World War Ii

St. James Encyclopedia of Pop Culture by Justin Gustainis

Despite the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, most historians date the start of the Second World War as September 1, 1939, the day that German forces attacked Poland. Although Polish resistance was quickly overcome, treaty obligations brought Britain and France into the fray, and the war for Europe began in earnest.

Strong isolationist sentiments among much of its populace kept the United States out of the conflict until the Japanese bombed American naval forces anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The surprise attack, which inflicted devastating losses on the U.S. fleet, occurred on December 7, 1941. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt asked for, and received, a Senate declaration of war on Japan. Two days later, Germany and Italy, which were bound to Japan in a mutual-defense treaty, declared war on the United States. The fighting continued until August, 1945, when Japan (the last Axis belligerent left) surrendered, following the destruction of two Japanese cities by American atomic bombs.

The war affected every aspect of American life, including popular culture in all its forms. Some of this influence was the result of deliberate government propaganda, but much of it was simply the nation's response to the exigencies of life in wartime.

American moviegoers during the war were frequently exposed to a triple dose of war-related messages. First, a newsreel would showcase stories of recent developments in the theatres of combat, along with a healthy dose of pleasant feature stories unrelated to the conflict. An average newsreel ran about ten minutes, and was changed twice each week. Although the typical moviegoer might not know it, wartime newsreels were subject to indirect government censorship (since all film footage from overseas passed first through the government's hands), as well as "guidance" as to content from the Office of War Information, the government's propaganda bureau.

The newsreel was usually followed by one or more animated cartoons. Although many of the wartime versions were as innocuous as ever, quite a few leavened their laughs with propaganda. Bugs Bunny joined the war effort, poking fun at the Nazis in Confessions of a Nutsy Spy. Bugs' cartoon colleague at Warner Brothers, Daffy Duck, also mocked the Third Reich in Daffy the Commando. Superman, America's favorite comic book hero, took to the screen to thwart evil Japanese agents in The Japateurs, while another cartoon, Tokyo Jokie-o, made sport of the Japanese war effort by using blatantly racist stereotypes.

Then came the feature film. It might be a documentary, perhaps one of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series (1942-45). Capra, already famous as a director, had been drafted out of Hollywood, put in a major's uniform, and given the task of making films for new military recruits that would motivate them to fight in a war that many understood dimly, if at all. Relying mostly on seized Axis propaganda footage, Capra put together seven inspirational films covering different aspects of the global conflict. After a screening of the first, Prelude to War, President Roosevelt declared, "Every man, woman and child in America must see this film!" All seven were eventually shown in theatres, as well as in the boot camps for which they had originally been intended.

Other notable Hollywood directors also made documentary films in support of the war effort. William Wyler directed Memphis Belle, (1943) the saga of the last combat mission flown by an American bomber crew over Europe; John Huston helmed The Battle of San Pietro (1945), focusing on the bloody assault by American troops to capture an Italian town from the Germans; and John Ford lent his talents to The Battle of Midway (1942), which chronicled the first major American naval victory over the Japanese.

But most films playing in neighborhood theatres during the war told fictional stories, although about one-third of these dealt with the war in one way or another. There were combat films, often based on actual battles fought earlier in the war. The first of these was Wake Island (1942), and it would be followed by many others, including Flying Tigers (1942), Bataan (1943), Destination Tokyo (1943), Gung Ho! (1943), Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944), and Objective Burma! (1945).

Other films offered intrigue, focusing on the shadowy war of spies, assassins, and double agents. These included Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), Nazi Agent (1942), Saboteur (1942), and They Came to Blow Up America (1943). Still other productions glorified the heroic struggle of the citizens of occupied countries who fought against their Axis oppressors; Hangmen Also Die (1943), Till We Meet Again (1944), and The Seventh Cross (1944) are representative of the genre.

But fully two-thirds of Hollywood films released during the war never mentioned the conflict at all. If such films had a subtext, it was that America was a place worth fighting for--a message conveyed subtly in such sentimental films as Going My Way (1943), Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Since You Went Away (1942), and An American Romance (1943).