The Hollywood 'British' Films of World War II
That which we fought the British to obtain we will have to fight with them to retain.America is neutral, and we are Americans. Our policy is one hundred percent neutrality. There will be no propaganda pictures from Warner Brothers. The two Warner Brothers obviously did not share the same opinion regarding the role of the Hollywood film industry during the turbulent period surrounding the Second World War. However, since the advent of the motion picture, the American film industry had played a vital role in influencing the social consciousness of its audience, regardless of the intentions of the filmmakers. Throughout the first half of the Twentieth Century, Hollywood played its part in pulling the American population through the unfortunate circumstances they encountered, including World War I and the Depression. Providing that same service from 1939 to 1945 was only to be expected. By the time the political scene in Europe started to heat up in the early 1930s, Hollywood had emerged as the primary source of entertainment for the majority of the domestic population; "each week eighty million Americans - two thirds of the country's population - lived the Hollywood experien
Miniver became the most popular film of 1942, and probably the most successful 'British' film of the war. However, from the earliest moments of the war, and some would argue before the war, Hollywood had demonstrated an apparent partiality toward the idea of war. Set up as a fighting unit for American volunteers under the command of the Royal Air Force, the Eagle Squadron came to symbolize the American conviction to actively oppose the fascist aggression in Europe. Nye, charged that the film industry "had embarked on a devious campaign to inject its entertainment pictures with propaganda, and drag America into the war. By the time A Yank in the RAF was released in 1941, isolationism was beginning to be seen as an outdated stance. " He goes on to support this claim with a discussion of the various attempts to produce meaningful films about the Spanish Civil War, a conflict that was never mentioned by name in any of the movies until 1940, and then only to say that it was over. Unquestionably there are in Hollywood today, engaged by the motion picture industry, those who are naturally far more interested in the fate of their homelands than they are in the fortunes of the United States. As they were fighting the fascist forces almost single-handedly starting in 1939, and being victimized throughout the Blitz, the British were to be praised for their determination and sacrifice. As well, by 1942, the American government had recruited a significant portion of Hollywood's most talented filmmakers to produce their wartime propaganda. In doing so, filmmakers chose scripts that would portray the British in the most positive light, while expressing support and sympathy for their wartime predicament. Eventually, Hollywood was called on to portray the U. Meanwhile, Robert Fyne suggests that "the first World War II films appeared in early 1942.
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