The Mortal Storm is a drama film from MGM starring Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart, and directed by Frank Borzage. The Mortal Storm was one of the few directly anti-Nazi Hollywood films released before the American entry into World War II in December 1941. The film stars James Stewart as a German who refuses to join the rest of his small Bavarian town in supporting Nazism. He falls in love with Freya Roth , the daughter of a Junker mother and a "non-Aryan" father. The Mortal Storm was the last movie Sullavan and Stewart ever did together. Freya and her father are implied to be Jews but... the word "Jew" is never used, and they are only identified as "non-Aryans"; in addition, Freya's half brothers are all members of the Nazi Party. Though it is understood that the film is set in Germany, the name of the country is rarely mentioned except at the very beginning in a short text of introduction. MGM purposely did not mention the name of the country or the religion of Freya's family because of the large German market for its films, but it was to no avail—the movie infuriated the Nazi government and it led to all MGM films being banned in Germany.
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| Release date: | 1940 |
| Directed by: | Frank Borzage |
| Runtime: | 100 Minutes |
| Producer: | Victor Saville, Frank Borzage |
| Music by: | Bronisław Kaper |
| Cinematography: | William H. Daniels |