War Comes to America

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.

This is the seventh and last entry in the celebrated documentary series WHY WE FIGHT, dealing with the main events of WWII while it was still raging; ironically, it was the only one I had not watched until now since, when the cycle was broadcast on Italian TV (around 23:00) back in the early 1990s, this episode was never proposed! In retrospect, I wonder whether the station thought it was a two-part film and aborted the screening after they failed to track down its alleged continuation – because, as a matter of fact, the copy I now watched myself actually bore the tell-tale "Part One" on the opening title-card and "End Of Part One" on the concluding one!; the thing is that no source that I know of ever mentions a follow-up to it and, indeed, there exist on "You Tube" prints which omit this bit of misinformation entirely!

Anyway, back then, I recall enjoying this incredibly informative yet highly entertaining franchise and, having caught up with its final segment, I can safely consider this – collectively – as perhaps the greatest documentary ever made. Many efforts of its ilk and era date because they tend to treat the authentic footage with extra reverence and a certain amount of detachment – so that you feel no different than if you had read about it in a history book! Here, however, all the resources of the medium (including animation) are put at the disposal of the film-makers to provide a comprehensive look at the birth of America all the way up to the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor – taking care to explain what it was really up to during its curious period of neutrality – yet one is never bothered by its being a lecture, because the images and the commentary (spoken by Walter Huston and Lloyd Nolan) balance the necessary gravity with an infectious wryness, not to mention an evident passion.

The latter would seem misplaced, i.e. an attempt to sell the idea of America as the greatest nation on Earth, if it were not acknowledged early on that, after all, the country was basically composed of virtually every ethnic group imaginable! Ultimately, one has to admit that Frank Capra – forever the champion in his films of the little guy facing apparently insurmountable odds – was the ideal director to tackle this documentary series and make an enduring classic of it.

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!

War Comes to America (1945)

*** (out of 4)

Seventh and final entry in Capra's "Why We Fight" series centers in on America, their reasons for wanting to stay out of the way and their eventual slide to knowing that the war was the only way out. As usual Capra, or how much he actually had to do with it, fills the screen with all sorts of stock footage of various battles and even more shots of Hitler and his various rants. This time out there's even more polls showing how Americans were viewing the stuff overseas and it's no shock that the majority wanted nothing to do with what was going on in Europe. Looking at the various poll numbers was one of the most fascinating things about this film and especially how the numbers changed over the years. Also worth mentioning are the various turning points that the government finally realized that they were going to have to power up the various military forces here. Again, as with many of the entries in this series, there's a lot of stuff that would probably be called incorrect today but we must remember when this thing was made. One could also roll their eyes when the film talks about freedom of people here yet we know that wasn't really the case in this era. With that said, there's enough here to make it worth watching and the overall feel of patriotism is quite high and works very well. The movie doesn't pull many punches as we get some rather graphic photos of injured children and it certainly hammer home its point of why America should enter the war.

This is the final installment of the "Why We Fight" series--a group of seven films made by Frank Capra in order to bolster the war effort. Some of these films have held up well, though I think "War Comes to America" hasn't--and is a weak entry to the series. Most of this is because the narration is very heavy-handed. Subtle, its message isn't and it came out just before the war in the Pacific ended.

The film begins with a brief history of the United States. Then, what follows is a long litany of reasons the US is the bestest place to live on the planet. While much of this is true, it's message goes on way too long and is like a long and boring civics lesson. Even back in 1945, I am pretty sure a lot of folks in the audience felt similarly. Then, tons of documentary footage follows about the war and our reasons for becoming involved in it.

The film probably did a lot to help the war effort but, frankly, there are much better documentaries about the same subjects. The film lacks subtlety and comes across like a pep rally as opposed to a documentary. This one just hasn't held up very well.