Is it a heartfelt salute to an awkward, decent monarch who led his country into war, or an airbrushed portrait of a scheming antisemite? The King's Speech may be the film to beat at the Baftas but, across the water, its Oscar campaign has been targeted by swirling rumours of an Academy boycott.

Hollywood blogger Scott Feinberg cites an anonymous email, purportedly from an Oscar voter, which claims the picture ignores George VI's role in preventing Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. "I'm an Academy member and there are a LOT of us who won't vote for The King's Speech for this reason," the email says.

While Feinberg speculates that the missive may be part of "an orchestrated smear campaign", the charge has some historical basis. Critics claim that George VI indirectly conspired with Hitler to prevent European Jews reaching Palestine, which was then under British mandate. In 1939, the king is reported to have instructed foreign secretary Lord Halifax to "encourage the German government to check the unauthorised emigration of Jews". His remarks were later passed on to the British ambassador in Berlin.

Supporters of The King's Speech might counter that the film was scripted by David Seidler, a Jewish writer whose grandparents died in the Holocaust. They might also point out that, in terms of Nazi sympathies, George VI had nothing on his predecessor. Edward VIII visited Hitler in Berlin and regarded German fascism as a crucial bulwark against the evils of communism.