Five Came Back Hollywood Filmmakers and World War II_1of3_The Mission Begins
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00:00The winner is...
00:10And the winner is...
00:11George Stevens.
00:12William Wyler.
00:13John Huston.
00:14John Hall.
00:15Mr. Frank Capra.
00:16I discovered Frank Capra, like most people in my generation, through It's a Wonderful
00:36Life.
00:38Capra is a master at constructing emotion, structurally, into a film.
00:47I think I have cried more in Frank Capra films, and I have stopped thinking more in Frank
00:54Capra films than in any other filmmaker's work.
00:59I don't really think that William Wyler saw himself as an artist.
01:05When he set up the camera, he didn't set up the camera to be told how extraordinary
01:10his angle and compositions were.
01:12He set up the camera in such a way to help tell the story better.
01:18And then having met him, I think it was the late 60s, I so admired that he was somebody
01:23that had wielded so much power and authority and was at the top of his game and won three
01:27Academy Awards for Best Director, who was still gracious and kind.
01:33I was drawn to John Huston.
01:36There's a lot of comparison between Huston and Hemingway, because Hemingway had this
01:42type of masculine daring do.
01:45But despite his irascible personal character and personal life, Huston had this extraordinary
01:52intelligence.
01:53He made many, many, many films, and among them, some truly great ones.
02:00The first time I can remember watching John Ford movies was Film Club at school.
02:06Ford by then had this sort of bifurcated reputation.
02:11On the one hand, he was a controversial, arch-conservative figure.
02:17On the other hand, he was at that point being revered, as he rightly is, as the great auteur
02:25and master of American cinema.
02:30George Stevens' facility with dramas, comedy, musicals, was unique.
02:40He was not drawn to that which came easily to him.
02:45He wanted to challenge himself all the time.
02:49Those five filmmakers happened to be in that place then, when the greatest conflict of
02:57all came knocking.
03:01Cinema in its purest form could be put in the service of propaganda.
03:09Hitler and Goebbels understood the power of the cinema to move large populations towards
03:15your way of thinking.
03:20All five of them were willing to turn away from a very comfortable life and serve their
03:26country in the best way they thought they could.
03:32And to go out into the world where there was no script, and there was no third act that
03:37anybody wrote, where you knew you would come out of it safely.
03:55Each of them participate on an epic scale in the grandest interventions in the largest
04:01war the world has ever seen.
04:12These documentaries that the five filmmakers made were powerful for American audiences.
04:30And I do think all five of them paid a very personal price.
04:38These filmmakers that came back with footage about the truth of that war were changed forever.
06:00The group of directors that we're talking about were part of the first wave.
06:31They were creating the art form.
06:35Film was an intoxicant from the very first days of the silent movies.
06:40And I think early, early on, Hollywood realized they had a tremendous tool or even a weapon
06:47for change through cinema.
06:50By the late 1930s, moviegoing had become an essential part of American culture.
06:57More than half the adult population went to the movies at least once a week.
07:01And before every film, theaters played newsreels, which were the only source of visual news
07:06at the time.
07:10Power to the nth power, proclaimed by Hitler at the Nuremberg Nazi Congress.
07:17The Nazi party above the state, and he above the Nazi party, affirmed by thundering cheers.
07:25In the early years of Hitler's rise, Hollywood paid little attention.
07:29In movies, there was no Fuhrer.
07:32There were no Nazis.
07:37Ford was very early to see the threat that Nazi Germany posed.
07:43Twenty years earlier, when the U.S. entered the First World War, John Ford was 22 and
07:49just starting out as a director.
07:52Ford not serving in World War I affected him very, very deeply, and Four Sons was an attempt
08:01to explore the cost of that war.
08:05What it was was the beginning of Ford trying to address reality.
08:16Ford the man was a figure of patrician authority who believed in beauty and tradition and evoked
08:24them wonderfully.
08:26He was a man who sought solace in alcohol and had a rebel soul and was proud of his
08:35Irish rebel heritage.
08:38I'm very courteous to my equals, well and courteous to my inferiors.
08:44I'm speaking in terms of pictures, and I'm horribly rude to my superiors, so-called.
08:53Like Ford, John Houston was already aware of the looming threat in Europe.
08:57He had recently returned to Hollywood after some time in England.
09:01In London, when I was about 25 years old, a whole series of circumstances mounted up
09:08to my finally being completely broke.
09:13I could have called my father for help or friends, but I'm enough of a believer in the
09:19gambler's creed that if you're in a bad streak, there's nothing to do about it.
09:25You've just got to play it out.
09:28John Houston was the son of Walter Houston, who was an important actor, and he got to
09:35learn about acting and, of course, learn from his father.
09:39I just had only admiration for John Houston.
09:42I mean, he's done a lot of things that pirates do, and, you know, he had a fight with Errol
09:47Flynn over Olivia de Havilland.
09:49Oh, that I could have had a fight with Errol Flynn over Olivia de Havilland.
09:53Errol said, do you want to make anything out of it?
09:56And I said, yes.
09:59We weren't friends then.
10:00There's no better way to get friends with a man than to have a fight with him.
10:05Houston had many marriages and many in-between-the-marriages episodes with women and was obviously very
10:12attractive to women and was very attracted to women.
10:16Despite his bad boy behavior throughout this period, Houston, as a writer, had this conceptual
10:23mind and had really begun to attract the attention of people for his screenwriting
10:28work.
10:29The end of a nation.
10:30World in alarm at the peril of war.
10:31What will come next?
10:32Czechoslovakia?
10:33When will Nazi aggression end?
10:34The democratic nations draw together against the ambitions of the dictator.
10:50Houston was hired by Warner Brothers to co-write the historical drama Juarez.
10:56He turned the script into a pointed anti-Hitler allegory.
10:59Democracy.
11:00The rule of the cattle, by the cattle, for the cattle.
11:05But when the production started, he faced the tyranny of a movie star.
11:09Paul Muni felt his part was too small and had his brother-in-law rewrite the script.
11:13Only a little of Houston's work remained.
11:16The lot of the writer in Hollywood at that time was rather dismal.
11:20One would write what one thought were good pictures and they would be changed when they
11:27got to the screen and become bad pictures.
11:32Houston decided the only way he could exert control over his work was to become a director.
11:37He had a powerful mentor.
11:39His best friend in Hollywood was an established filmmaker who was his opposite in almost every
11:45way, William Wyler.
11:49They first met when Wyler hired him to write dialogue for a film starring Houston's father.
11:55The two men quickly became inseparable pals.
12:00William Wyler was very, very soft-spoken.
12:04When he demonstrated that forcefulness of personality was only when he was on the floor
12:10directing.
12:12I'm demanding such as the audience is demanding.
12:16I'm demanding of myself too.
12:20I try to get the best out of people and if it takes a little more work and a little more
12:25sweat to do it, then that's what we'll have to do.
12:30Which is why they called him Forty Take Willie, because he was a perfectionist.
12:34He was completely in control of when he knew he had gotten it.
12:44Willie Wyler's way of directing was tough.
12:46Believe me, he expected a lot of you and you therefore gave much, much better performances.
12:53Miss Davis, I'm very happy to present to you on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture
12:59Arts and Sciences for the second time that award for your performance in Jezebel.
13:07I think all directors are actors, even those that aren't employed to work both sides of
13:11the camera.
13:13I think when you have to speak to actors, you become an actor.
13:17And so I believe that William Wyler was also an actor when he was working with his actors.
13:22And I think that's what bonds all of these directors.
13:24They were performance directors on top of everything else.
13:29Wyler needed no education about the war.
13:31For him, the stakes could not have been higher.
13:34He had come to America 20 years earlier from Moulouse, a French town that Germany had taken
13:39during World War I.
13:41Now it was being threatened once again.
13:44Originally, I was supposed to take over my father's business.
13:48My father was a merchant in Moulouse, had a nice store.
13:52I was not keen about it, but I had no other prospects.
13:56Wyler was sponsored by a distant relative who happened to run Universal Studios, Carl
14:01Lemley.
14:02He seemed to like me, and suddenly he said, how would you like to come to America?
14:09You know, at that time, that was like going to the moon today.
14:13My own family, although they were delighted to have me in America, it was not particularly
14:19a thing for a young Jewish boy should become a doctor or a lawyer or something, but to
14:25go in film business, it's a bit shady.
14:30I think what speaks to me the most about Wyler was the fact that he was a Jewish director
14:35who was committed to his faith and his culture.
14:41He understood what Hitler was doing.
14:44He understood what was going to happen to the Jews.
14:48Wyler's family and friends were still in Europe and terrified.
14:52His attempts to bring them over and sponsor them all pushed him to his financial limits.
14:59On a single night in Germany in November 1938, dozens of Jews were killed and thousands of
15:05businesses and temples destroyed in the violent pogrom that came to be known as Kristallnacht.
15:15This rise of intolerance in Germany today, the suffering being inflicted on an innocent
15:20and helpless people, grieve every decent American.
15:25It makes us fearful for the whole progress of civilization.
15:33By the late 30s, conflict had broken out across the globe.
15:38Italy flexed its military muscle in Africa.
15:41In a blazing radio address, Mussolini proclaims his decision, war!
15:46Italy will conquer Ethiopia.
15:49Imperial Japan invaded China.
15:54The blast of war strikes Nantau and people flee from the terror and thunder of the bombs.
16:02In the event of war in Europe, I think we should stay out of it entirely.
16:07I have the slightest idea of European affairs.
16:12Americans want no more war.
16:15First of all, they want no more participation in foreign wars.
16:21Hollywood was in a very delicate situation.
16:24Fear of war gripped Europe.
16:27Travel gravely impeded.
16:29The men that ran the film companies, who were mainly Jewish men, did not want to cut off
16:36this big market of Germany.
16:38They did not understand completely what was going on.
16:43And they certainly weren't understanding the threat from Japan.
16:47So there was a very strong feeling in the country of, let's stay out of this war.
16:53By his own admission, George Stevens did not realize the extent of the threat Hitler and
16:58Japan posed in 1938.
17:03He wanted his next film to be an adaptation of the acclaimed anti-war novel, Paths of
17:08Glory, which was set during World War I.
17:12What's interesting is Stevens' ambition.
17:17He was very successful making these light-hearted musicals and comedies.
17:22This is a guy that made Alice Adams, Vivacious Lady, and Swing Time, the most elegant coverage
17:31of Astaire and Rogers.
17:35This is a man who had a gift for light entertainment.
17:39He's looking to expand his range.
17:43The moment that he would have a success in a genre or form, he wanted to try something
17:49new.
17:50He had a very curious mind.
17:52It always interested me with films, the opportunity for exploration of a new experience.
18:00I think mostly the films that I did, I did because I hadn't done that kind of a film.
18:08The directors in Hollywood, movie directors, are the princes of Hollywood.
18:12They're never the kings.
18:14Always hovering above the directors are the people with the money.
18:21He ran into a brick wall when it came to making Paths of Glory.
18:25RKO told Stevens, this is no time to be making an anti-war picture.
18:30War is in the offing.
18:31Stevens replied, what better time for an anti-war picture?
18:36But the studio steered him toward Gunga Din instead.
18:44On location with Gunga Din, they see director George Stevens and his crew film a bit of
18:50action for the big outdoor spectacle.
18:54He went off into the desert and made an extraordinarily fun, swashbuckling adventure, a film that
19:03had a huge impact on Raiders of the Lost Ark and a hundred other movies.
19:09But it is the opposite of Paths of Glory.
19:12It makes war look like fun.
19:16Stevens later said of the film, it celebrates the rumbling of the drums and the waving of
19:21the flags.
19:22Another year and I would have been too smart to do it.
19:30In February 1939, Frank Capra won his third directing Oscar for his film, You Can't Take
19:36It With You.
19:37He had won previously for It Happened One Night and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.
19:45Before the war, his dominance in the industry was quite close to complete.
19:52Capra bridges a comedy from the silent, which was a gag-driven time for comedy, to the verbal.
20:06It becomes accessible to the man on the street, and that makes his product eminently American,
20:18consumable, and yet of undeniable quality.
20:24Capra wanted his next film to be about the American Revolution, with George Washington
20:28as its hero, but Harry Cohn, Capra's boss at Columbia, turned it down, and the reason
20:34was something Capra hadn't considered.
20:37Cohn didn't want to finance a picture in which British soldiers were portrayed as villains,
20:41not when England might soon be in a fight for its existence.
20:45It was the start of an awakening for Capra.
20:48He decided to train his cameras on contemporary Washington instead.
20:53While scouting his next film in D.C., Capra, a conservative Republican, met with President
20:58Roosevelt.
20:59Let no one imagine that America will escape, that America may expect mercy.
21:09The peace-loving nations must make a concerted effort in opposition to those violations of
21:15treaties, and those ignorings of humane instincts, which today are creating a state of international
21:23anarchy, international instability, from which there is no escape through mere isolation
21:31or neutrality.
21:34Capra was dazzled by what he called FDR's awesome aura.
21:38He came home convinced that Roosevelt was right.
21:41America had to stop Hitler at any cost.
21:44Like Ford, Capra went public at a rally.
21:46He told the audience that capitulation to Hitler would mean barbarism and terror.
21:51He never looked back.
21:54The interesting thing about Capra also for me is that he is an immigrant.
22:02Capra comes from Italy, which at that time is not seen as a country that is sophisticated.
22:12Despite his fame, the Sicilian immigrant was still the target of slurs.
22:17A Collier's magazine profile called him a little wop.
22:22He is incredibly eager and incredibly pressured to prove himself.
22:29That spirit is still a spirit that he shares with millions of other immigrants from other
22:34countries in America.
22:37And I think that is not only in him and his career, but in his characters.
22:45America is almost dreamlike for him, the dream of the land of the free and the idea that
22:53one man can stand against the system.
22:57Galleries are packed.
22:58In the diplomatic gallery are the envoys of two dictator powers.
23:02They have come here to see what they can't see at home, democracy in action.
23:06There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties.
23:14His films express this basic need to be good.
23:19Telegrams, 50,000 of them, demanding that he yield this floor.
23:24It always shows me the true yearning inside of Capra, which was existential and not political.
23:33I think politically he was very confused, but the yearning, the need to be loved, the
23:40need to be saved was true inside him.
23:44I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Pei.
23:51The Germans start the bombing, attacking Poland.
23:54The Second World War begins with terror from the sky.
24:02Hitler has reconstructed Germany for war and built a military juggernaut too great for
24:07Poland to resist.
24:09Britain declares war.
24:11Two million men under arms as the French army makes ready for battle.
24:21America stands at the crossroads of its destiny.
24:43A few weeks have seen great nations fall.
24:50By September 1940, Nazi Germany had conquered Belgium, Holland, Norway, Luxembourg, and
24:56France and had begun a bombing campaign over England.
25:01Winston Churchill exhorts unbending resistance.
25:06Downing Street, where the Prime Minister resides, is bombed.
25:09He is the voice of British determination to stick it out.
25:15The US has now been defeated, and despite the propaganda and confusion of recent months,
25:21it is now obvious that England is losing the war.
25:25And I have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win this war for England regardless
25:31of how much assistance we send.
25:34That is why the America First Committee has been formed.
25:41In 1940, John Ford solidified his reputation as one of the most socially and politically
25:46engaged filmmakers in Hollywood with two new films, The Long Voyage Home and The Grapes
25:52of Wrath.
25:54The Grapes of Wrath is the great, great Hollywood film about the nature of society.
26:02Well, maybe it's like Casey says, a fella ain't got a soul of his own, just a little
26:11piece of a big soul.
26:13The one big soul that belongs to everybody.
26:16You can see reality coming ever closer to Ford.
26:23In The Long Voyage Home, where you have the reference to Norway having fallen, to introduce
26:29an element that's so specific, so contemporary, I mean, literally ripped out of that day's
26:35newspapers.
26:37He did it deliberately.
26:38It was a deliberate choice.
26:40One of my most interesting experiences in filmmaking was The Long Voyage Home by Eugene O'Neill.
26:54I never realised at the time that in a few months I'd be being bombed in the air by the
26:59same type of plane.
27:04By then, addressing the war in movies was no longer enough for Ford.
27:08He petitioned the Navy to start an official photographic naval unit to be called Field
27:13Photo.
27:14And he recruits cameramen, salemen, editors, all the elements that he would later bring
27:23to the U.S. government.
27:26Field Photo met once a week on the Fox lot and ran through drills with props and costume
27:31uniforms.
27:32The unit was soon designated an official part of the Naval Reserve.
27:37The whole idea of John Ford in uniform, which he was obsessed by, incidentally, the idea
27:43of John Ford of all people fitting into a Navy hierarchy, it's that divided personality.
27:51He yearned to be that disciplined man of rectitude, but it was at odds with the rebel
27:59outsider.
28:03Behind the sort of hard drinking, he was a highly attuned thinker and an artist who could
28:10see that the world was collapsing.
28:17Ford received his third Best Director nomination that year for The Grapes of Wrath.
28:22William Wyler was also nominated for the third time for his work on The Letter.
28:27All Wyler's movies before the war, they were like sitting down with a good book, but they
28:33weren't relevant to the affairs of the world in any way.
28:37Next, the awards.
28:43Frank Happer brought the nominees that were in attendance at the Oscars that night onto
28:47stage, which was kind of weird.
28:51And then while they were standing there, he gave the award to John Ford, who never even
28:55showed up because Ford was out fishing on his boat.
28:59Wyler once again went home empty-handed.
29:01The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, here's an inspiring radio message direct
29:13from the president in the White House.
29:15We have seen the American motion picture become foremost in all the world.
29:21We've seen it reflect our civilization throughout the rest of the world.
29:26The aims and the aspirations and the ideals of a free people and of freedom itself.
29:36In June 1941, Nazi Germany began a massive invasion of Russia in a dramatic escalation
29:43of the war.
29:44These are the first motion pictures of the Nazi-Soviet war, film released by Moscow.
29:49The Red Army in action.
29:53The Germans drive deep into Russia.
29:57Stalin has ordered the destruction of everything in their path.
30:04A month later, Warner Brothers released Sergeant York.
30:09Houston was one of the writers of the film, a true story about a decorated hero in World
30:13War I.
30:15It's the story of essentially a man who is a conscientious objector, who believes that
30:20the Bible says that we should not kill, and he does not want to kill.
30:26Of course, he turns out to be the most effective soldier.
30:29He takes out an entire German gun emplacement.
30:34Them guns was killing hundreds, maybe thousands.
30:36There weren't nothing anybody could do but to stop them guns.
30:41The movie slowly built its premise that someone who could be so against killing could ultimately
30:48also be a very effective soldier if the idea behind it could make sense to him.
30:56Sergeant York became the highest-grossing film of 1941.
31:02Its runaway success rankled the isolationists in Washington, and they decided the time was
31:07right to go after Hollywood.
31:11Senator Gerald Nye claimed that the studios were colluding with the Roosevelt administration
31:16to make pro-war propaganda, and he called hearings.
31:21Studio heads and filmmakers were summoned to testify before Congress.
31:25In Harry Warner's testimony, he stated, in truth, the only sin of which Warner Brothers
31:30is guilty is that of accurately recording on the screen the world as it is.
31:36Incendiary bombs and high-explosive rain down on every part of the British capital indiscriminately.
31:50Chung King amassed the flaming ruins after one of the most frightful of air raids, reminding
31:55us grimly that while Europe holds the headlines, the China War drags on with unending tragedy.
32:01Yet the stubborn defense against Japan goes on.
32:08I got a call.
32:09My agent wanted to see me about a picture called Mrs. Miniver.
32:12I didn't know anything about it.
32:14He said it's about England at war.
32:17Oh, well, I was interested right away.
32:21I really think that he began to try to find a cause, and I think his first cause as a
32:30filmmaker was Mrs. Miniver.
32:46He really told the story of solidarity and strength.
32:53Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon and the power of that marriage and that family, that they
33:01were unshakable.
33:09It just was something that we want to live up to ourselves.
33:14And I think he knew that he could make a contribution.
33:17I think Weiler knew that he was strong enough in his self-confidence to know that he could
33:23tell a story about the real war and have a tremendous impact with that story stateside.
33:35There was a scene with a German pilot who was shot down over England, and he was caught
33:41by Mrs. Miniver somehow.
33:44I said, this man has got to be one of Mr. Goering's little monsters.
33:54And I got a call to go and see Mr. Louis B. Mayer.
33:58He said, you know, we're glad to have you here with us, and we're glad you're making
34:04this picture, but you must remember one thing.
34:07We are not making a hate picture.
34:10We don't hate anybody.
34:12We're not in the war.
34:15I said, Mr. Mayer, you know what's going on in the world.
34:21I mean, you know what's going on.
34:22He said, yes, I know, but look, we're stockholders.
34:26You know, we cannot satisfy our own personal feelings.
34:32I said, look, Mr. Mayer, I'm sorry.
34:36I have one German in this picture.
34:39If I had several Germans, I wouldn't mind having one nice, friendly chap, but I've only
34:45got one.
34:47And if I make this film, this one German is going to be one of Mr. Goering's little monsters
34:54who wants to destroy the world and kill all the Jews and so on and so forth.
35:00And otherwise, I don't make the film.
35:07December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.
35:28I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan,
35:44a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
36:00About halfway through making Mrs. Miniver, Earl Harp, Germany declares war on us.
36:08We didn't even have to declare war on them.
36:10We declared war on Japan.
36:13Germany declares war on us.
36:15I get a call from Mr. Mayer.
36:19I've been thinking a lot about what you said.
36:22He said, you know, maybe you're right.
36:25You go ahead and do the way you want.
36:28It's okay for now.
36:29All right.
36:30He's been giving it a lot of thought.
36:32What a dumb we destroy in two hours.
36:35Thousands killed.
36:36Innocent.
36:37Not innocent.
36:38They were against us.
36:39Women and children.
36:4030,000 in two hours, and we will do the same thing here.
37:00And at the end of Mrs. Miniver, with the pullback that reveals the gutted church, Weiler's
37:07talking directly to audiences, talking directly to the British audiences, talking directly
37:13to the American audiences.
37:14It just seemed like a declaration of commitment, that we're all in this together, and we're
37:21going to fight until we win.
37:23And it was a very beautifully, beautifully written speech.
37:26This is the people's war.
37:29It is our war.
37:31We are the fighters.
37:34Fight it then.
37:35Fight it with all that is in us.
37:38And may God defend the right.
37:42If you can make a film that has something to say, entertaining, of course, is the main
37:47purpose of it, but if film can contribute something to the social conscience of your
37:54time, then it becomes a source of great satisfaction.
37:59That was his first contribution to the war effort.
38:07For each of those five filmmakers, they wanted to respond as so many millions of men and
38:14women responded.
38:15They chose to serve.
38:20Overnight, America's heavy industry has converted to full-time war production.
38:31Ultimately, one-third of Hollywood's male workforce would join up.
38:36But in the first days after the attack, the movie industry was uncertain about what its
38:42role should be.
38:44Business as usual felt impossible.
38:47Working hours were curtailed.
38:49Capra was nightlife.
38:50The clubs and bars and restaurants where Hollywood congregated were all closed as the West Coast,
38:56terrified of an air attack, enforced blackouts every night.
39:03Capra went to Washington almost immediately after Pearl Harbor to begin one of the largest
39:07filmmaking efforts of the war.
39:10The genesis of this originated in the mind of General Marshall.
39:14He was chief of staff.
39:17And we were in the war.
39:20We had no troops.
39:21We had nothing.
39:22But we were at war.
39:23He called me in, and he said, we have an enormous problem.
39:28We'd soon have 12 million kids in uniform, and many of them had never seen a gun.
39:37These kids, with their long suits and their long chains and all their precocious things
39:44they were doing at the time, what are they going to do?
39:47What are they going to do when they get this terrible disease of homesickness?
39:54He wondered how we could put into the minds of these young kids the necessity of why they
39:59were in uniform.
40:00And he said, I think it could be done with film.
40:05Should be done with film.
40:07He had tried it with lecturers.
40:09He had tried it with books.
40:11It wouldn't work.
40:12They weren't interested.
40:13The boys weren't learning anything.
40:15He wanted something the boys knew about.
40:17Now, boys liked films.
40:18When I got out of his office, I went into the nearest, excuse me, can and sat down and
40:26said, Jesus, guys, what the hell am I?
40:29I never saw a documentary.
40:31I thought documentaries were silly things that rich kooks made.
40:37And I think that the effort in America of all propaganda films was an effort of recruitment
40:44and belief.
40:45Give the boys the reason to fight and don't lie.
40:51They must believe it.
40:54If they don't believe it, we're dead.
40:57Capra came up with an ambitious idea, a series of seven films called Why We Fight that would
41:03detail the history of German and Japanese aggression leading up to America's entry into
41:08the war.
41:09He started urging screenwriters to come to Washington and begin work.
41:13Additionally, the War Department sent emissaries to convince some of Hollywood's most talented
41:18men to leave their jobs behind and lend their abilities to the cause.
41:23Captain Cy Bartlett was a kind of envoy from Washington, also a Hollywood writer.
41:30There were a list of people, Anatole Litvak, Willie Weiler, John Ford, Frank Capra, who
41:37were asked to come into the service.
41:40And I was the least of these.
41:44Probably at that time, there was no young director with a more exciting career than
41:50John Huston with his breakthrough production on The Maltese Falcon.
41:57Huston's directorial debut had become a surprise hit, both commercially and critically.
42:03But he would be able to do only one more film before reporting for duty.
42:10These five men all chose to go knowing it could be the end of them.
42:15It wasn't just that their movie careers would be put on hold.
42:21And so they were saying goodbye to families, in many cases, who never knew if they would
42:26return.
42:29They did not have to go.
42:31George Stevens did not have to go.
42:34When he's finishing Woman of the Year, Pearl Harbor happens, and the whole world does a
42:39roundabout.
42:40Woman of the Year is the first time that Hepburn and Tracy worked together, and that started
42:47a run of pictures and a relationship between Hepburn and Tracy that is iconic for American
42:53movies.
42:55Stevens was eager to turn his attentions to the war instead of distracting people from
42:59it.
43:00But he was still under contract to make two more films at Columbia.
43:07Pearl Harbor was only the start of the Japanese military offensive.
43:17In the weeks and months that followed, Japan invaded Hong Kong, Guam, Burma, and Singapore,
43:24and drove American forces to retreat from the Philippines.
43:34In June, Ford, now overseeing all Navy filmmaking, was sent to Midway Island.
43:40When Ford made Midway, he thinks he's going to film flora and fauna in a remote, far-flung
43:50base.
43:51In fact, what happens is he's told there's to be a Japanese attack.
44:04He had to make a choice about where he went.
44:07What he wanted to do, I think, was to be in the thick of it.
44:11That was his instinct as a man.
44:15He's there on a raised platform.
44:19Well, in an air raid, the one place you don't want to be is on a raised platform because
44:24you're very, very visible.
44:27But he picked that because that was the place where he was going to be able to see.
44:32He could see this perspective, but he could also see that.
44:36Ford always knew where to put the camera.
44:40Suddenly, from behind the clouds, the Japs attack.
44:52His response is purely cinematic.
44:56At that moment, reality comes to him, and he moves to meet it.
45:02Navy planes roared from the decks of our carriers, Army bombers, Marines, thundered destruction
45:16over a 300-mile battle area.
45:23When he was shooting, you see the messiness and the framing and the struggle for the framing
45:29and the sprockets coming loose.
45:37And the film becoming itself, the image distressing.
45:42And that accidental quality conveying the raw drama, that's one of the most modern
45:53moments in cinema.
45:58For somebody like myself, who came originally from documentaries, it's very interesting
46:03to me to see that Ford was there decades before, wrestling with those same problems.
46:09The blast of shrapnel that knocked me, I got wounded pretty badly there.
46:22Meantime, our warships stopped the Jap fleet.
46:26Then he takes the rushes.
46:27He knows what he's got.
46:29He didn't just want it to be rushes, to be cannibalized by, you know, the Department
46:35of the Navy or bureaucrats somewhere else in the Pentagon.
46:39He wanted to make a film.
46:42He got the film and got out and brought it to Washington.
46:46How he did it, I don't know.
46:47I suspect that he said it was a box of cigars.
46:50I don't know how he got it out, but he got it out.
46:52Here, take this and start organizing it.
46:55But don't do it here.
46:56Go to California.
46:57Officially, I was in the Navy.
47:00And I said, well, should I report to the Navy barracks there?
47:04And he said, no, I think you ought to report to your mother.
47:06Go live at your mother's house.
47:08Now, the truth was, of course, that he knew that the bureaucracy would catch up and they
47:14would say, do you have any film here that was brought back?
47:17And he could say, no, he didn't.
47:20He had to construct not a documentary account exactly, but a John Ford account of reality.
47:29The decision about whether to show that film in the form that Ford had made it ultimately
47:36went up the chain until finally President Roosevelt watched the film.
47:42He gave me a little roll of film like that, and he said, don't look at this and don't
47:47put it in the picture until I tell you to.
47:49And of course, the first thing I did, as soon as I got out of the cutting room, I looked
47:52at it immediately.
47:54He found a shot.
47:55We'll never know whether it was a shot that he shot there or it was a shot that he found
47:59somewhere else, but a shot of President Roosevelt's son.
48:05Then he set up a running of the film at the White House with President Roosevelt.
48:08And just before the White House running, he said, now put this in.
48:14I was told that that running, Roosevelt talked the way people do, and that Roosevelt would
48:21say, oh, yes, that's B-17, and he had a lot to say about the film.
48:28Then when Jimmy Roosevelt's picture came up, everything was silent, dead silent.
48:34Nobody spoke from the time that that shot was on the screen until the end.
48:40And then Roosevelt turned to Admiral Leahy, who was his senior aide, and said, I want
48:46every American to see this film as soon as possible.
48:50Anyone who's ever made a film knows that those sorts of decisions, that all is fair in the
48:57battle to ensure the sanctity of your peace.
49:00And that shot helped him.
49:02Let's put it like that.
49:03And the result is profound across the U.S.
49:17People are suddenly brought close to what that conflict is.
49:21The Battle of Midway was eventually shown in three quarters of American theaters.
49:27It was the first time Americans saw the war in color, which until then had been associated
49:32with escapism and fantasy.
49:34It was also the first time the audience witnessed an American victory.
49:39Yes, this really happened.
49:51But you can still see in that film, you know, he picked out close-ups.
49:58He picked out moments.
50:00Men and women of America, here come your neighbor's sons, home from the day's work.
50:06That was quite new.
50:07No one had ever approached unfolding warfare and approached it with such a humane storyteller's eye.
50:20He had witnessed the annihilation of a military unit.
50:30At eventide, we buried our heroic dead, the last salute from their comrades and their officers.
50:39He was not to know at the moment that he shot that this was a small part of a much grander
50:45American victory.
50:48So far as he was concerned, he was witnessing a unit that had been wiped out.
50:55And that, I think, marked him very, very powerfully.
51:01I am really a coward.
51:04I know I am.
51:05So that's why I did foolish things.
51:08I was decorated eight or nine times.
51:11I tried to prove that I was not a coward.
51:13But after it's all over, I still know that I was a coward.
51:18Oh, you go ahead and do a thing, but I mean, after it's all over, your knees start shaking.
51:28While Ford was filming on the front lines, Capra was struggling to get Why We Fight off the ground.
51:34He was battling with his screenwriters constantly, and soon realized he'd have almost no budget
51:39to shoot the films.
51:41Then, in New York, he saw the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will, which had been directed
51:46by Lenny Riefenstahl during the 1934 Nazi Party Congress.
51:54Along with America, he awakes to the monstrous ambition and ruthlessness of Hitler,
52:02and the propaganda machine that Goebbels has assembled in Nazi Germany, when it's almost too late.
52:10I saw that, and it scared the hell out of me.
52:13I went back to my little chair in my office, and my one telephone.
52:18And I sat there, and I sat there.
52:21I was a, I was a very unhappy man.
52:25How can I possibly top this?
52:28The power of the film itself showed that they knew what they were doing.
52:38And when he sees it, his reaction is extremely telling, because he comes out of seeing it saying,
52:44we're lost. We can't win this war.
52:47These guys are going to beat us.
52:49We're going to win this war.
52:52He comes out of seeing it saying, we're lost.
52:55We can't win this war.
52:57These guys are going to beat us.
52:59Because that is how effective a weapon thought is.
53:11So, how do I reach the kid down the street?
53:16The American kid.
53:17The American kid.
53:18How do I tell him that he's riding his bike?
53:20And, hey, hey, you know what you've got in front of you?
53:25You've got this and this.
53:27How do I reach him?
53:30Thought hit me.
53:31Well, how did it reach me?
53:36They told me.
53:40So I said, aha, let's let the boys see only their stuff.
53:48We make nothing.
53:49We shoot nothing.
53:51We use their own stuff as propaganda for ourselves.
53:56Let them see.
53:57Let them see the guys.
53:59Let them see these guys.
54:03Stop thinking and follow me, cried Hitler.
54:06I will make you masters of the world.
54:08And the people answered,
54:10Heil Hitler!
54:12Heil Hitler!
54:14Stop thinking and believe in me, Bela Mussolini.
54:17And I will restore the glory that was wrong.
54:20And the people answered,
54:22Duce, Duce!
54:26Stop thinking and follow your god emperor,
54:29cried the Japanese warlords.
54:31And Japan will rule the world.
54:33And the people answered,
54:35Bonsai, Bonsai!
54:37Capra takes a route that is unique in propaganda,
54:43which is he makes it folksy.
54:46Take a good look at these humorless men.
54:48These were to be the rulers of the ruling race.
54:52Speaking for the little guy.
54:54See those guys?
54:56See the airs they put on?
54:58See how they think they are superior?
55:00Well, we're going to show them.
55:02We're going to show them wrong.
55:05Hitler looked like Charlie Chaplin.
55:07He came on, he wrote a story,
55:10and actually, you know,
55:12he was one of the Marx Brothers.
55:14For the people that saw him,
55:16a lot of people laughed.
55:18And when Mussolini did his big,
55:20you know, big stuff,
55:22well, he was a clown.
55:24It weren't so evil.
55:26If there weren't so many people getting killed,
55:29it was a comedy.
55:31It was a comedy.
55:49Well, I'd say we had an enormous story to tell.
55:53There I got the greatest heroes,
55:55the greatest villains
55:57on the world stage.
55:59Real.
56:01Not actors. Real.
56:06Truth was that if we lost,
56:09we'd lose our freedom, certainly.
56:11Above all.
56:14And I thought freedom was our most precious commodity.
56:19And if we lost our freedom,
56:21we'd lose everything.
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