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Hugo Haas, The White Disease (1937) A warning against the ideological mind: Karel Čapek, The White Plague  (1937) This film from 1937 ( !!) was uncannily topical in the times of the coronavirus pandemic. Čapek was a prophet! Well, judge for yourselves: In the overall situation of populist authoritarianism rising, a pandemic spreads from China, killing people over fifty years of age... We all know what happened a couple of years later... Let us discuss... The White Plague can be construed as an openly political play in which Karel Čapek warns against the danger of impending Nazi totalitarianism. The plot is simple: people who have reached middle-age and are most likely in positions of power and influence become victims to a pandemic of an infectious disease: an incurable white plague.  In a war-mongering dictatorship very much like Nazi Germany, a heroic doctor, Dr. Galén, discovers a cure for the disease, but he refuses to  make it generally available unless the country's dictator and its military-industrial complex abandon their militarism and pledge themselves to eternal peace. This allows the author to examine  several complex ethical dilemmas. The film is based on a Karel Čapek play of the same name: https://www-dramaonlinelibrary-com.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/plays/the-white-plague-iid-135760/do-9781408190982-div-40000032