 "The Moon Is Down" (1943) was an adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel.The book was based on the Nazi invasion of neutral Norway in 1940, published in March, 1942 and subsequently translated into French and distributed in Europe as an inspiration for local resistance to Nazi occupation.In both film and novel, a small Norwegian village gradually discovers how to organize resistance to Nazi invaders; the film stars Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Henry Travers and also marked Natalie Wood’s debut as a child actress (though she was uncredited), whom Pichel had discovered, and actually gave her the screen name of Wood.