View a timeline of key American film history dates during World War II.

Feature films in the years before WWII
Popular sentiment favoring the allies was reflected in, and partially motivated by, many films. As early as the mid-1930s, there were vaguely menacing Germanic characters who populated Hollywood films, and by 1939-40, a number of stories featured Nazis as oppressors, spies or heartless thugs. Although some films were protested by the Los Angeles-based German consul general, who threatened to ban specific films--or all films from offending studios--from being distributed in Germany, his efforts did little to stop the flow of such films in the US and other countries.

One of the most controversial anti-Nazi films was Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939). Inspired by an actual espionage case that resulted in a 1938 New York trial, Confessions of a Nazi Spy unfolds in a documentary-like fashion. US-based Nazis, played by actors George Saunders, Francis Lederer and Paul Lukas, are operatives in an international spy ring. Thanks to the tenacity of FBI agent Edward Renard (Edward G. Robinson), many of the agents are caught, confess and eventually implicate the German government.

Two 1940 films that were particularly scathing in their indictment of Nazism in Europe were Fours Sons and The Mortal Storm. In Four Sons, which centers on Czech brothers divided between pro and anti-Nazi feelings when the Germans take over Czechoslovakia, the film's message is clearly delivered by one of the anti-Nazi characters: "barbed wire cannot hold the spirit of man." A similar situation transpires in The Mortal Storm, in which the family of an anti-Nazi intellectual is torn apart by conflicting sympathies.

According to a New York Times article published on May 18, 1941 there were so many anti-Nazi films released in 1939 and 1940 that the public was becoming bored by the topic. One film that suffered from public malaise, and was typical of most of the anti-Nazi films of the period, was Twentieth Century-Fox's The Man I Married (1940). Originally titled I Married a Nazi, the film centers on American Carol Hoffman (Joan Bennett) whose German-born husband Eric (Francis Lederer) has long lived in the US. The couple and their young son Ricky travel to Germany in 1938 to help Eric's aging father run the family business. Although seemingly a good man, once in Germany, Eric becomes a dedicated Nazi. Carol is repelled by the Nazi regime and wants to return home, but Eric will not leave and insists that Ricky stay with him. Carol and Ricky eventually escape Germany with the help of an American reporter (Lloyd Nolan) and the intersession of Eric's anti-Nazi father (Otto Krueger), who reveals that Eric's mother was Jewish and that he will now suffer the fate that he had planned for others.

War films before American involvement
In addition to stories that depicted the evil Nazi, a number of films centered on Americans who volunteered to enter either the British or Canadian forces. A Yank in the R.A.F., a musical romance released in October 1941, starring Betty Grable and Tyrone Power, featured Power as a cocky American flier who joins the Royal Air Force (R.A.F.) to impress his girl, but eventually learns from his British squadron mates and becomes a true hero. Captains of the Clouds, though released in early 1942, was actually completed prior to Pearl Harbor and had similarities to A Yank in the R.A.F., only this time the brash pilot (James Cagney) joined the Royal Canadian Air Force.

There were several popular films set in England that portrayed the British and French in a heroic fashion. The most successful of these films was William Wyler's Mrs. Miniver. Production began a month before Pearl Harbor and was completed in early 1942. When the film was released in the summer of 1942, it became a huge hit, won six Academy Awards and was lavishly praised by Prime Minister Winston Churchill for its positive message about Britain.

The story begins in late summer 1939 and centers on the happy Miniver family, who live in a large house on the Thames and enjoy much of what life has to offer. Their pleasant life is interrupted by the declaration of war. At first the disruption of their lives is inconsequential, with Paula Miniver (Greer Garson) and her husband Clem (Walter Pidgeon) making minor adjustments to the war. Soon, though, nightly bombings become more frightening and life throughout their village changes. Their elder son enters the R.A.F., Clem uses his small pleasure boat to aid in the evacuation of Dunkirk, a downed German pilot is discovered by Paula in their garden and their young daughter-in-law is killed. At the end of the film, despite many deaths and extensive damage to the village church, the Minivers and their neighbors listen as the vicar movingly exclaims "This is the people's war."

The war years: Images from abroad and the home front
Once America entered the war, there was, understandably, an increase in films about combat. Major studio films such as Wake Island (1942), Bataan (1943), Action in the North Atlantic (1943), The Fighting Seabees (1944) and dozens more presented a picture of combat that, while unsettling, offered the ray of hope that victory, no matter how steep the price, would eventually be won.

	Titles of popular songs in the early 1940s that were influenced by the war
	"The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" (1941) "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else But Me" (1942) "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" (1942) "This Is the Army, Mr. Jones" (1942) "When the Lights Go On Again All Over the World" (1942) "Goodbye Mama, I'm Off to Yokohama" (1942) "I'll Be Home for Christmas" (1943) "Comin' In on a Wing and a Prayer" (1943) "Rosie the Riveter" (1943) "They're Either Too Young or Too Old" (1943) "Der Fuerher's Face" (1943) "The G. I. Jive" (1943) "Lili Marlene" (1944)

The presence of war was felt in almost all contemporaneously-set films made throughout the war--not just those with combat settings. Whether comedies, dramas or musicals, films were permeated by references to the war and its effects. Scrap metal drives, ration points, the absence of eligible men, women on the assembly line, housing shortages and over-crowded trains were, in varying degrees, omnipresent. So pervasive was the spectre of the war that if a contemporary story did not lend itself to these intrusions, it was usually set just before the war. For example, Billy Wilder's hard-edged classic Double Indemnity (1944) had a late 1930s setting, neatly circumventing the issue of why the main character, played by Fred MacMurray, was not in the army.

A new genre of film was born during the war years; the home front picture. Perhaps the most important home front drama was David O. Selznick's production of Since You Went Away (1944). As the film's prologue states: "This is a story of an unconquerable fortress: The American home." In the story, an upper middle class American family adapts to the war when the patriarch, who is seen only in photographs, enters the army. His wife Anne (Claudette Colbert) and two daughters Jane (Jennifer Jones) and Bridget (Shirley Temple) now must cope with great change. While "Pop" is away, the once-pampered family faces financial difficulties. So to try and bring in more money, they take in a boarder. Anne, who can no longer afford a live-in maid, soon feels that she must do her part for the war effort and gets a job at a local defense plant, where she makes friends with a Polish immigrant. By the end of the film, after the family receives word that Pop, who was thought missing in action, is on his way home, all the women have matured. Jane, who has lost her fiancé, has become a nurse, while Anne realizes that life can bring more than lunch at the country club.

There were also many home front comedies, such as The Dough Girls (1944), Rosie, The Riveter (1944), George Stevens' The More the Merrier (1943) that looked at problems civilians, usually women and "4-Fs" (unfit for military service classification) faced while the men were away. Another home front comedy, Hail the Conquering Hero, hilariously dealt with problems encountered by some 4-F men who desperately wanted to prove their worth by being in the army.

Government propaganda, education and training films
The US government was very active in film production during World War II, both for education and training films produced for the armed services, historical records and propaganda films intended for the general public. The United States Signal Corps had the largest film output, but all branches of the service had film units. One unit that gained considerable attention was the First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU). Nicknamed the Culver City Commandos because they were based at the Hal Roach Studios in Culver City, California, the unit was led by Jack Warner, head of Warner Bros. studios, and produced films by some internationally famous actors, writers and directors, including luminaries such as Alan Ladd and Ronald Reagan.

Although most of the FMPU's output consisted of short training films, the pictures were characterized by professionally written and produced scripts, along with trained and often famous, actors, plus other artists who were not in the service but conveniently lived nearby. One of their features, which has periodically been exhibited to the public over the years was Resisting Enemy Interrogation, produced in 1944. Although slightly corny for modern states, the well-made film showed just how American flyers, among them actors Lloyd Nolan and Arthur Kennedy, could be fooled into revealing information if captured.

	Thinking Points
	How does the American government currently disseminate information about wars and public policy? What about governments in other countries? How do they communicate with their citizens?

The most famous government propaganda films made during the war were helmed by noted directors John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston and Frank Capra, all of whom enlisted in the armed services. The films in Capra's Why We Fight series were released theatrically and widely acclaimed. The first of the series, Prelude to War was released in mid-1943. With extensive newsreel footage, a narration by actor Walter Huston and the talents of a top Hollywood crew, the film showed the background of, as the narration stated, "a fight between a free world and a slave world." After showing the rise of fascism, pitted against American isolationism of the 1930s, the film ends with the statement "It's us or them...One must die, one must live."

Others in the series included titles such as The Nazis Strike, The Battle of Russia, and War Comes to America, each presenting a well-crafted documentary story of the war, its background, allies, enemies and effects. Other important government sponsored documentaries included The Negro Soldier and John Huston's Report from the Aleutians, (1943) and San Pietro (The Battle of San Pietro, 1945).

Changes in Hollywood: Escapist plots and drafted stars

American Film Institute

Poster from Casablanca (1943).

Preoccupation with the war did not prevent those filmmakers who remained in Hollywood from producing purely escapist fare that had broad appeal to the general public. Technicolor, which had been utilized sparingly for feature films during the late 1930s, increased during the war, but was usually reserved for special, big budget productions, many of them lavish musicals produced by Twentieth Century-Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Hello Frisco, Hello (1943), Cover Girl (1943), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) were all Technicolor productions that became top 10 box office hits of their respective years. In addition to the big musicals, comedy was also a popular escapist genre. The team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello and long-popular radio and film comedian Bob Hope were top box office comedians of the war years, with each starring in pictures that were immeasurably silly but greatly entertaining.

The beginning of the war marked another changing of the guard among film stars. Although stalwarts like Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Bette Davis and Spencer Tracy remained popular, the new stars to emerge in the war years included Greer Garson, Van Johnson, Western stars Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers and the G.I.'s favorite "pinup" girls, Bette Grable and Rita Hayworth. Humphrey Bogart, long a member of Warner Bros.' stock company, emerged as a top echelon star after Casablanca (1943). Many actors, among them such world-famous stars as Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Robert Taylor and Clark Gable either enlisted or were drafted into the armed services. With a large number of major stars unavailable during much of the war, some actors, such as John Wayne and Van Johnson, who could not serve because they were either too old or 4-F, became major stars.

NARA [NLT-AVC-PHT-73(2175)]

Photograph of movie stars with President Truman, his family and others at the White House.

Documenting post-war America
After World War II ended in August 1945, it still remained a potent theme for motion pictures, but the emphasis changed. From 1945 through 1950, a large number of films like Pride of the Marines (1945), Till the End of Time (1946), and The Men (1950) dealt with the issue of returning G.I.s, their hopes, adjustment problems and mental and physical scars. The most significant of these films, and one of the biggest Oscar winners of all time, was William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

In a dramatic, yet not melodramatic or overly sentimentalized fashion, the film illustrated the difficulties of all returning soldiers by concentrating on three veterans from a mid-sized American town, the mythical "Boone City." The oldest (Fredric March) was a sergeant in the army, but a prosperous bank vice-president in civilian life. The youngest, Homer (Harold Russell) is a young man from an average, middle class family who must adjust to life after losing both hands during the war. The third, Fred (Dana Andrews) was a pilot, "a glory boy" during the war, but only a soda jerk from the wrong side of the tracks before the war. Though the three men and their families endure great changes in their lives, and the future remains uncertain, the film brings out a strong, hopeful message, reflecting the anticipation that America felt at the end of the war.