We'll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema during World War IIWeÕll Always Have the Movies explores how movies made in Hollywood during World War II were vehicles for helping Americans understand the war. Far from being simplistic, flag-waving propaganda designed to evoke emotional reactions, these films offered audiences narrative structures that formed a foundation for grasping the nuances of war. These films asked audiences to consider the implications of the Nazi threat, they put a face on both our enemies and allies, and they explored changing wartime gender roles. WeÕll Always Have the Movies reveals how film after film repeated the narratives, character types, and rhetoric that made the war and each AmericanÕs role in it comprehensible. Robert L. McLaughlin and Sally E. Parry have screened more than 600 movies made between 1937 and 1946Ñincluding many never before discussed in this contextÑand have analyzed the cultural and historical importance of these films in explaining the war to moviegoers. Pre-Pearl Harbor films such as Sergeant York, Foreign Correspondent, and The Great Dictator established the rationale for the war in Europe. After the United States entered the war, films such as Air Force, So Proudly We Hail! and Back to Bataan conveyed reasons for U.S. involvement in the Pacific. The Hitler Gang, Sahara, and Bataan defined our enemies; and Mrs. Miniver, Mission to Moscow, and Dragon Seed defined our allies. Some moviesÑThe Miracle of MorganÕs Creek, Hail the Conquering Hero, and Lifeboat among themÑexplored homefront anxieties about the warÕs effects on American society. Of the many films that sought to explain the politics behind and the social impact of the warÑand why it concerned AmericansÑCasablanca is perhaps one of the most widely recognized. McLaughlin and Parry argue that RickÕs Caf Am ricain serves as a United Nations, sheltering characters who represent countries being oppressed by Germany. At RickÕs, these characters learn that they share a common love of freedom, which is embodied in patriotism; from this commonality, they overcome their differences and work together to solve a conflict that affects them all. As the representative American, Rick Blain (Humphrey Bogart) cannot idly stand by in the face of injustice, and he ultimately sides with those being oppressed. BogartÕs character is a metaphor for America, which could also come out of its isolationism to be a true world leader and unite with its allies to defeat a common enemy. Collectively, HollywoodÕs war-era films created a mythic history of the war that, even today, has more currency than the actual events of World War II. |
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Contents
| 1 | |
| 26 | |
Chapter Two The War in the Pacific | 67 |
Chapter Three Our Enemies | 100 |
Chapter Four Our Fighting Allies | 137 |
Chapter Five Our Occupied Allies | 173 |
Chapter Six AMerican Men and Women | 216 |
Chapter Seven HomeFront Anxieties | 247 |
Chapter Eight Postwar Films in the Postwar World | 280 |
Notes | 301 |
| 315 | |
Filmography | 321 |
| 337 | |
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We'll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema During World War II Robert L. McLaughlin,Sally E. Parry No preview available - 2010 |
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Popular passages
Page 17 - No picture shall be produced which will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience . shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrong-doing, evil or ' sin. 2. Correct standards of life, subject only to the requirements of drama and entertainment, shall be presented. 3. Law, natural or human, shall not be ridiculed, nor shall / sympathy be created for its violation.
Page 11 - What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.
Page 11 - Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
Page 11 - Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands ; but if we fail then the whole world, including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more prolonged, by the lights of a perverted science.
Page 26 - I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.
Bibliographic information
| Title | We'll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema during World War II |
| Author | Robert McLaughlin |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | University Press of Kentucky, 2006 |
| ISBN | 0813171377, 9780813171371 |
| Length | 368 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / Military / World War II Performing Arts / Film & Video / History & Criticism |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |