War Comes to America

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.