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- Within days of Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Roosevelt commissioned Hollywood to "emotionalize" the conflict and to mobilize public awareness and support by continuing to do what it did best—making and selling motion pictures, primarily feature films.
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Several months after the U.S. entry into World War II, an inexperienced U.S. Navy commander must lead an Allied convoy being stalked by a German submarine wolf pack.
- Overview
- Decline of the Hollywood studios
- The fear of communism
During the U.S. involvement in World War II, the Hollywood film industry cooperated closely with the government to support its war-aims information campaign. Following the declaration of war on Japan, the government created a Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs to coordinate the production of entertainment features with patriotic, morale-boosting themes and messages about the “American way of life,” the nature of the enemy and the allies, civilian responsibility on the home front, and the fighting forces themselves. Initially unsophisticated vehicles for xenophobia and jingoism with titles such as The Devil with Hitler and Blondie for Victory (both 1942), Hollywood’s wartime films became increasingly serious as the war dragged on (Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die, Jean Renoir’s This Land Is Mine, Tay Garnett’s Bataan, all 1943; Delmer Daves’s Destination Tokyo, Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Lewis Milestone’s The Purple Heart, all 1944; Milestone’s A Walk in the Sun, 1946). In addition to commercial features, several Hollywood directors produced documentaries for government and military agencies. Among the best-known of these films, which were designed to explain the war to both servicemen and civilians, are Frank Capra’s seven-part series Why We Fight (1942–44), John Ford’s The Battle of Midway (1942), William Wyler’s The Memphis Belle (1944), and John Huston’s The Battle of San Pietro (1944). The last three were shot on location and were made especially effective by their immediacy.
(Read Alfred Hitchcock’s 1965 Britannica essay on film production.)
When World War II ended, the American film industry seemed to be in an ideal position. Full-scale mobilization had ended the Depression domestically, and victory had opened vast, unchallenged markets in the war-torn economies of western Europe and Japan. Furthermore, from 1942 through 1945, Hollywood had experienced the most stable and lucrative three years in its history, and in 1946, when two-thirds of the American population went to the movies at least once a week, the studios earned record-breaking profits. The euphoria ended quickly, however, as inflation and labour unrest boosted domestic production costs and as important foreign markets, including Britain and Italy, were temporarily lost to protectionist quotas. The industry was more severely weakened in 1948, when a federal antitrust suit against the five major and three minor studios ended in the “Paramount decrees,” which forced the studios to divest themselves of their theatre chains and mandated competition in the exhibition sector for the first time in 30 years. Finally, the advent of network television broadcasting in the 1940s provided Hollywood with its first real competition for American leisure time by offering consumers “movies in the home.”
The American film industry’s various problems and the nation’s general postwar disillusionment generated several new film types in the late 1940s. Although the studios continued to produce traditional genre films, such as westerns and musicals, their financial difficulties encouraged them to make realistic small-scale dramas rather than fantastic lavish epics. Instead of depending on spectacle and special effects to create excitement, the new lower-budget films tried to develop thought-provoking or perverse stories reflecting the psychological and social problems besetting returning war veterans and others adapting to postwar life. Some of the American cinema’s grimmest and most naturalistic films were produced during this period, including those of the so-called social consciousness cycle, which attempted to deal realistically with such endemic problems as racism (Elia Kazan’s Gentleman’s Agreement, 1947; Alfred Werker’s Lost Boundaries, 1949), alcoholism (Stuart Heisler’s Smash-Up, 1947), and mental illness (Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit, 1948); the semidocumentary melodrama, which reconstructed true criminal cases and was often shot on location (Kazan’s Boomerang, 1947; Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death, 1947); and the film noir, whose dark, fatalistic interpretations of contemporary American reality are unique in the industry’s history (Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946; Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai, 1947; Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, 1947; Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil, 1948).
During the U.S. involvement in World War II, the Hollywood film industry cooperated closely with the government to support its war-aims information campaign. Following the declaration of war on Japan, the government created a Bureau of Motion Picture Affairs to coordinate the production of entertainment features with patriotic, morale-boosting themes and messages about the “American way of life,” the nature of the enemy and the allies, civilian responsibility on the home front, and the fighting forces themselves. Initially unsophisticated vehicles for xenophobia and jingoism with titles such as The Devil with Hitler and Blondie for Victory (both 1942), Hollywood’s wartime films became increasingly serious as the war dragged on (Fritz Lang’s Hangmen Also Die, Jean Renoir’s This Land Is Mine, Tay Garnett’s Bataan, all 1943; Delmer Daves’s Destination Tokyo, Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Lewis Milestone’s The Purple Heart, all 1944; Milestone’s A Walk in the Sun, 1946). In addition to commercial features, several Hollywood directors produced documentaries for government and military agencies. Among the best-known of these films, which were designed to explain the war to both servicemen and civilians, are Frank Capra’s seven-part series Why We Fight (1942–44), John Ford’s The Battle of Midway (1942), William Wyler’s The Memphis Belle (1944), and John Huston’s The Battle of San Pietro (1944). The last three were shot on location and were made especially effective by their immediacy.
(Read Alfred Hitchcock’s 1965 Britannica essay on film production.)
When World War II ended, the American film industry seemed to be in an ideal position. Full-scale mobilization had ended the Depression domestically, and victory had opened vast, unchallenged markets in the war-torn economies of western Europe and Japan. Furthermore, from 1942 through 1945, Hollywood had experienced the most stable and lucrative three years in its history, and in 1946, when two-thirds of the American population went to the movies at least once a week, the studios earned record-breaking profits. The euphoria ended quickly, however, as inflation and labour unrest boosted domestic production costs and as important foreign markets, including Britain and Italy, were temporarily lost to protectionist quotas. The industry was more severely weakened in 1948, when a federal antitrust suit against the five major and three minor studios ended in the “Paramount decrees,” which forced the studios to divest themselves of their theatre chains and mandated competition in the exhibition sector for the first time in 30 years. Finally, the advent of network television broadcasting in the 1940s provided Hollywood with its first real competition for American leisure time by offering consumers “movies in the home.”
The American film industry’s various problems and the nation’s general postwar disillusionment generated several new film types in the late 1940s. Although the studios continued to produce traditional genre films, such as westerns and musicals, their financial difficulties encouraged them to make realistic small-scale dramas rather than fantastic lavish epics. Instead of depending on spectacle and special effects to create excitement, the new lower-budget films tried to develop thought-provoking or perverse stories reflecting the psychological and social problems besetting returning war veterans and others adapting to postwar life. Some of the American cinema’s grimmest and most naturalistic films were produced during this period, including those of the so-called social consciousness cycle, which attempted to deal realistically with such endemic problems as racism (Elia Kazan’s Gentleman’s Agreement, 1947; Alfred Werker’s Lost Boundaries, 1949), alcoholism (Stuart Heisler’s Smash-Up, 1947), and mental illness (Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit, 1948); the semidocumentary melodrama, which reconstructed true criminal cases and was often shot on location (Kazan’s Boomerang, 1947; Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death, 1947); and the film noir, whose dark, fatalistic interpretations of contemporary American reality are unique in the industry’s history (Tay Garnett’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946; Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai, 1947; Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, 1947; Abraham Polonsky’s Force of Evil, 1948).
Film content was next influenced strongly by the fear of communism that pervaded the United States during the late 1940s and early ’50s. Anticommunist “witch-hunts” began in Hollywood in 1947 when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) decided to investigate communist influence in movies. More than 100 witnesses, including many of Hollyw...
After Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s formal entry into World War II, isolationist sentiments in the United States were swept away and millions of men and women of all backgrounds rushed to recruiting centers to volunteer for military duty.
- Saving Private Ryan (France) For a movie that feels like it's set all over the place, Saving Private Ryan actually takes place in a condensed area. Capt.
- The Great Escape (Poland) One of the great World War II movies of all time, The Great Escape mostly takes place in a prisoner-of-war camp in German-occupied Poland.
- The Thin Red Line (Guadalcanal) Terence Malik's The Thin Red Line is a very different kind of war movie, as you'd expect from the director. The action in the movie takes place on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
- Das Boot (North Atlantic) The German film Das Boot is often hailed as one of the best World War II movies of all time. Of course, most of the movie was filmed in a very cramped and realistic-looking set of a submarine, but the titular German U-boat was patrolling the North Atlantic in the film.
1. Schindler's List. 1993 3h 15m R. 9.0 (1.5M) Rate. 95 Metascore. In German-occupied Poland during World War II, industrialist Oskar Schindler gradually becomes concerned for his Jewish workforce after witnessing their persecution by the Nazis. Director Steven Spielberg Stars Liam Neeson Ralph Fiennes Ben Kingsley. 2. Band of Brothers.
The motion picture industry, like most major industries in the United States, entered the war era with a firm commitment to increase efficiency and productivity. The unions and guilds made no-strike pledges, and for the most part these were honored from late 1941 until 1945.
The United States had entered World War II the previous December, and Lieutenant General Henry “Hap” Arnold had spent the past four months shaping his air force into one of the most formidable ...
