One of the nastier posthumous stains on Victor Fleming's reputation comes from a claim reported in James Curtis's Spencer Tracy biography that character actress Anne Revere once branded Fleming as "violently pro‑Nazi" and adamantly opposed American entry into World War II. The allegation did not arise in a vacuum: Revere harbored grudges after losing, as she believed, a part in MGM's ill‑fated attempts to mount The Yearling in 1941 (the role instead went to British actress Flora Robson). According to Curtis, Revere interpreted Fleming's casting decisions as anti‑American and politically hostile. That accusation was amplified by a contemporaneous anecdote that Fleming, at the outset of the war, had even taken a bet on how long Britain could hold out against a German attack — a remark that, if true, implied callousness at best and ideological sympathy at worst. Those stories circulated among cast and crew and became part of the whisper network that followed Fleming in later years.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1940s
Anne Revere's Explosive Charge That Victor Fleming Was 'Violently Pro‑Nazi' — and the Bet About Britain's Survival
Victor Fleming / 1940s
One of the nastier posthumous stains on Victor Fleming's reputation comes from a claim reported in James Curtis's Spencer Tracy biography that character actress Anne Revere once branded Fleming as "violently pro‑Nazi" and adamantly opposed American entry into World War II. The allegation did not arise in a vacuum: Revere harbored grudges after losing, as she believed, a part in MGM's ill‑fated attempts to mount The Yearling in 1941 (the role instead went to British actress Flora Robson). According to Curtis, Revere interpreted Fleming's casting decisions as anti‑American and politically hostile. That accusation was amplified by a contemporaneous anecdote that Fleming, at the outset of the war, had even taken a bet on how long Britain could hold out against a German attack — a remark that, if true, implied callousness at best and ideological sympathy at worst. Those stories circulated among cast and crew and became part of the whisper network that followed Fleming in later years.
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