American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally Parent Guide

At the end of World War II, Allied powers set to work finding, arresting, and trying Nazi conspirators and collaborators for their crimes. Although the Nuremburg Trials attracted a (well deserved) lion’s share of public attention, they certainly did not bring every Nazi to justice. One such collaborator, Mildred Gillars (Meadow Williams), was better known as “Axis Sally”, an American radio personality who appeared in German State Radio broadcasts intended to weaken the morale of U.S. troops.

Back in the United States in 1949, the truth about her participation in the Nazi regime is going to be determined in trial. Prosecutors want the death penalty, and the only men standing between her and a long drop from a short rope are her lawyers, James Laughlin (Al Pacino) and Billy Owen (Swen Temmel). But with public opinion determinedly against her, the advocates face an uphill battle to keep her alive.

I had high hopes for this movie, which was, as usual, a fatal error on my part. I assumed that a historical courtroom drama with Al Pacino would inevitably be entertaining. I was wrong. There are a handful of significant problems here, and the largest is with the history. This film keeps coming back to scenes of sexual violence against Gillars, both by her stepfather and by Nazi propaganda director Joseph Goebbels. Now, while this would be tragic if true (and unsurprising in the case of a brutal Nazi like Goebbels), I can find no such allegations by Gillars herself or in the historical record. So audiences are left wondering – was Gillars a victim of sexual assault or do these episodes simply emerge from the fervid imagination of a screenwriter? Apart from leading to two extremely unpleasant scenes, all raising this issue does is muddy the historical waters.

On a more cinematic level, it also confuses the story. There’s plenty of moral ambiguity in the history without creating new events. The ethics of defending Nazi collaborators, the morality of the death penalty, and the non-violent role Gillars played are all fascinating areas from which the movie repeatedly wanders off to speculate about the sexual history of the accused. It makes the film feel unfocused and disingenuous.

I wish the filmmakers had thought to either back up their claims or stick to the record more closely, because the cast is solid, and the story should be interesting – but it isn’t. Instead, we have a confused, historically dubious, and meandering mess. But at the end of the day, even if Axis Sally were simply a persona of convenience, I think Gillars still has a lot to answer for. To quote Kurt Vonnegut: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”