Hollywood+During+War

= Hollywood During World War II =

- Before Pearl Harbor, no movies supported American intervention in the war - After Pearl Harbor, Hollywood joined the war cause, copywriting movie titles such as: “Sunday in Hawaii,” “Yellow Peril,” “V for Victory,” “Across the Pacific” - Hollywood contributed much morale to the war effort with patriotic movies that evoked a feeling of national pride, a group effort, and the value of individual sacrifice for the greater good of the cause

Hollywood Gets Involved
- Leading actors and actresses lead the bond rallies to raise money for the war cause: Betty Grable - Leading directors made documentaries to give the public an idea of what war was like: Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston - Some film actors entered the armed forces: Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart - By the end of the war, ¼ of all Hollywood male employees were in the armed forces

How War Affected the Industry
- During the war, amount of available film stock was cut by 25 percent and movie sets were limited to $5000 per movie - However, the movie industry prospered, as shortages of gasoline and tires gave the public nothing to do but go to the movies: movie attendance was boosted to record levels of 90 million a week

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- Hollywood was not subject to government censorship, as the government did not want a repeat of WWI when the Committee on Public Information caused anti-German hysteria - “The motion picture industry must remain free… I want no censorship.” – President Roosevelt  ======

The Office of War Information
- The Office of War Information (OWI) supervised the film industry: The Bureau of Censorship and Bureau of Motion Pictures - The Bureau of Censorship was created for film exports - The Bureau of Motion Pictures reviewed movie scripts submitted by the studios, assessed how films depicted war aims, the United States military, the enemy military, the Allies, and the home front - OWI believed war-related films were over-exaggerated - OWI issued: "The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture": suggested that moviemakers ask the question, “Will this picture help to win the war?” Also asked for images of "people making small sacrifices for victory - making them voluntarily, cheerfully, and because of the people's own sense of responsibility" - The Bureau of Motion Pictures faded out in 1943, monitoring the film industry was a responsibility given to the Office of Censorship

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Betty Gradle was the most famous pin-up girl of the World War II era. She was so good looking, that her picture was actually distributed amongst the soldiers, for inspiration, and something to fight for. This video was from a bond tour, in which Grable sings a patriot war song. She was quoted to have said, **"I'm strictly an enlisted man's girl." **



[|Hollywood During War] This link is to the hollywood glorified verison of the second flagraising on Mount Suribachi, which caused a patriotic craze in the States, but was actually no big deal on Iwo Jima. The video depicts the soldiers in awe of the flag (which is kind of humurous, having read //Flags of Our Fathers//) and there is no doubt that it is the epitome of how the United States viewed the flagraising.

media type="youtube" key="FD5DjBVV1J8" height="390" width="480" This is the trailer of the hollywood movie, "Sands of Iwo Jima," filmed after the picture of the second flagraising on Mount Suribachi cuased a stir of nationalism in America, about the valor of war and patriotic values that are so commonly characterized by dramatic war movies.





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