FAQ

University physiology professor Viktor Roth (Frank Morgan) and his family—wife Amelie (Irene Rich), daughter Freya (Margaret Sullavan), son Rudi (Gene Reynolds), and two stepsons Erich (William T. Orr) and Otto (Robert Stack)—live contentedly in a small village in the Bavarian (southern Germany) Alps. As the family, along with Freya's fiance Fritz Marberg (Robert Young) and family friend Martin Breitner (James Stewart), sit down to dinner on January 30, 1933, Victor's 60th birthday, it is announced on the radio that Adolf Hitler has just been named Chancellor of Germany. The Roths' lives will never be the same as Erich, Otto, and Fritz get caught up in the new regime.

The Mortal Storm is a 1938 novel by British writer Phyllis Bottome. The novel was adapted for the movie by screenwriters Claudine West, Hans Rameau, and George Froeschel.

The movie begins with the narrator explaining how early man was frightened by 'the dangers of the elements' and cried out, 'The gods of the lightning are angry, and I must kill my fellow man to appease them!' He goes on to describe the mortal storm in which man finds himself today, again crying, 'I must kill my fellow man!'

Although the story takes place in the Bavarian Alps, it was actually filmed in Sun Valley (Idaho), Salt Lake City (Utah), and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in California.

The word 'Jewish' is never mentioned in the movie, but most viewers infer that Viktor Roth, who is described only as 'Non-Aryan', was Jewish. Not so his wife nor his stepsons nor his own children, the rights of religion being passed through the mother.

The United States formally declared war on Japan on 8 December 1941 and followed three days later (11 December) by declaring war on Germany and Italy. At the making of this movie, the U.S. was not formally at war with Germany, nor was it at war at the time of the movie's setting (1933) or at the writing of the novel (1938).

Because the authorities won't allow Freya to leave Germany, she and Martin decide to flee to Austria via the Karwendel Pass. Before they leave, Martin's mother Hilda (Maria Ouspenskaya) sends Elsa (Bonita Granville) down to the village to stay with her aunt lest the patrols come to question them. Hilda then marries Martin and Freya and promises to have their names painted on Martin's wedding glass. In the dark of night, Martin and Freya take off on skis. Meanwhile, Fritz's unit has interrogated Elsa and learned about Martin and Freya's attempt to escape via the Karwendel Pass. Fritz is ordered to take a patrol and circle around to Laudenfens in order to catch the "fugitives" as they exit the pass before entering Austria. In the morning, after a long and grueling night on the pass, Martin and Freya emerge. They need only ski down a slope in order to enter the Austrian village below, but Martin notices the Nazi patrol heading toward them. They take off in a mad dash down the slope. Fritz orders his men to shoot them. Freya is felled on the second shot. Martin is hit in the arm, but he manages to pick up Freya and keep going, making it safely into Austria. Unfortunately, it is too late for Freya. The scene then cuts to the Roths' house where Otto and Erich are standing in front of a window, watching the snowfall, and awaiting news about Martin and Freya. Fritz enters and tells them that Martin made it to freedom but Freya was killed. Erich bemoans the fact that Martin goes "free to fight against all we stand for," and Otto replies, "Thank God for that." Erich slaps Otto's face and storms out, leaving Otto to walk through the house alone while the voices of the Roths from happier times are overplayed. The final scene shows a set of footprints in the snow leading from the house, down the steps, and out the gate, while the narrator says, I said to a man who stood at the gate, "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown," and he replied, "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light and safer than a known way."

It comes from a 1908 poem titled "God Knows" (aka "The Gate of the Year") by British academic Minnie Louise Haskins. It was a favorite poem of then-Princess Elizabeth and was read by her father, King George VI, in his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British Empire.