We'll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema During World War II (review)

Propaganda Films

On August 15, 1945 an ecstatic Harry S. Truman announced what most Americans could feel in the air: the Second World War—an unprecedented event that altered the life of every person—was officially over. Today, the chief executive proclaimed, was V-J Day, and immediately the cities bounced with joy as strangers danced in the streets, motorists honked their horns, church bells rang out, confetti fell from open windows, and, in Times Square, a jubilant sailor, wearing winter blues with his hat tilted at a rakish angle, smooched an unsuspecting nurse while, a few feet away, Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped their photo.

For the motion picture industry this unconditional surrender meant, among other things, a return to normalcy. Almost overnight the studios could shelve those wartime propaganda films they had turned out for the past four years and concentrate on new material. Now it was time for some romance with fancy clothing and stylish prancing or maybe a musical comedy with plenty of laughs. Finally there were no more two-dimensional Japanese villains wearing those coke-bottle eyeglasses, waving samurai swords, running up hills shouting "banzai," or some suede-gloved, monocle-wearing, heel-clicking Nazi extending his right arm forward exclaiming "Heil Hitler." Clearly with this global victory American audiences did not need any more screenplays extolling their nation's virtues while vilifying the Axis Pact. On that August afternoon, so long ago and faraway, Hollywood reached the end of an era. For everyone—politicians, servicemen, civilians, even directors and movie stars—the World War II propaganda photodramas, an important victory component, was over.

For Home Front families the past four years contained its share of joys and sorrows, but a trip to the movies always provided an uplifting experience. Here, they watched John Wayne blast Japanese zeroes out of the China sky or saw Randolph Scott and his Marine raiders attack a strategic Pacific island. They cheered when Tyrone Power and his submarine crew blew-up some Nazi oil depots or applauded when Spencer Tracy and his B-25 squadron lifted off a carrier's deck, heading due west to bomb Tokyo. And who could forget Errol Flynn? Didn't his flying crew hoodwink their Nazi pursuers in an elaborate escape from the Fatherland?

But what about these flag-waving motion pictures? Did they shape public opinion, create a national consensus, or solidify prejudices? How important were these propaganda titles in coalescing a strong Home Front? Who created the themes and storylines? What were the guidelines and regulations? These are some of the thorny questions that two well-known film scholars, Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry, examine in a wonderful study, We'll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema During World War II.

As these authors explain, the Second World War was such a complex subject that well over half a century later its influence still resounds in numerous formats that are now permanently ingrained into the national psyche. Initially, the chaotic wartime elements became a narrative and, after reiteration and dissemination, metamorphosed into a type of acceptance. From here, it was a short leap to a reality, and then film history, and, conversely, film history now became myth, echoing the oft-quoted Liberty Valance aphorism, "When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend."

To understand this wartime period and the films that created its culture, the two writers culled into the hundreds of titles, elaborating on both major and minor productions beginning with the precautionary titles, Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), Sergeant York (1941), and The Great Dictator (1940), right up to the post-VJ period: Pride of the Marines (1945), All My Sons (1948), and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Along the way, every aspect of the propaganda element, those subliminal forces that fostered a collective mentality, are categorized and explained. Clearly, this well-documented study explains how these 1940s' photodramas—with...