How is hollywood fighting the war

Life in Hollywood

Assignment 2

‘How Hollywood is fighting the war’

11th June 1949

Hollywood has entered warfare a few years back and to respond to this like everything else they made films, I’m going to take a look back at the films in the early part of this decade and talk about the good films that have come out of the early part of the war period where America entered WW2 with the attack upon Pearl Harbor.

Hollywood in these years from the early 40’s had made an unpredictable alliance with Washington with the president of the United States Franklin Roosevelt to make the Hollywood industry like what we have seen here at home, a propaganda war effort machine. In the early 40’s when WW2 started we know that in wartime Britain many of the entertainment sectors had been closed down by war, our cinemas were but soon reopened when our government knew that the cinema was the most popular form of entertainment and our government incorporated keeping Britain’s spirit high and showing propagandist themes into our entertainment.

In Hollywood, it took on the same theme and the government in America and in 1940 created the Office of the Coordinator of Government Films and then in 1942 created Office of War Information which took on the role of the OCGF and press information. Its domestic arm, the Bureau of Motion Pictures, was a connection between the government and Hollywood. Through an often difficult process of negotiation between Hollywood and the government, the standards meant to be incorporated into the war film, abstract values such as bravery, unselfishness, and the bringing together of the nation against the enemy, were added to the standards that Hollywood had promoted.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Hollywood started to make wartime films a big thing as well; they started to make films based upon true wartime events to show the bravery and dedication of the troops of America. Some films like Air Force (1943) were made to inspire the public in America as well as to entertain them. The most influential pro American film to encourage people out of isolationism was the film Casablanca (1942) this film was a film to encourage people to get more involved and showed an everyday situation that was happening everyday to all kinds of Americans and that you should become more active and help the war effort, encouraging people to unite against the Nazis. Also a thing to note about the American president Franklin Roosevelt is that he urged the OWI to show the images of the war in news reels that were bad to encourage the audiences of America to have more hatred to the enemy Nazis!

Hollywood relied on the revenue from the European market before the involvement of their country in WW2, but they then made and alliance with the government who created the Anti-Nazi League in 1936 this and the elimination of the German audience for Hollywood films made it so that they weren’t too bothered about losing overseas profit by making films that offended the Nazis. Hollywood started to create a few propagandist and anti Nazi films like Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and MGM's The Mortal Storm (1940).

Reviewing a propagandist film that was released not too long ago, Casablanca (1942) this is a film Set during , it focuses on a man torn between, love and virtue. He must decide between his love for a woman and helping her and her leader husband flee from the Vichy controlled Moroccan city of to continue his fight against the . This was a film based on a play but when a representative of Warner Brothers read the play he tried to buy the rights to it and succeeded buying it for $20,000 this is the most that anyone has ever paid for a play that wasn’t produced yet. The film cost $1,039,000 and was $75,000 over budget. Almost the entire film was shot in the studio in Hollywood.

I have had the main character Humphrey Bogart on the telephone for an over the phone interview, here is how it went.

ME: Hello Humphrey, now I know you are busy filming your new film Knock on Any Door (1949) but I wanted to talk to you about a very influential and massive movie of the past decade Casablanca. How did you become to get involved in this film, how did you get the main role?

HUMPHREY: Hello, well my involvement in the film Casablanca really came about when I was working on a film called High Sierra in 41’ and I was type cast as a gangster and things just rolled out from there I guess.

ME: So how did you find playing the character of Rick in the film?

HUMPHREY: Well being typecast gave me some warmth toward the role of Rick but this was really my first true romantic role I’ve played.

ME: How did you find the propagandist theme in the film did you have a problem with the theme?

HUMPHREY: Well the films propagandist theme is not really that apparent and is just a addition to the film rather than the main theme, it does not get in the way of the story or dominate the film so I didn’t really have a problem with it.

ME: We know that the film was awarded three Oscars and was nominated for five others but do you think the film will be the best film that you will act in?

HUMPHREY: Well, from that film I made a lot of money and still have not made as much of any other film making me the worlds highest paid actor at the moment. If I make a film that becomes as successful as Casablanca it can only be a good thing.

ME: Well thank you Humphrey for speaking to me today, I wish you the best of luck on your current film Knock on Any Door and hopefully see you in many more films in the future.

HUMPHREY: Thank you, and hopefully you will.