We'll Always Have the Movies

American Cinema During World War II

Robert L. McLaughlin, Sally E. Parry

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780813137643
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: World War II

An "essential" study of what Americans watched during wartime, and how films shaped their understanding of events ( Publishers Weekly).

During the highly charged years of World War II, movies perhaps best communicated to Americans who they were and why they were fighting. These films were more than just an explanation of historical events: they asked audiences to consider the Nazi threat; they put a face on both our enemies and allies, and they explored changing wartime gender roles.

We'll Always Have the Movies shows how film after film repeated the narratives, character types, and rhetoric that made the war and each American's role in it comprehensible. Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry have watched more than six hundred films made between 1937 and 1946—including many never before discussed in this context—and have analyzed the cultural and historical importance of these films in explaining the war to moviegoers. This extensive study shows how filmmakers made the chaotic elements of wartime familiar, while actual events became film history, and film history became myth.

"A terrific book that explores not only the themes of hundreds of films but also their impact on patriotism and national will in a time of war." — WWII History

1
BEFORE PEARL HARBOR

The truth is, fascism isn’t as pretty as it looked.

—Alex Hazen (Robert Young) in The Searching Wind

RETROSPECTIVELY, THE UNITED STATES’ ROLE in World War II seems inevitable. In the late thirties, however, as Japanese aggression in China and Germany’s expansionist claims both grew, and after September 1939, when the war in Europe began, things in the United States weren’t so clear. American society’s feelings about the war were confused and contradictory; there was a general feeling of sympathy for the victims of fascist aggression, but at the same time, most people were determined that the United States shouldn’t become involved in these foreign wars. This determination, however, was not necessarily pacifistic, since many people supported a strong defense for the Western Hemisphere. Hollywood was similarly conflicted. The majority of the studio executives and artists were antifascist, and many of them were in favor of U.S. involvement in the war; at the same time, they were concerned about making films that were too far out of step with the opinions of the American moviegoing public, and they also had their lucrative foreign markets to consider. To understand the films made during this time, then, we have to consider them in the context of their historical moment, not from the post–Pearl Harbor perspective of the inevitability of U.S. involvement. Looking at a variety of films made between 1937 and 1941, we can see reflected the various contradictory social currents of the time, but also an unmistakable drift toward criticism of Nazi Germany and, to a lesser extent, Japan; sympathy for Great Britain after the war in Europe began; a celebration of the American military buildup; and, eventually, in some films, indirect and sometimes overt calls for American intervention.

Evidence from the time clearly shows that as China and Europe plunged deeper into war, much of the American public was firmly against U.S. involvement in a new foreign war. Even after the Nazi attack on Poland in September 1939, only 2.5 percent of those interviewed in a Roper poll “expressed a willingness to enter the war at once on the side of England, France, and Poland.” As late as June 1940, the American public “remained in great part bound by the continentalist, anti-European, and pacifist ideas which had prevailed for two decades.” Some of the reasons for isolationism dated back to the end of World War I. The memory of the carnage was still fresh, as was anger over allies defaulting on American loans. Other reasons included an appreciation, in some quarters, of the fascist methods of creating order, antipathy for Britain, and, of course, fears about the economy. Although President Roosevelt used great ingenuity to find ways to send aid to Britain, even he recognized the American public’s rejection of intervention and in his 1940 reelection campaign famously proclaimed, “I have said this before, but I shall say it again, and again, and again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.” By the fall of 1941, a few weeks before Pearl Harbor, a Roper poll showed that nearly three-quarters of the public supported “Roosevelt’s policy of ‘all aid short of war’ to nations fighting the Axis”; sympathy for Britain was growing, but not to the point that Americans were willing to go to war.¹

This general support for nonintervention was more specifically represented by a number of noisy organizations, the best known of which was the America First Committee. Founded in September 1940, it drew most of its support from midwestern businessmen and political leaders. National chairman Gen. Robert E. Wood (head of Sears, Roebuck) and such celebrity members as Charles Lindbergh, Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and Lillian Gish didn’t care whether Britain was defeated, as long as the United States stayed out of the war. Far from being pacifist, though, the committee encouraged a strong defense. Its four guiding principles were “(1) the United States must build an invulnerable defense for America; (2) no foreign powers can successfully attack prepared America; (3) American democracy can be preserved only by staying out of war in Europe; (4) ‘aid short of war’ weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve Americans in war abroad.”² Other prominent isolationist organizations included the Keep America Out of War Congress, the National Council for the Prevention of War, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Of course, there were equally vocal organizations created to support the already embattled Allies. In May 1940 the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies was formed, with newspaper editor William Allen White as national chairman. This committee sided with President Roosevelt, arguing that the Axis powers must be defeated and supporting any aid short of intervention to Great Britain and the other Allies. They helped publicize the need to support the Lend-Lease Act, but there was later internal dissension about whether to support America’s entry into the war. This led to White’s resignation in January 1941, the loss of momentum of the committee’s activities, and eventually less access to the White House. Some members went on to form a new organization in April 1941, Fight for Freedom, Inc. The main purpose of this group was clear: they believed that it was necessary for the United States to enter the war as a full belligerent.

The Hollywood community was ahead of general public opinion in its support for the victims of fascist aggression, organizing antifascist groups as early as the mid-1930s. The Motion Picture Artists Committee arranged for a boycott of Japanese goods and raised money to ship medical supplies and food to the wounded and homeless in China and Spain. In 1936 the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League was created “to combat Nazi influence and Nazi propaganda,” and the Motion Picture Democratic Committee brought together supporters of President Roosevelt. In 1940 the House Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities, also known as the Dies Committee after its chair, Martin Dies of Texas, accused the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and the Motion Picture Democratic Committee of Communist leanings. (The Dies Committee had investigated the entertainment industry before; its hearings on the Federal Theater Project in 1938 had caused the project’s funding to be withdrawn by Congress.) Although these allegations of Communist control were eventually discredited, the focus on communism caused both organizations to lose their most powerful supporters and to fold. Nevertheless, there seemed to be more vocal antifascists in Hollywood, especially actors and directors, than there were elsewhere. As Leo Rosten noted at the time, “The fact that the movies are an international commodity drove politics home to Hollywood with a hard, unyielding impact. The paroxysms of power politics flung the impending chaos of the world into Hollywood’s lap…. The political advertency of Hollywood preceded the political awakening of America.”³

Because of the Hollywood community’s outspoken and, in many respects, out-of-step antifascism (what would later be called “premature antifascism”), Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, a leading spokesman for America First, charged that the movie industry was encouraging intervention in its films. As early as 1934 he had encouraged federal inspection of movies. On August 1, 1941, he and Bennett Champ Clark, senator from Missouri, astutely assessed motion pictures and radio as “the most potent instruments of communication of ideas” and urged a Senate subcommittee to investigate whether motion pictures were designed “to influence public sentiment in the direction of participation by the United States in the present European war.” In a radio address given in St. Louis that day, Nye claimed that the motion picture companies had “become the most gigantic engines of Propaganda in existence to rouse the war fever in America and plunge this Nation to her destruction.” He then listed the men he considered the dominant forces of intervention—the heads of the major studios, including Columbia, MGM, RKO, Paramount, Twentieth Century–Fox, United Artists, Goldwyn, and Warner Bros. During the Senate hearings on “Motion Picture Screen and Radio Propaganda” that followed, Nye further explained his concern: “Arriving at the theatre, Mr. and Mrs. America sit, with guard completely down, mind open, ready and eager for entertainment. In that frame of mind they follow through the story which the screen tells. If, somewhere in that story there is planted a narrative, a speech, or a declaration by a favorite actor or actress which seems to pertain to causes which are upsetting the world today, there is planted in the heart and in the mind a feeling, a sympathy, or a distress which is not easily eliminated.”⁴

As the hearings proceeded, Nye seemed to be most concerned that Hollywood was supporting the Roosevelt administration and its interventionist stance and that the film industry was controlled by a small group of men, primarily Jewish, who had a major investment in distributing films to the British Commonwealth market. Nye put it bluntly: “Many people seem to assume that our Jewish citizenry would willingly have our country and its sons taken into this foreign war.” Charles Lindbergh made a similar argument in a speech at an America First rally on September 11, 1941; he claimed that America’s Jews were “agitating for war” through “their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.” Indeed, under questioning by Wendell L. Willkie, whose law firm was counsel to Hollywood’s interests before the committee, a number of movie executives, including Harry M. Warner of Warner Bros. and Darryl F Zanuck of Twentieth Century–Fox, proudly admitted that they were strongly against Hitler and the Nazis. Warner told the committee, “I am ready to give myself and all my personal resources to aid in the defeat of the Nazi menace to the American people.” However, the reality of the studios’ output doesn’t support Nye’s and Lindbergh’s charges. The Nazi persecution of the Jews is rarely directly mentioned in prewar Hollywood films, and with only a few exceptions, some of which are discussed later in this chapter, the wars in Europe and China were not the main focus of Hollywood’s output. In 1941 Rosten noted the problem of the studios’ conflicted position: “If Hollywood, for example, produces a picture dealing with the war, it is accused of ‘war-mongering’: if Hollywood doesn’t, it is accused of feeding pap to the public and putting profit above the national welfare.”⁵

So, far from being in the forefront of encouraging intervention overseas, Hollywood studios were, especially from our contemporary viewpoint, relatively slow in drawing attention to the conflicts in Europe and Asia. As the world descended into war, the Motion Picture Production Code’s specifications about national feelings became important to the Hays Office. The Code stated, “The history, institutions, prominent people and citizenry of all nations shall be represented fairly.” Joseph Breen interpreted this to mean that Hollywood shouldn’t be taking sides in the European conflict, including the Spanish civil war. He insisted, “the movie industry must not urge American involvement in the war.” Even more important than the Production Code, however, was industry economics. Except in unusual cases, if it seemed unlikely that a film would make money, that film probably wouldn’t be made, no matter how worthy its political messages, and as we noted in the introduction, the studios were keenly aware of the profits generated in foreign countries and were reluctant to jeopardize them just to make a political point. As early as November 1935 the Hollywood Reporter stated, “It is admitted that today, due to the political situation throughout Europe, censorship on pictures touching on topics considered dangerous to those in power is tougher than ever. The picture companies are through with their former stand, ‘We’ll make it anyway.’ They now listen to foreign departments whose business it is to keep in touch with problems confronting the sales department abroad.” By the late 1930s the German market for films became less important and the British market more important to a film’s profitability, leading to the cynical conclusion that “Hollywood’s boldness was inversely proportional to the extent of its German and Italian market.” Sensitivity to the Germans became even less important, when, on August 17, 1940, Germany banned American films in countries under its control.⁶

Nevertheless, from the late 1930s on, Hollywood studios produced some films that at least indirectly sympathized with the victims of fascism and criticized to a lesser or greater degree the aggressors. This is most clearly seen in the films that depict the Chinese as victims of Japan. The adventure plot of Shadows over Shanghai (1938), involving Japanese agents trying to prevent some Americans from getting a precious amulet to San Francisco, is set against the background of Chinese orphans and refugees and the Japanese bombing of Shanghai. In Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939) the detective solves the murder of a Chinese princess who had come to the United States to raise money for her country’s air force. Similarly, in Ellery Queen’s Penthouse Mystery (1941) an American ventriloquist, carrying donated jewels to be auctioned off for Chinese war relief, is murdered. In Burma Convoy (1941) two American brothers prevent the disruption of a convoy of supplies bound for Chinese forces in Chungking. In They Met in Bombay (1941) Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell are con artists and jewel thieves in Hong Kong who end up protecting Chinese evacuees from Japanese troops. Gable’s character, a Canadian who had been cashiered from the British army, ends up masquerading as a British officer, leading British troops against the Japanese, and being awarded the Victoria Cross. In all these films the Chinese are presented as hopelessly overmatched against the Japanese military machine, and the Japanese are presented as unfairly and cruelly waging war against helpless civilians and children, though in none of these films is this the main focus of the plot.

Similarly, a number of Hollywood films sympathized with the British resistance to the Nazi blitz.⁷ As in the Chinese films, they implicitly take the side of the British, though that aspect remains background to a story that usually features an American character at the heart of the action. In Escape to Glory (1940) Pat O’Brien, playing an American soldier of fortune who has been fighting fascism, helps defend a British freighter from U-boats when war breaks out. In Confirm or Deny (1941) American newspaperman Don Ameche’s efforts to get censored war stories out of London is set against the stoicism of the English during the Battle of Britain. In A Yank in the RAF (1941) hotshot American pilot Tyrone Power romances Betty Grable but also shoots down Luftwaffe planes during the evacuation from Dunkirk. Similarly, in International Squadron (1941) hotshot American pilot Ronald Reagan joins the Royal Air Force (RAF), causes trouble because he can’t learn to be a team player, but redeems himself by dying on a suicide mission. The effect of these films was augmented by British-made films that were released in the United States and, predictably, made a plea for sympathy with the British cause by showing the horror of Nazi aggression. These include Night Train to Munich (1940); Women in War (a joint British-Republic production, 1940); Freedom Radio (1941); Dangerous Moonlight (a joint British-RKO production, 1941); Pimpernel Smith (1941), Leslie Howard’s skillful and effective Scarlet Pimpernel update; and The 49th Parallel (1941), in which a U-boat officer stranded in Canada works his way across the country to the neutral United States, only to be turned away at the border and handed over to Canadian authorities.

Hollywood studios also offered some films that were critical of Nazi Germany. They usually focused on the effects of Nazism on common men and women and their families. Beasts of Berlin (1939), whose initial release was banned in New York for being too inflammatory, shows the brutality with which the Nazis respond to a fledgling resistance movement in Germany. In Escape (1940) an American man tries to rescue his mother from a German concentration camp. Four Sons (1940) shows the effect of Nazism on a Czech-German family living in the Sudetenland: one brother goes to America, one becomes a Nazi, one fights for Czechoslovakia, and one is drafted into the German army; only the one in America survives. In The Man I Married (1940), which we discuss in chapter 3, an American woman travels to Germany with her German husband, who becomes swept up in Hitler worship. Underground (1941), also discussed in chapter 3, centers on the conflict between two brothers—one a German soldier, the other the leader of a resistance group. All these films show the brutality of the Nazi regime, the loss of personal liberty, and the difficulty of enacting opposition.

Some films combined their critique of German fascism with the fear of fascism at home. As early as 1935 Sinclair Lewis had written about a possible fascist takeover of the U.S. government in It Can’t Happen Here. Although the novel was bought for a screen treatment and production was started, MGM bowed to pressure from the Hays Office and canceled the project. But in 1937 Nation Aflame showed a con man with a talent for demagoguery tapping into working-class anger by blaming “foreigners” for all of America’s economic troubles; he founds an organization called the Avenging Angels and uses it as a political base to gain control of an unnamed state. Other films identified the undercutting of freedom of speech and freedom of the press as the first steps toward fascism in the United States. One of the best known of these films is Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), in which freshman senator Jefferson Smith (James Stewart) finds that his political mentor, Senator Paine (Claude Rains), is actually in thrall to a political boss (Edward Arnold) and votes however he is told to help certain businesses prosper. When Smith attempts to bring this corruption to the attention of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Before Pearl Harbor
• 2 The War in the Pacific
• 3 Our Enemies
• 4 Our Fighting Allies
• 5 Our Occupied Allies
• 6 American Men and Women
• 7 Home-Front Anxieties
• 8 Postwar Films in the Postwar World
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Filmography
• Index