (though I do not wish to spoil the film, so I shall spare precise details) is lucky to escape with his life. This is 1938, and the extermination camps are a thing of the future; but he witnesses degradation, fear, random violence and death nonetheless. 

Mr Emmanuel is a statement to Britain’s Jewish community that others recognised their suffering, and how in the fight against the common enemy the British nation was united in its condemnation of that suffering. Aylmer’s performance is perfectly judged, Greta Gynt – an actress normally associated with less profound subjects – shows a surprising depth as the singer Elsie Silver, and the horrors depicted never lapse into caricature.

What is remarkable is that this film has to all intents and purposes disappeared. I have never seen it on television in about half a century of soaking up British films of this period, and it is not on DVD. However a good citizen has uploaded it to YouTube, where it is shown in full (as are several other undeservedly obscure films of the same era). The reasons for its obscurity can only be speculated upon, and I fear may be political. We appear to be at a point in our history when some find it undesirable to draw attention to the suffering of the Jews. This film demands respect for artistic reasons, never mind the politics.