Les Etats-Unis entrent en guerre

The "Why We Fight" series is now 60 years old, but documentary film-making still doesn't come any better. I've got all 7 on DVD and although the sound quality is weak on a couple they remain the finest "propaganda" films I've ever seen. Apart from that, since being made they've now assumed another role as 'primary source' history. Wonderful snapshots on a vanished America. President Coolidge once said "The main business of the American people IS business" and i think that's why the series was made. While 'we' in Europe were squabbling and scheming and tearing ourselves apart the American people simply got on with their lives and built up a beautiful country, not to mention an economy that dwarfed the rest of the world. Most Americans had little knowledge of European affairs and we can't blame them for feeling a little p****d that just 20 years after they rescued us from a world war, we went and did it again! Of course, Hitler & the Nazis were very different to the German imperialism of WW1. They wanted the whole world and it WAS in America's interest to stop them. "War Comes To America" paints a portrait of Amrican history right from the beginning and gradually shows how all the achievements and work and struggle of the people have to be honoured by defeating this new and most terrible threat. The narrators (Walter Huston & Lloyd Nolan) both have wonderful voices and always seem to be talking directly to the viewer as an individual. A staggering amount of care went into the editing and selection of film and sound clips and it shows throughout. This is my favourite of the Why We Fight films and although the portrayal of America is sometimes a little "rose-tinted" (the Civil War is COMPLETELY left out) I found myself wishing I could've lived through that time. The comparison between the USA in the 30s and 40s and Britain today is quite striking. There's a tremendous optimism and energy and 'drive' in America that I simply don't see over here, then or now. I'm absolutely certain that if I'd watched this movie as a 19 year old GI back in the 40s I'd have left the cinema feeling 10 feet tall and ready to kick Hitler's ass! It really does show the sense of outrage of a free people attacked by barbarians, and the certainty that good will triumph over evil. In another of the series they show a clip from one of Winston Churchill's speeches that sums up the whole message of Why We Fight. Churchill's mother was American, so it's worth repeating again: "Every trace of Hitler's footsteps, every stain of his infected and corroding fingers, must be sponged and purged and if necessary BLASTED from the surface of the Earth. Lift up your hearts. All will come right." So. "War Comes To America" remains the finest documentary I've ever seen and it's a worthy end to an utterly outstanding series. As no film is 'perfect' I'll give it 9 out of 10 and I'd advise anyone to get hold of the entire series. You won't regret it.

PS - I recently discovered something that anyone familiar with this film will find quite hilarious. Several clips show Secretary of State Cordell Hull speaking. I now learn that (for whatever reason) Walt Disney based the Donald Duck character on Hull, and boy is it a striking resemblance. Very funny.

This is the seventh and final documentary in director Frank Capra's wartime series, "Why We Fight". The films in general are skilfully directed, using footage from a wide variety of sources, plus animation and some subtle recreations.

The early films in the series focus on specific time periods or theatres of operation. This film is a little different. It is in two unequal parts, the first showing American soldiers what they are fighting for -- a look at America in the years up to 1945 -- while the second gives an overview of the war beginning with Manchuria in 1931 and ending with Pearl Harbor.

The first part is interesting for its contemporary portrait of America. It presents a view of US society which tries to be liberal and inclusive. It does show some conventional imagery, Coke bottles, drum majorettes, and the like, but it is more provocative than that at times. Trade unions are acknowledged. Prohibition is forcefully declared to have been "a mistake".

The film strives to enfold all ethnic, cultural, and social groups within the Stars and Stripes. There is a long sequence showing different nationalities -- Hungarian, Portuguese -- and this sequence ultimately includes the American Negro and the Chinaman, to use the terms current at the time. By my count, there are seven brief scenes showing the former, two the latter. The liberality of the filmmakers required that blacks and Asians by shown; the context of the time required that they be shown to this limited extent. This makes an illuminating "inclusivity benchmark" for anyone who is keeping track of such matters. The images of blacks are mostly stereotypical -- picking cotton, fishing, racing, sitting in church -- but at least the final one shows a black man firing back at Pearl Harbor.

The parade of national groups in the US makes another point which could be noted. The list does include Italians and Germans, but the Japanese are omitted. (The Japanese of course were receiving special treatment in internment camps, as they were here in Canada.)

Social groups are shown, one face at a time, partly to the rhythm of the rhyme "Rich man, poor man, ... doctor, lawyer, ...". The first half of the actual rhyme, "beggarman, thief", is left out for obvious reasons, but the second is also avoided: "Indian chief". In 1925, or even 1935, the temptation to cut to a shot of someone in a Sioux headdress would have been irresistible, but that does not happen here. Does this sensitivity presage the new approach to native issues in the post-war adult Western?

The second, larger portion of the film is a retrospective, dealing with the progress of the war throughout the world. The lead-up to 1939 is well summarized, and includes footage of Ethiopia (Haile Selassie) and Spain (Der Führer shaking hands with El Caudillo). American legislative changes in response to the evolving world situation are covered in detail, with attention given to Gallup poll results. The war in its different campaigns is then reiterated.

Some of the political assumptions in the latter part of the film caught my notice. The Unholy Trinity of the Axis Powers ("Death, Inc.") consists, as it does throughout the "Why We Fight" series, of Mussolini, Hitler, ... and Emperor Hirohito, NOT Gen. Tojo, or any other member of the army clique. (After the war, the decision was made to preserve the Japanese monarchy, so the God-Emperor was falsely exonerated and blame passed to the military.)

The section on subversion shows quite a lot of the German-American Bund, including footage of American Nazi goons beating a heckler in Madison Square Garden. We also see a little of isolationist Lindbergh, Hitler's chum. Great attention is given to the threat to South America, where sinister German immigrants are shown conspiring in Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil (side by side with Japanese immigrants there). This is still a propaganda film so hemispheric solidarity is absolute and unimpugnable. There is no admission made at all of open Latin American sympathy for Fascism or of coercive American arm-twisting to get governments to toe the US policy line.

The film ends with the "day that shall live in infamy", but a modern viewer is left thinking of the hopeful vision shown of America still to come -- hydroelectric projects (to the tune of Rhapsody in Blue), that tribute to US "inventiveness and enterprise", the "television", and especially what the film calls "the future", the cloverleaf highway interchange -- the goals attained through so much sacrifice. How prescient.

Today is November 10. That's Veteran's Day for this year since the usual 11th fell on a Saturday. It's for this occasion that I chose to watch the last of Frank Capra's Why We Fight series: War Comes to America. Walter Huston serves as the elder statesman narrator giving the history of our country from Plymoth Rock to Pearl Harbor. He tells how people of most nationalities have helped to make our country great and how we suffered and triumphed. Through a combination of news footage and recreations we also see what actions from Germany and Japan led us to battle with them. There's also some wonderful use of songs like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, Kern and Hammerstein's The Last Time I Saw Paris (with vocals that sound like Judy Garland), and Berlin's This is the Army. So to anyone who wants to watch what it was like in the mid-20th century, I highly recommend War Comes to America. Oh, and if you happen to meet a veteran, by all means thank him or her!

This is the 7th and final film in Frank Capra's series "Why We Fight." It sums up the historical and ideological information that was presented in greater detail during the other six films. It is also a rousing summation of what democracy means to Americans and why they must fight to save it, not only for themselves but also for the whole world.

Walter Huston's grandfatherly voice is used effectively to narrate most of the film with a deftly written script. In the hands of a lesser film maker, the materials presented here would be nothing but propaganda on the level used by Hitler. But Capra stirs the spirit at the same time that he is making his point -- namely, freedom is not something that can be taken for granted. Capra skillfully makes his point that if free people don't stand up for themselves, they will likely be crushed by all the darker elements in human nature -- greed, lust for power, and tyranny.

The imagery, the music, and the narration are completely effective and have stood the test of time. Even though the events which this film and the whole series cover have passed, Capra's point about the American Dream and how fragile it is remains relevant and powerful.

In this final segment of the Why We Fight documentary series, War Comes to America, director Frank Capra puts the focus on America and how it got into World War II. It's no less well-directed than the various other films, or providing in some choice historical goodies. But what makes it stand-out, surprisingly, is how much historical value it has for today, as a document of its time and for people who may have not paid attention to every second in their school history class. At first the film tells us things that we basically already know, what America's good for, our liberties (you may see a bell from time to time saying this), and there's the token image of children practicing the Pledge of Alegiance (and pre "Under God" inclusion!)

Then we get the real meat of the run-time of this relatively short documentary, which is about America's reactions in the 1930's and up to 1940 and 1941 all the way until December 7th at Pearl Harbor. This footage is riveting stuff, even if it is meant, at the time (albeit already by 1945 near the end of things) propaganda for the US Army. It becomes a truly interesting capsule as to the statistical information of how Americans felt about getting involved with the affairs of the Europeans, which side to take or how much with the Nazis, and then how much sympathy to have for the Chinese during their assault from Japan. I'm reminded of today in news when getting all of these polls on various topics, and Capra builds up a staggering time-line. For anyone who thought that America only got involved in World War Two simply for Pearl Harbor need to see this movie.

As usual the footage from various politician speeches, of course FDR, and finally some of the footage of how we got involved in 1941 (even before Pearl Harbor America was preparing their alliance with England and other nations to give them weapons), is excellent and well edited and shot. It's emotional uprising is at just a fine pitch for its time and place, and Capra knows how to get someone, anyone, wanting defeat for the Nazis and Japanese riled up for the just cause. Whether it may leave some things out is arguable, albeit in a 70 minute running time there is only so much they can show. But for what it's worth, it's a superb conclusion to this series, bringing it back around from the Prelude to War segment to remind soldiers (or anyone else watching) Why We Fight.