Abstract

This essay examines the production history and reception of Land of Liberty, a compilation film that tells "the entirety" of US history. This feature-length, epic documentary was produced by Will Hays and the MPPDA for the federal government's 1939 New York World's Fair exhibition. Assuming the modest role of editor, Cecil B. DeMille used excerpts from approximately 125 Hollywood fiction films to create a hybrid form that has since been forgotten and thus wrongly omitted from American documentary history.

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