Danny Kaye - Secret life of Walter Mitty, The Court Jester, Hans Christian Anderson

The film opens on a shot of a ramshackle building, where a sign is posted on the door; Rockwell Hall. A flag emblazoned with a swastika waves in the wind as the camera pulls back to reveal a rundown part of Chicago, with graffiti and litter around the doorway.

Inside neo Nazis are discussing a planned demonstration march in Chicago. In order to get a permit for the public march and display, including uniforms and swastikas, they decide to apply for a permit to march in a small town outside Chicago, called Skokie. It is 1976. Skokie has a population of approximately 40% Jewish residents, most of whom are survivors of concentration camps, the Holocaust and Nazi Germany.

In Skokie the village attorney, sheriff and mayor discuss the letter of application they have received from the Nazi's. Naturally, they are concerned and outraged that their town was chosen for this political statement, especially as a large portion of the population would consider this move a threat to their lives. The village attorney is also Jewish, so for him it's also a personal insult. The three discuss methods of fighting and stopping the march, using the Bill of Rights, and discuss the impact the news will have on the general population.

Max Feldman (Danny Kaye) is one of the survivors of the Holocaust who made Skokie his new home. Normally a quiet man, when he hears of the news and of a town meeting to discuss it he wishes to go to see what is happening. His wife, Bertha, doesn't want a part of it, and asks Max not to attend, when their only child, daughter Janet, comes home from school. Janet hasn't been told much about her parents past, and they immediately stop discussing it when she walks in.

She asks her father to take her to her friends house that evening, but he's already got plans to attend the meeting. His intention is to sit and listen and not say a word, but this doesn't soothe Bertha who is quite upset at any discussion of Nazis. His daughter is quite puzzled by this discussion and asks her father to tell her what is going on for once, and not to continually hold things back or protect her. She's 16, and thinks she should know the truth. So Max sits her down and explains about the march and what it represents to himself and fellow survivors.

At the synagogue, where the meeting is held, there is a large turnout to hear the speakers analyse various Nazi groups and behaviours. One speaker, Mr Rosen, advises Quarantine. Essentially, ignore what happens, turn the other cheek, pull down the blinds, don't react to their marching in any way or turn out to protest. Rosen is from Chicago's branch of the Anti Defamation League. He finishes and Albert Smith gets up to speak when Max stands. He's been watching and listening silently like everyone, but cannot hold his tongue any longer. He wants to ask Mr Rosen a question, Rabbi Stenburg, who is a young man, asks Max to leave questions til the end after everyone has made their speech, but Rosen permits it.

Max tells them he has heard this speech before, in Nazi Germany. 'Don't look, don't worry, just stay home and don't think about it.' But look what happened? Look how many people lost their lives? He shows them the tattoo he received as a boy in a concentration camp, an ID number on his wrist - do they understand what the Nazis did? The National Jewish Organisation in the late 30's told the Jews not to worry about it before, now it's happening all over again! Rosen tries to explain his tactics and reasoning but now the audience has had enough and shout him down - they understand Max and they too remember what happened to themselves, and relatives they lost to lime pits, slave labour and gas chambers. Max tells them this time he doesn't want Quarantine, he is prepared to fight to the death for his home, his family and his live, and will not back down.

The rest of the audience are in agreement, and scoff at the young Rabbi trying to tell them he understands their feelings. He wasn't even born during the time of the war, what would he know, they say. The Rabbi pleads with them to use the Law as defence to keep them out legally, but they don't listen. Max shouts at the speakers on the stage 'If you don't want violence, keep the Nazis out!' As the mayor and Rabbi and other speakers try to reason with the crowd, Max swears he'll fight on the lime pit grave of his mother.

During all this his daughter had stayed the night at her friends, who had held a small party. They are going up to bed when her friend's grandmother calls the girls in to wish them good night and remind them to clean up the beer cans before her parents discover them in the morning. Her friend tells Janet what a cool grandmother she has, as they lie in bed, and Janet is overcome with emotions and a sense of loss for relatives she never knew or met and knows nothing about.

The Jewish Defence League are coming, as well as many other extremist groups, in order to weigh in on the argument and legal proceedings to stop the march. Max has been attending every meeting, taking the hard line and is worried that the Nazis will win the legal fights and be allowed to march. His wife is worried that he is involved, more so when he tells her that he understands the Nazis better than the Anti Defamation League. Janet comes in, she wants to talk about what happened to her grandparents, how they died. Bertha flees in tears to the bedroom as Max sits Janet down to tell her, quite calmly, the horrors his mother faced in the camp. He lost his aunt and sister in there too, and Janet is stunned to hear all this. [it's a terribly moving scene as Max describes himself as a child, witnessing the camp Commandant flicking a whip left and right to either prescribe death or life to a camp prisoner, and the moment his mother is sent to the gas chamber for being too weak to work]

In the morning there is a protest in town, Jews, Christians, all together singing Hava Nagila and praying that the march is stopped. The town mayor, sheriff, attorney and rabbi discuss how to split the city into pieces to try keep the groups apart during the march to avoid potential conflict and confrontation.

Collin, the leader of this Nazi group who started it all, goes to the American Civil Liberties Union for help, and gets himself a Jewish lawyer there, Lewisohn, who sees nothing wrong with defending Collin as he sees it as a Constitutional matter as opposed to racism and anti Semitism. Skokie try to bar the Nazis from marching in uniform and displaying swastikas, and Lewisohn sees this as a great legal challenge.

They go to court to fight over this order. Max is there as are many people from Skokie, but not Janet or Bertha. The ACLU uses the Constitution to argue its side, while Skokie puts survivors on the stand to tell their experiences and argue that the potential damage caused by seeing people in uniform marching through their town could potentially cause violence and emotional distress to its residents.

Francis Joseph Collin takes the stand. From what you've seen of him so far, his main concern is to garner publicity and getting his face into any camera he sees. He's in court in Nazi uniform, and sits there with a smirk on his pudgy face. The village attorney treats him as hostile, and reads him a section from some Nazi propaganda describing how Hitler didn't finish his job and all sorts of horrendous ideologies in regards to using violence, then asks Collin if he believes in these views, which he does. Collin explains the march will be no longer than 20 minutes long and involve no more than 25 people, with no violence intended. As his lawyer points out, the only ones mentioning violence are the survivors, not Mr Collin.

The ACLU tell the media that they will appeal, and return to their offices to discover that ACLU members are not impressed with the side they have chosen to take in this battle. Long standing members all over the country are handing in their memberships and stopping donations. One Jewish member comes in with a letter of resignation, and tells Lewisohn that he's disgusted in him representing and defending a Nazi. Lewisohn tries to convince him to not resign, but Mr Weisman cannot be swayed.

At the Feldmans, Bertha copes by hiding in bed most days listening to music, pretending the world is not going on outside her door. Max finds out the Nazis lost their appeal and thinks they'll go to the Supreme Court but not be able to fight this in time to march on the date that they had set. Collin is on the news, berating the decision, and Max is disgusted to see him preening himself for the cameras, as always, in uniform. Collin announces that they will march on not on May 1st as was originally planned, but on April 30th - the court papers do not say they cannot, only that they cannot on May 1st. And April 30th is tomorrow.

The Nazis set off in the morning, media in tow, driving down the highway to Skokie from Chicago. Collin poses for the photos, and tells the driver to keep up with the media car in order to maximise his exposure. In town, protesters are out in force. They're pushing, shouting, singing, praying, chanting, waving placards and waiting for the Nazis to arrive. The town attorney searches desperately for the judge who made the original ruling, to get him to stop the Nazis.

At the Skokie turn off on the highway, the police have blocked the road. Collin pulls up and struts self importantly up to the Sheriff, bragging that they cannot stop him. The sheriff (Brian Dennehy) pulls out the court order stopping them from marching May 1st and informs Collin that the judge has amended it to apply to April 30th and beyond until further notice. There will be no march today, Collin and his motley band of racists turn tail and head back to the city. The protesters, Max included, sing for joy at the news.

The ACLU want to take the matter to the Supreme Court. In lower levels of the Court, the town attorney argued successfully 'prior restraint', that is, people of Skokie may be forced into acts of violence or defence if the march is allowed, so therefore to prevent anything possibly happening, stop the march. However the higher a Court you go, the less likely that argument would win, as no one knows what will happen in the future so therefore cannot predict it. The town attorney draws up a list of things to fight, like displaying banners or swastikas, with the intent to tie the Nazis up in court so long they give up. Meanwhile the ACLU analyse the court order. Some members are concerned at the cost of defending Collin, as that allows less money to defend other cases. As they debate this their offices are overrun by protesters who want the ACLU to stop defending Collin.

There is a public forum at Temple, complete with Lewisohn and other ACLU lawyers. Bertha doesn't want Max to go, she tells him nothing will stop the Nazis from coming, and fears losing her family to the camps, and that the new Nazis will come to kill her, Max and Janet, so she wants to flee. Max tells her this time they are not going to run and hide, this time they stand up for themselves and their rights. He thinks she's behaving like she's in a camp already, lying down constantly, eyes closed and not moving. He and Janet are worried, she's given up hope.

At Temple there are arguments amongst the people, and the audience are shouting down Lewisohn every time he tries to speak. He tries to explain that it's the laws he is there to defend, not Nazis. Mr Neier, from the New York ACLU office is there, and they bring up the Bill of Rights and what the ACLU is trying to do. Max cannot understand how these two Jewish men can defend the Nazis no matter what reasons and excuses the lawyers try to use. The audience again retaliates against anyone defending the Nazis and continually shouts them down.

At the appellate court they have upheld the ban on swastika displays during a march but allowed the Nazis to march in uniform. Collin brags he will march in Skokie in full uniform as well as swastikas.

Meanwhile Janet is getting sick of Max spending all his time at meetings and court, pursuing the whole matter. He tunes into the news hoping for news and she's even more angered that he isn't paying her and her life more attention. She screams at him that he enjoys the publicity and it descends into a shouting match with Max even raising his hand as if to slap her at one stage, but realising what he was doing and stopping. Janet thinks she's too shielded and protected all her life, and Max realises this. Her mother hid via music, he tells her, while he hid from his past and pain in his work, long, long hours. Janet and Max finally understand each others pain.

Lewisohn is beginning to doubt himself and question why he is doing this in the face of so much adversity. Everyone is bringing cases again Collin to stop him. At a NAACP dinner fellow Jews ignore and avoid Lewisohn.

Collins announces that the Nazis will march April 20th, 1977 (it's been going on this long already, it's now April.) April 20th is also Adolph Hitlers birthday. The Mayor is holding a press conference to say that the whole town got together before irregardless of religion to protest it and they will do so again when the town attorney motions for him to step away. The attorney had just received a phone call - Collin has cancelled. Collin finally got his permission to march in Chicago, and now doesn't need Skokie.

The people are pleased yet surprised. This took 18 months of their lives to fight, and Collin had never intended to march in Skokie, but only use the whole situation to give himself a year and a half of free publicity. When the Nazis finally did march in Chicago, only 12 people turned out. Collin is happy, he beat the Jews.

Janet feels different, but still not completely understanding, and yet feels the weight of expectation from her parents generation that she take on their battle and not allow people to forget the Holocaust so that it never happens again.

Skokie is an extraordinarily emotive film, I'm surprised it's not shown on television, especially with films like 'Schindler's List' in recent times. It's Danny's final role, and he is amazing in it, as is the great cast assembled for it. The story itself is quite engrossing, especially when you remember that this actually happened. See the movie for yourself, it will remain in your mind.