It is not strange at all that one of the first American movies to deal with the topic of the Nazification of Europe was directed by Frank Borzage. Also, it is one of the best anti-Nazi films produced before Pearl Harbor and is a moment of major importance in Borzage’s filmography.

“With the devastating directness of a Stukas diver, The Mortal Storm is a film bomb which is about to explode in American theatres with such force as to dispel public equanimity if, in fact, any exists) towards the vicious operation of Nazism and its fanatical proponents. […] It is not the first of the anti-Nazi pictures, but it is the most effective film to expose to date the totalitarian idea, a slugging indictment of the political and social theories advanced by Hitler. […] Borzage wins chief commendations. He has turned out a film that demands universal screening in American theatres. There will be squawks. Then, again, there will be eyes opened which heretofore have looked listlessly upon what happened there, believing it could never happen here”. (Variety, June 12, 1940)