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00:00:00When the five filmmakers got to Washington, D.C., they were thought of as myth-makers.
00:00:14They were making Hollywood movies, they were making stuff up.
00:00:17This was the real world, folks, this was the real war, and now we've got these Hollywood
00:00:21guys coming to tell us how to acquit the war or suggesting how they can make a contribution
00:00:26to the war effort?
00:00:28Well, how dare they?
00:00:31The relationship between the U.S. government and Hollywood was entirely unclear.
00:00:40No one had done this before.
00:00:44There had never been a situation where you could take Hollywood professionals and use
00:00:52them to help sell the war to the American people and to help win the war by building
00:01:00morale.
00:01:02And so they were really trying to figure out, what should those movies be?
00:01:22They were trying to figure out how to win the war, how to win the war for the American
00:01:38people.
00:01:39They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:40They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:41They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:42They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:43They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:44They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:45They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:46They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:47They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:48They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:49They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:52They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:53They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:54They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:55They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:56They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:57They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:58They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:01:59They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:00They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:01They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:02They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:03They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:04They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:05They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:06They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:07They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:08They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:09They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:10They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:11They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:12They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:13They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:14They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:15They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:16They were trying to figure out how to win the war for the American people.
00:02:37The idea of propaganda filmmaking is to propagate, to disseminate ideas.
00:02:55Each of the five men that we're talking about goes at it differently.
00:03:01You have John Ford, who approaches it at a mythical, epic scale.
00:03:08You have John Huston going at it almost like an adventure.
00:03:12Wyler and Stevens that approach it from an incredibly human point of view.
00:03:19And their experiences are different from Capra, who approaches it very much as a concept problem
00:03:26solving point of view.
00:03:28When the immensity of World War II comes in, he is given to a single sentiment, why
00:03:35we fight.
00:03:37From millions of feet of film confiscated from the enemy or donated by American film
00:03:42companies, these men are preparing pictures to set the war record straight and to counteract
00:03:47enemy propaganda.
00:03:48Scream your abuse.
00:03:49Shout your oppression.
00:03:50The world's wrong.
00:03:51You're right.
00:03:52If you shriek it loud enough and often enough, they'll believe you.
00:03:53One of the most brilliant ideas is for him to use iconic, simple, super clear animation
00:04:06created by Disney for everyone to read and see and understand.
00:04:14In the summer of 1942, the British Army was fighting to maintain its position against
00:04:19the Nazis in North Africa.
00:04:22The British Army of the Nile digs in after its withdrawal from Libya.
00:04:28And the U.S. launched its first military offensive against the Japanese with a surprise invasion
00:04:33of Guadalcanal.
00:04:34Off the hostile shore, American warships bombard the Japanese position.
00:04:40The attack takes the Japs by surprise, and this wave of Leathernecks encounters little
00:04:46resistance, swarming ashore.
00:04:49Special pictures made by the United States Marine Corps.
00:04:54In September, John Huston's last film before reporting for duty was released.
00:04:59You probably don't share my enthusiasm for the Japanese.
00:05:01I don't know.
00:05:02I never thought much about them.
00:05:04Across the Pacific is a kind of early propaganda Hollywood film against the new enemies we
00:05:11were going to be facing.
00:05:12You guys have been looking for a war, haven't you?
00:05:16That's right, Rick.
00:05:17That's why we're starting it.
00:05:18You may start it, Joe, but we'll finish it.
00:05:21While shooting across the Pacific, Huston lost track of his enlistment papers and suddenly
00:05:26realized he was due to report immediately to Washington.
00:05:30He was forced to let another director finish the film.
00:05:34He was married and having a bunch of affairs, and that whole mess in his mind is partly
00:05:39what made him escape to the Army and join the Army.
00:05:43The Army didn't trust Huston.
00:05:45A report called him capable and intelligent, but also self-centered with an odd personality.
00:05:52They put me behind a desk, and it was ghastly.
00:05:55It was terrible.
00:05:56What I wanted, you know, I wanted to be out with a camera in the field.
00:06:02Finally he received his first assignment, on a battlefront as out of the way as could
00:06:06be imagined.
00:06:08Eventually he was sent to this Aleutian outpost near the Bering Strait, which was the Japanese
00:06:15closest point to us.
00:06:19But it was a place where absolutely nothing was happening at all, and he was just there
00:06:24with these men, day after day after day, just living to get a letter from home or, you know,
00:06:32playing cards, and occasionally some bombers would come over and they would refuel them
00:06:37and they would go off.
00:06:40Well, I wasn't at all self-conscious about it.
00:06:43It didn't seem to me that making a documentary was really any different than making any other
00:06:48film.
00:06:51I suppose it was a somewhat different approach, in that the documentary, I allowed the material
00:06:57to reveal itself, and slowly the shape of the thing appeared.
00:07:09He had that great asset as a filmmaker, as he could always write a fantastic narration
00:07:14and he could record it, too.
00:07:16Bookkeepers, grocery clerks, college men, and dirt farmers, that is of course ex-dirt
00:07:22farmers, ex-bookkeepers, ex-college men, soldiers now, as though all their lives they'd been
00:07:28nothing but.
00:07:31Despite the monotony at the base, Houston soon came face-to-face with the terror of
00:07:35war.
00:07:39On an aerial bombing run, he saw a gunner shot dead in front of him.
00:07:50By the way, it was to be a propaganda film, and I'm afraid there are elements of that
00:07:56that show in Report from the Illusions.
00:07:59There was a little bit of a hurrah in it, where we were cheering our own boys on, as
00:08:07it were.
00:08:08Our bombs found the target.
00:08:12There were planes lost on that mission, but the War Department wanted it to be a completely
00:08:17successful mission.
00:08:19Nine bombers came out, and nine are going home.
00:08:31Audiences were very used to a sterilized Hollywood war.
00:08:36Listen, Dale, this is your first time up.
00:08:38Don't try to win this war all by yourself.
00:08:40You know, with John Wayne, and where the war is secondary to the heroes who are fighting
00:08:45it.
00:08:48And so we see bloodless combat, and it's exciting, but it is nothing like the real
00:08:55thing.
00:08:56Look, Captain.
00:08:57Lookie.
00:08:58Wham, wham.
00:08:59Termites.
00:09:00Hollywood made a lot of movies about the war.
00:09:11Air Force, the fighting Seabees, they were basically made to get people to get out of
00:09:17their seats and write a check.
00:09:23Calling all Americans.
00:09:25Calling all Americans to buy war bonds and stamps.
00:09:28The motion picture industry mobilizing America's 100 million moviegoers into a regular bond
00:09:33and stamp buying army.
00:09:36The esprit de corps after Pearl Harbor of wanting to be part of this, and wanting to
00:09:43be an American, not a movie star.
00:09:46James Stewart, winner of top film honors for 1940, volunteers for his greatest role, not
00:09:52private in Uncle Sam's army.
00:09:54Is something that we forget.
00:09:57We forget the fact that Clark Gable, and Jimmy Stewart, and many actors, they flew missions.
00:10:05In the heart of Hollywood, Betty Davis spearheaded the opening of a popular nightclub for enlisted
00:10:10men.
00:10:11Manhattan Heights can brag of lights, and Boston has its beams, but on the coast we
00:10:18proudly boast about the Hollywood Canteen.
00:10:23John Ford's wife, Mary, often helped out at the canteen while her husband was away.
00:10:34Although the armed forces were still segregated, the Hollywood Canteen welcomed servicemen
00:10:39of all races, a rarity at the time.
00:10:45Shortly after Pearl Harbor, a poll revealed that half the residents of Harlem believed
00:10:50that they would be no worse off if Japan won the war.
00:10:57Their morale became a subject of great concern for the War Department.
00:11:05Capra wanted to prove that this was not just a white man's war, and that all Americans
00:11:11needed to be involved.
00:11:14Capra proposed what he called a Negro war effort film.
00:11:19William Wyler, eager for his first assignment, signed on enthusiastically.
00:11:24And they knew very early on that used in the right way, a film could influence just scores
00:11:31of Americans.
00:11:34Wyler recruited an African American playwright named Carlton Moss to write the film, and
00:11:39the two men embarked on a research tour of Southern military bases.
00:11:54Wyler was appalled, both by the way Moss was treated, and by the racism that the black
00:12:00servicemen he met routinely faced.
00:12:03In Georgia, a group of black soldiers told him of living in fear of attacks from nearby
00:12:08townspeople and the Ku Klux Klan.
00:12:13Wyler received guidelines, not from Capra, but from the War Department directly, about
00:12:18how to depict African American soldiers, including, play down officers most Negroid in appearance.
00:12:26Omit all references to Lincoln, race leaders, or friends of the Negro.
00:12:32Wyler wanted no part in making a film that would perpetuate this kind of racism.
00:12:37When he got to Washington, he told Capra he was out.
00:12:44At a party in the capital, Wyler met the commander of the Army Air Forces, and asked for a filmmaking
00:12:49assignment.
00:12:52He was made a major the next day, and sent to England.
00:12:57In London, tensions between the two allies were running high.
00:13:02The British were frustrated that the American effort had been focused on the Pacific front,
00:13:07and not on helping them in Europe and Africa.
00:13:11When Wyler arrived in London, he ended up in the same hotel as John Ford.
00:13:16Wyler was struggling to navigate Army bureaucracy, to get equipment and crew, and was being ignored.
00:13:24He saw the ease with which Ford was able to get what he wanted, and approached him for
00:13:28help.
00:13:31Ford didn't help Wyler in London when they were in London during the war.
00:13:35What he should have done, that was the petty side of Ford.
00:13:39For a great man, he did have his petty side.
00:13:45Ford had been sent to England on his first assignment after Midway, to prepare to film
00:13:49the Allied invasion of North Africa.
00:13:51It would be the first crossed-Atlantic military operation of American troops in the war.
00:13:56Bear in mind, that was very, very important for Britain.
00:14:00Here we were, small island, we'd been penned back, we'd fought on our own for a long time.
00:14:06The Americans and the British each had filmmaking units working independently.
00:14:13Ford arrived in Algiers with a crew of Navy filmmakers, but once on the ground, he learned
00:14:18he was no longer in charge.
00:14:19Daryl Zanuck, his old boss at Fox, was now Colonel Daryl Zanuck, his commanding officer,
00:14:26and was overseeing the entire American filmmaking effort in Africa.
00:14:30Ford's relationship with Zanuck was love-hate-hate-hate, love-love.
00:14:36When Ford was among fighting men, he just tried to blend in.
00:14:40In the field, he wanted no special treatment.
00:14:43But Zanuck had his own car, his own entourage, his own rules.
00:14:48His short stature and autocratic manner had soldiers derisively referring to him as the
00:14:53littlest colonel.
00:14:55Ford couldn't wait to get away from Zanuck's control.
00:14:59Ford and his men moved as quickly as they could toward the front lines and away from
00:15:03Zanuck.
00:15:04In Tunisia, they found themselves in the middle of a firefight, taking cover from German tanks
00:15:12and dive bombers.
00:15:21When Zanuck finally caught up, he insisted on pulling Ford and his troops back, away
00:15:26from danger.
00:15:29As the Allies dug in, meeting heavy resistance from Axis forces in Tunisia, Ford and his
00:15:36men had to turn over all their footage to Zanuck.
00:15:40But Ford was skeptical about Zanuck's ability to make a compelling war documentary.
00:15:49In Hollywood, Capra was securing more studio space for his expanding program of war films.
00:15:55We had installed ourselves at Western Avenue.
00:15:59But we couldn't get any furniture, so we stole it.
00:16:03I went to Columbia Studio to steal a table.
00:16:08George Stevens was just coming out of the stage, and he comes by and I'm in uniform
00:16:12and he sees me.
00:16:14And he comes over and he says, how about me coming in with you?
00:16:19And I said, you just come right over there to Western Avenue and you'll be in the Army.
00:16:28The last film that I did in 1942 before I went to the Army was a comedy called The More
00:16:35the Merrier.
00:16:44Stevens, who was very good at a lot of light entertainment, felt that the war was something
00:16:53substantial that he could get involved in.
00:16:56Stevens told his boss at Columbia, Harry Cohn, that as soon as he finished editing The More
00:17:01the Merrier, he was joining up.
00:17:03Cohn warned him not to go, telling him he risked losing his place among Hollywood's
00:17:08top directors.
00:17:09Here are the keys.
00:17:10Where are you going?
00:17:11Back to California?
00:17:12No.
00:17:13Africa.
00:17:14You know, I'd gone so far with this business of films, and so I just retired.
00:17:25I had a deal with the Army to go right to Africa where the war was.
00:17:32I had no certainty that I was going to pick up again.
00:17:35Everybody said, if you do, you're going to be out of it for three years or longer.
00:17:41That might be it as far as filmmaking is concerned, if you're lucky enough not to get hurt there.
00:17:48Leaving his wife and 10-year-old son was the hardest thing for him.
00:17:51He shipped out with only his camera, a small crew, and vague orders.
00:17:57From Washington, Stevens, now a major, flew to Miami, then to British Guiana, then to
00:18:03Brazil, then to Nigeria.
00:18:05He ended up on an Army puddle jumper bound for Cairo.
00:18:14I believe that of these five directors, Stevens's experience in the war was the most intense,
00:18:21the most life-changing, and in some ways, the most impactful for history.
00:18:28His route to get there was incredibly circuitous, difficult, and Stevens suffered from asthma.
00:18:36He was sometimes laid up.
00:18:37He couldn't even move.
00:18:39So he had struggled to get over here.
00:18:41Physically, he's suffering.
00:18:44In Egypt, Stevens sat with hundreds of GIs as they watched a two-year-old Betty Grable
00:18:49movie.
00:18:50He saw the power of film, even a lowbrow genre picture, to bring people home and stir emotions
00:18:56as he never had before.
00:19:02He kept moving through Tripoli and Benghazi, getting closer to the front.
00:19:06Finally, he reached Algiers, ready to become a war filmmaker at last.
00:19:15When he stepped off the plane, he learned that there was no war to film.
00:19:19Alger's army had been badly beaten and was one day from surrendering.
00:19:23The campaign was over.
00:19:25He was too late.
00:19:30That day, his diary entry was just three words, this damn war.
00:19:36Tunis, capital of Tunisia.
00:19:47Tunis, great milestone in the Allied liberation of North Africa.
00:19:51Thousands upon thousands of Italian and German troops lay down their arms and surrender.
00:19:55The battle of North Africa, which has cost the Axis some 400,000 men in dead, wounded,
00:20:01and prisoners, is over.
00:20:03The victory is won.
00:20:05And now the victorious Allied leaders look eagerly across the Mediterranean to the shores
00:20:09of Hitler's fortress Europe.
00:20:13As Frank Capra continued to work on the Why We Fight films, his ambitions were growing.
00:20:19Capra's first installment had been an instant hit with the new army recruits it was made
00:20:23for.
00:20:24The success of Prelude to War internally is so great that Capra wants the film to be shown,
00:20:33to reach the masses.
00:20:36Capra needed approval from Lowell Mellet, who had been appointed by Roosevelt to oversee
00:20:40the Hollywood war filmmaking effort.
00:20:43But Mellet strongly opposed showing Prelude to War to the general public.
00:20:47Yes, that was Mr. Mellet, he thought, it's too gruesome, the American people should not
00:20:53see this picture, they'll hate the Germans from there on, then we never can be friends
00:20:58again.
00:20:59Did you want people to hate?
00:21:03No, I didn't want people to hate, I wanted to knock off people that hated, I wanted to
00:21:09stop that hatred.
00:21:11And you couldn't stop that hatred unless you stopped it, and you weren't going to stop
00:21:16it with candy bars.
00:21:19That year, the Motion Picture Academy announced the debut of a new category, Best Documentary
00:21:24Feature.
00:21:27Capra went around Mellet and secretly screened Prelude to War for Academy members, qualifying
00:21:32it for the Oscars.
00:21:34Look, if you can survive the politics of Hollywood, you can basically survive any political arena.
00:21:43Spurred on by the enormous success of the Battle of Midway in theaters, Ford screened
00:21:48his own film for the Academy's president, and suggested that he expand the new category.
00:21:54Ford wanted the Oscars, and personally lobbied to get it.
00:22:00Capra has this competition with Ford in a way, and I think the competition was seen
00:22:05by Capra with Ford being a quintessential American filmmaker, and him being the little
00:22:12guy that needs to prove his worth with less resources, less time.
00:22:19Ford was very interested in glory, very competitive with his peers, you know, Capra and Weiler
00:22:25and all the other guys.
00:22:27Well, I mean, he was a glory hound, was Ford.
00:22:30I mean, he used to make a tremendous song and dance about not going to the Oscars, and,
00:22:34you know, oh, directing's just a job of work, and I have no interest in it.
00:22:39I never cared that much, just a job of work, like the man digging the ditch.
00:22:47Well, that's all, you know, to use his phrase, a crock of shit.
00:22:56Once a year, Hollywood honors its brightest stars.
00:22:59Tonight, they also salute the 27,000 men of the cinema industry now serving in the armed
00:23:04forces.
00:23:05I'm very happy to be here, ladies and gentlemen, once again on the stand.
00:23:14So close, and yet so far.
00:23:19Twenty-five documentaries were nominated, and four took home Oscars.
00:23:23Both Battle of Midway and Prelude to War were winners.
00:23:27At the ceremony, Mellett gave a speech to reassure the studios that the government would
00:23:31not try to insert propaganda into their movies.
00:23:35This government is engaged in a war to save and perpetuate democracy, not in a war to
00:23:44destroy it.
00:23:46So the government is not going into the motion picture business.
00:23:59After Prelude to War won, Mellett gave in to pressure to release Capra's film publicly.
00:24:05It was a box office flop.
00:24:09Audiences were now hungry for the latest images from the front, not a film detailing the history
00:24:13leading up to the war.
00:24:25In May 1943, Allied forces recaptured the last of the Japanese bases in the Aleutians.
00:24:31The victory brought renewed focus from the Army on Houston's just-completed Report from
00:24:48the Aleutians.
00:24:49Houston's cut of the film was over 40 minutes, more than twice the length Lowell Mellett
00:24:55wanted.
00:24:57These were filmmakers who wanted to do a piece of work, and the Army wanted a short 20-minute
00:25:01film that they could show before the cartoon and the coming attractions.
00:25:08There was always going to be a struggle between administrators and directors of this level
00:25:15pouring their hearts into the work.
00:25:18After being stymied by Mellett, Houston decided to go directly to the press in New York.
00:25:23When newspapers began running stories about the government withholding Houston's film,
00:25:27the Army was left with no choice but to release it at full length.
00:25:32They used the same tactics to get what they felt was best for the picture with the military
00:25:38and their representatives that they had been using with the studio bosses.
00:25:42But Mellett had been right.
00:25:44The long running time meant Report from the Aleutians couldn't play before Hollywood features.
00:25:50Released as a main attraction, it failed to interest audiences.
00:25:58From North Africa, a former Hollywood producer, Colonel Daryl Zanuck, has brought an official
00:26:02film record of frontline action.
00:26:05Zanuck's film about the North African campaign was finally released in theaters, to withering
00:26:11reviews.
00:26:14Needlework.
00:26:17Zanuck had turned it into a blatant exercise in self-promotion, even releasing a book about
00:26:23his experience.
00:26:24His behavior caused many in Congress to question the use of Hollywood talent in the war filmmaking
00:26:30effort.
00:26:31The Americans out there were not prepared and they didn't have the material.
00:26:35By contrast, when the British documentary about the North African campaign, Desert Victory,
00:26:41was screened in the U.S., audiences and critics were astonished.
00:26:48The British were pretty sophisticated at understanding the role of cinema in building morale and
00:26:54propaganda.
00:26:59Desert Victory not only made the American filmmaking effort in the war seem amateurish
00:27:04by comparison, it also created the impression that the British were winning the war in Africa
00:27:09single-handedly.
00:27:13You'd have not only talented Hollywood movie directors who didn't really know what they
00:27:18were doing in this case, and you have military leaders who had never made films, and you
00:27:26have political people who are funding all this, and they're not sure what's the best
00:27:32way to help the war effort.
00:27:33So you have a lot of people who don't really know exactly what to do.
00:27:40The War Department felt that Desert Victory could not go unanswered.
00:27:46So the Army turned to Capra to make another film about North Africa to be called Tunisian
00:27:51Victory.
00:27:53Faced with making a compelling film without any good footage to work with, Capra decided
00:27:59to simply restage it.
00:28:02There was a lot of manipulation of these films because events didn't allow them to shoot
00:28:08what they wanted.
00:28:09So they would go back and dramatize it.
00:28:13Stevens was still in Algiers when he received orders to take a crew, drive tanks through
00:28:18villages that had already been liberated, and shell them again, this time for the cameras.
00:28:26What Stevens asked to do he thinks is inherently dishonest.
00:28:33He doesn't rebel.
00:28:34He does the work that he's supposed to do, but I think it impacted everything else that
00:28:40happened to him in the rest of the war.
00:28:46Capra then turned to Houston, sending him to shoot staged aerial combat in the Mojave
00:28:51Desert and Orlando, Florida.
00:28:57Houston followed Capra's orders, but he knew the recreations were unconvincing.
00:29:03Houston thought it was terrible.
00:29:05He was beside himself.
00:29:08In England, a sequel to Desert Victory was already underway.
00:29:14So the Army sent Capra and Houston to London with orders to convince the British to join
00:29:19them, combining all their footage into one joint production.
00:29:23But then when they saw some of the work of the British film units, this was real filmmaking.
00:29:31Houston grew disheartened with what his war service was becoming.
00:29:34He felt he'd been part of a plot to take a strong British film and destroy it.
00:29:42This was Capra's first and only major wartime assignment outside of the United States.
00:29:51One night, the air raid siren sounded, and he and Houston had to evacuate their rooms.
00:29:59That night, Capra wrote, the war lost its glamour for me.
00:30:04Old ladies and children cower in the hallways.
00:30:07I was scared, but I was more sick at the thought of them being mangled.
00:30:13How far has man gone mad?
00:30:19After several months of tense negotiations and re-editing, Capra convinced the British
00:30:23Army film unit to approve a joint film emphasizing Allied cooperation.
00:30:29On both sides of the Atlantic, the effort was tremendous.
00:30:33Guns, trucks, aircraft, petrol, water, food, barbed wire, locomotive.
00:30:42Of ammunition alone, we shipped 520 different kinds.
00:30:49By the time Tunisian Victory was released theatrically, the film had been condemned
00:30:53in a harsh internal Army report that accused it of attempting to re-enact the war on a
00:30:58Hollywood scale.
00:31:01It was another box office flop.
00:31:07In England, Wyler felt hopelessly stalled.
00:31:10Then Mrs. Miniver opened in London.
00:31:13It was a moment Wyler had been dreading since he got there.
00:31:18They got over to England, and he saw really what was happening.
00:31:20He thought he had been too soft in his own movie, Mrs. Miniver.
00:31:24It has just been announced over the air by the Prime Minister that our country is at
00:31:31war.
00:31:33But British audiences loved it.
00:31:36Suddenly Wyler was a celebrity in London and within the Army.
00:31:41He was finally able to get the assignment he'd been longing for.
00:31:44He'd make a film about the crew of a bomber flying its 25th mission, a milestone after
00:31:50which they could go home.
00:31:52This is the crew of the Memphis Belle, 324th Squadron, 91st Heavy Bombardment Group.
00:32:00Wyler was urged by colleagues to fake it using miniatures, but he refused.
00:32:05He took flight training courses to be able to film on the actual bombing missions over
00:32:10Germany.
00:32:20The group commander, Colonel Stanley Ray, steps up to the target map, and for the first
00:32:24time you learn where you're going.
00:32:27Sometimes your face turns white when you find out.
00:32:31Sometimes the feeling you won't come back tightens your insides.
00:32:34The job is to bomb Wilhelmshaven effectively and economically.
00:32:38The enemy is strong, skillful, determined to stop us.
00:32:42One day a reporter for the Army magazine Stars and Stripes arrived to photograph Wyler.
00:32:48When he asked why, the reporter told him that he'd won an Academy Award.
00:32:51Well, I'll be damned, said Wyler.
00:33:01Mrs. Miniver won six Oscars, including Best Picture and Wyler's first award for Best
00:33:06Director.
00:33:09Wyler's wife, Tally, accepted on his behalf from Frank Capra.
00:33:12Thanks so much, everybody.
00:33:16It makes me very happy to accept the award for Willie.
00:33:19I wish he could be here.
00:33:20He's wanted an Oscar for a long time.
00:33:22I know it would thrill him an awful lot to be here, probably as much as that fight over
00:33:27Wilhelmshaven did.
00:33:30The fact that he wouldn't allow himself to be misled into stylizing the war.
00:33:39And I think when Wyler got overseas, and he got up in a B-17, and he started doing sorties
00:33:44with that crew, I think he was dedicated to not sparing us anything.
00:33:50The wheels of the Memphis Bell leave the soil of England for the 25th time.
00:33:56The friendly soil of England, with its ordered farms and rural hamlets, its country estates
00:34:02surrounded by formal gardens and well-kept parks, the England these Americans knew only
00:34:08from the classics they had to read in school.
00:34:11Higher and higher, climbing to reach your best operational altitude, 25,000 feet, five
00:34:20miles straight up, so high you can't be seen from the ground with a naked eye, so high
00:34:26that after one minute without oxygen, you lose consciousness.
00:34:29After 20 minutes, you're dead.
00:34:33He went on these missions to show what the air war was like.
00:34:38And to show how young these kids were, that went up in these tuna fish camps, where there
00:34:44was no air and it was freezing cold.
00:34:46You look out at the strange world beyond, reflections in plexiglass, like nothing you
00:34:51ever saw before, outside of a dream.
00:34:57And there was monotony and terror, and then terror and monotony, so interchangeable during
00:35:03any aspect of war.
00:35:05Morgan changes course every 15 seconds, evasive action to confuse the flak batteries.
00:35:12Bombsites set for correct altitude and speed.
00:35:15Bombay doors open, crosshairs lined up on target, adjustments for wind drift made.
00:35:23Two more fighters diving from 9 o'clock.
00:35:26They've hit this fort, but he keeps on his bombing run.
00:35:35Bombs away.
00:35:45If the plane was knocked out and Willie parachuted to safety, why, he wouldn't be a court of
00:35:52the same treatment as other fliers.
00:35:58They were afraid of Weiler being shot down over Germany.
00:36:02He would not be treated as a POW.
00:36:05As a Jew, his fate would be sealed.
00:36:09The first half of the mission is over, the easy half.
00:36:12Now to get home.
00:36:14Fighters at 6 o'clock.
00:36:16This is what a gunner sees, a speck in the sky.
00:36:19That's a fighter.
00:36:20And then a blink.
00:36:21That means he's firing at you.
00:36:222,300 rounds a minute.
00:36:25Checking B-17, Chuck.
00:36:273 o'clock.
00:36:28Loader's smoking.
00:36:29Fighter's 10-30.
00:36:30You know, what really strikes me in that film, in Memphis Belle, is showing other B-17s
00:36:35being shot down.
00:36:37And in particular, that one B-17 that was making that slow spiral down from the sky.
00:36:43B-17 out of control at 3 o'clock.
00:36:51Come on, you got it.
00:36:53Come on, you guys.
00:36:54Get out of that plane.
00:36:55Bail out.
00:36:56There's one.
00:36:57He come out of the bomb bay.
00:36:58Yeah, I see him.
00:36:59There's a tail gunner coming out.
00:37:00Where they were counting how many parachutes were opening,
00:37:04how many of the crew got out,
00:37:06how many of those 10 survived.
00:37:09That's one of the most stunning things I've ever seen.
00:37:12Eight men still in that B-17.
00:37:14Come on, the rest of you guys.
00:37:24During a mission, one of Wyler's cameramen, Harold Tannenbaum, was killed
00:37:30when the B-17 he was filming in was shot down.
00:37:47Somewhere in England, the crew of a battle-scarred American flying fortress,
00:37:51the Memphis Belle, departs for home.
00:37:54Flying with a new wing and a patched-up tail,
00:37:57the Memphis Belle arrives in Washington right on schedule.
00:38:01On the 25th mission, the Memphis Belle crew rotated out of combat,
00:38:06and they went back to America.
00:38:08And then, Wyler recorded all of their voices.
00:38:12There's four of them.
00:38:13One o'clock high.
00:38:14They're coming around.
00:38:15Watch.
00:38:17Two fighters, six o'clock up, coming in.
00:38:21B-17 trouble out of two o'clock.
00:38:23Watch it.
00:38:24Engine on fire.
00:38:27The War Department worried that the movie was too realistic.
00:38:31Some were offended by its rough language.
00:38:34I'm on him.
00:38:35Come on, you son of a bitch.
00:38:38Others complained that showing fighters taking evasive action
00:38:41made them look scared.
00:38:43But Wyler fought them all the way up the chain of command and won.
00:38:49He just wanted everything to reflect his experience
00:38:53and the experience of those young men that he got to know and love so much.
00:39:02And then when the audiences saw Memphis Belle,
00:39:05it meant so much to America.
00:39:08Memphis Belle was a huge success with audiences and critics,
00:39:12becoming the first movie in history
00:39:14to be reviewed on the front page of The New York Times.
00:39:21As General Aker read the order for what he called
00:39:23their 26th and most important mission,
00:39:26return to America to train new crews
00:39:29and to tell the people what we're doing here,
00:39:31to thank them for their help and support,
00:39:34and tell them to keep it up so we can keep it up.
00:39:37Wyler was an American film-making hero again.
00:39:41But he almost missed the opening of his own movie.
00:39:45In Washington, he was leaving a hotel
00:39:47when he heard a doorman call a taxi passenger a goddamn Jew.
00:39:52Wyler punched him in the face.
00:39:55The next day, he was arrested and charged with conduct of war.
00:40:01The next day, he was arrested
00:40:03and charged with conduct unbecoming of an officer.
00:40:06Wyler explained that the doorman's language
00:40:09was why he joined the war effort in the first place.
00:40:13The army told him he could take a reprimand or face a court-martial.
00:40:18Reluctantly, he took the reprimand.
00:40:24Despite the box office failures of Prelude to War and Tunisian Victory,
00:40:29Capra's reputation within the army continued to grow.
00:40:33He was now working closely with director Anatole Litvak
00:40:36on the fifth and greatest of the Why We Fight films,
00:40:40The Battle of Russia.
00:40:42While Capra and Litvak worked on the film,
00:40:45the Red Army started pushing back the Nazis at Stalingrad
00:40:49in one of the costliest battles of the war.
00:40:53For the first time since the mighty German army
00:40:57started its career of blitz,
00:40:59smashing into submission one European country after the other,
00:41:03that same German army came up against a country
00:41:06that did not submit.
00:41:09Though it had been made as a training film,
00:41:12The Battle of Russia was so well regarded
00:41:15that Capra received permission to release it theatrically.
00:41:18One reviewer called it the best and most important war film
00:41:22ever assembled in this country.
00:41:25Capra was also turning out biweekly newsreels,
00:41:28shorts, and training films for troops at the front.
00:41:31Screen magazines showing the soldier what's happening on the home front.
00:41:36GI movies made strictly for his entertainment.
00:41:41In the entire canon of the war films that are done under Capra,
00:41:46one of the most fascinating things that is created is Private Snafu.
00:41:51I just learned a secret. It's a honey, it's a pip.
00:41:55But the enemy is listening, so I'll never let it slip.
00:41:58It was first and foremost an entertainment tool,
00:42:01but it also drove home in a very underhanded way with humor
00:42:06the vital principles of soldiering and living through the war.
00:42:12And Capra creates salacious, funny, raunchy,
00:42:18incredibly accessible cartoons
00:42:21that really connected and resonated with the average soldier.
00:42:27Snafu. Situation normal.
00:42:30All... all fouled up.
00:42:35Because the cartoons were intended only for troops,
00:42:38Capra was able to include crude, racy material
00:42:41that would never have made it past Hollywood's censors.
00:42:45It's so cold it would freeze the nuts off a Jeep.
00:42:50Capra recruited an all-star team of writers, animators, and voice actors.
00:42:56To work on scripts for the shorts,
00:42:58he enlisted an editorial cartoonist named Theodore Geisel,
00:43:02better known as Dr. Seuss.
00:43:06For the final animation,
00:43:08the competition was between Disney and Warner Bros. for the job.
00:43:13Capra goes to the more populist, street-level humor of Warner Bros.
00:43:19Hey, what's up, Jack?
00:43:22And he gets Chuck Jones and Fritz Freeling, Boys by Mel Blanc.
00:43:26Stick him up or I'll blow your brains out!
00:43:30What a rifle!
00:43:32Camarade!
00:43:34There was a notable difference
00:43:36in the way Germans were depicted in Hollywood and in propaganda films
00:43:40and in the way the Japanese were depicted.
00:43:49Even the German portrayal is somewhat human.
00:43:53The enemy is Hitler.
00:43:56The enemy is Hitler, not the German race per se.
00:44:01But Japan as a whole is viewed as a colony of ants,
00:44:07equally pernicious one or the other.
00:44:10The Japanese were often referred to as rats or monkeys
00:44:15and caricatured with buck teeth and bad vision.
00:44:20In 1942, under the authorization of FDR,
00:44:24the U.S. government ordered over 100,000 Japanese Americans
00:44:28to report for relocation to internment camps.
00:44:32We knew that some among them were potentially dangerous.
00:44:36Most were loyal.
00:44:38But no one knew what would happen among this concentrated population
00:44:42if Japanese forces should try to invade our shores.
00:44:46Military authorities therefore determined that all of them,
00:44:49citizens and aliens alike, would have to move.
00:44:58The government was planning to eventually relocate
00:45:01these interned Japanese Americans to small towns throughout the country.
00:45:05But the War Department was concerned
00:45:08that if the Japanese were consistently depicted as inhuman monsters,
00:45:12no town would accept them.
00:45:15And that prompt Millet to very, very pointedly say,
00:45:21I am not only concerned with these films helping us survive the war,
00:45:26I'm really concerned with us being able to survive as a democracy
00:45:31because of how incredibly polarizing
00:45:35some of these notions are becoming.
00:45:38John Ford found himself unable to accept this.
00:45:42John Ford found himself unexpectedly confronting this issue head-on.
00:45:47I think he then faced a real challenge, actually,
00:45:50which was a challenge I don't think he'd foreseen.
00:45:52And the challenge was this.
00:45:54If you've organized the production,
00:45:56which is effectively what he'd done by setting up Field Photo,
00:46:01you've almost inevitably become a producer, not a director.
00:46:05And this came home to him very, very clearly
00:46:08when he went off to see Toland's movie about Pearl Harbor.
00:46:14Immediately after Pearl Harbor, Ford had been sent to Hawaii
00:46:18to supervise the production of a film
00:46:20about the rebuilding of the Pacific Fleet.
00:46:23Ford assigned the project to Greg Toland,
00:46:26his cinematographer on The Grapes of Wrath.
00:46:29Toland was one of the most sought-after cinematographers in Hollywood,
00:46:33just as he had cemented with his work on Citizen Kane two years earlier.
00:46:38Ford knew that Toland wanted to direct,
00:46:41and I think he believed that he could,
00:46:43and he went out of his way to make it possible.
00:46:47Well, of course, when Ford got out there some months later,
00:46:50what he found was that far from Toland making, you know,
00:46:53effectively a small documentary film about what had happened
00:46:57and the aftermath and the destruction and the rebuilding and all the rest of it,
00:47:01what Toland was actually doing was making a full-on movie.
00:47:07Toland's feature-length film made extensive use of recreations and miniatures.
00:47:14He had cast Walter Houston as Uncle Sam
00:47:17and angrily indicted the United States as a sleeping giant
00:47:21that had failed to see Pearl Harbor coming.
00:47:25The film also was full of the anti-Japanese racism
00:47:28that Lowell Mellott was working to avoid.
00:47:32Toland exploited that and made that a big part of it,
00:47:36the sort of racial stereotyping.
00:47:38Watch out, U.S.
00:47:40Someday one of these incompetent, stupid little children of the Orient
00:47:44will choose you, and when they get ready to square off,
00:47:48they won't worry about offending you.
00:47:50They'll pick their time and their method,
00:47:53and they'll come over here and blow that bastion of military might
00:47:56behind which you sleep so easily into smithereens.
00:48:00The War Department was furious at Toland and at Ford.
00:48:04It had happened on his watch.
00:48:07They told him to fix it.
00:48:10Ford realized that in a time of war,
00:48:13what the American public wanted was to understand
00:48:17and have unmediated their sense of reality of this conflict.
00:48:23And what that film had done
00:48:26was to try and create this kind of Hollywood,
00:48:30semi-fictional mishmash, and it didn't play.
00:48:34And what Ford did was what he did with his scripts.
00:48:37You know, Ford was famous for taking a script, you know,
00:48:41and just gutting it, filleting it,
00:48:43taking out the flam, the flim, and getting to the core of it,
00:48:47the essence of it, and that's what he did.
00:48:50That's what he did.
00:48:51Cut it in half and made it truthful.
00:48:542,343 officers and enlisted men of our Army, Navy, and Marine Corps
00:49:01gave their young lives in the service of our country.
00:49:04In a section Ford shaped to honor the fallen soldiers of the attack,
00:49:08he chose to spotlight a diverse selection of men.
00:49:12I am Antonio S. DeFoya, United States Army.
00:49:16My father and mother are Mr. and Mrs. Jesus A. DeFoya.
00:49:27How does it happen that all of you sound and talk alike?
00:49:31We are all alike.
00:49:33We're all Americans.
00:49:37Ford salvaged the film,
00:49:40recutting it as the half-hour documentary
00:49:43about the rebuilding of the fleet that was originally intended.
00:49:47But field photo was placed under much heavier scrutiny,
00:49:51and Ford was unsure if he'd be sent on another assignment.
00:49:58You know, Capra never gave up on projects,
00:50:00and one of the projects that he felt was urgent to not give up on
00:50:05was the film The Negro Soldier.
00:50:08After Weiler walked away from The Negro Soldier,
00:50:11Capra had reassigned the project to a different director,
00:50:14but kept its original writer, Carlton Moss.
00:50:18As they go along, I think Moss becomes the backbone of the project.
00:50:25He brings not only a perspective that is needed,
00:50:29but also a commitment to the subject,
00:50:32defending what he thinks is important for the film to embody.
00:50:38When The Negro Soldier was first shown,
00:50:40there was great concern in the black community
00:50:42that it would be nothing more than a reinforcement
00:50:45of the stereotypes and clichés
00:50:47that were pervasive in Hollywood films of the time.
00:50:50Moss addressed the audience directly,
00:50:52casting himself as the preacher
00:50:54who serves as the film's primary narrator.
00:50:58The gospel according to Hitler.
00:51:01I'm not going to read all of this,
00:51:04but there are one or two things in this book that will interest you.
00:51:08I quote.
00:51:10From time to time, the illustrated papers
00:51:13show how a Negro has become a lawyer,
00:51:16a teacher, perhaps even a minister.
00:51:20It never dawns on the degenerate middle-class America
00:51:23that this is truly a sin against all reason,
00:51:27that it is criminal madness to train a born half-ape
00:51:31until one believes one has made a lawyer of him.
00:51:36This book was written 20 years ago.
00:51:40The plan which it foreshadowed has become a reality.
00:51:45Audiences saw a portrait of black America
00:51:48that no mainstream movie had ever attempted.
00:51:51The film was given a wide theatrical release
00:51:54in both black and white markets.
00:51:56The writer and poet Langston Hughes praised the film,
00:52:00calling it distinctly and thrillingly worthwhile.
00:52:03Because of Moss's conviction and Capra's insistence,
00:52:07the film becomes one of the most successful American propaganda films,
00:52:12not only gaining good reviews,
00:52:15but being praised as a worthy and powerful film.
00:52:22In the Pacific, the Allies continued to push their offensive towards Japan.
00:52:27The most difficult, the most dangerous of all military operations achieved.
00:52:31Victory at Tarawa stands as a dramatic symbol
00:52:34of the growing offensive power of the United Nations in the Pacific.
00:52:38An official War Department short documentary
00:52:41about the taking of Tarawa marked a turning point
00:52:44for the American filmmaking effort.
00:52:51Made with on-the-ground footage shot during the battle,
00:52:55it was also the first American war film
00:52:58to show the bodies of dead U.S. soldiers.
00:53:02These are Marine dead.
00:53:07This is the price we have to pay for a war we didn't want.
00:53:15Capra wanted to make a film that was as vivid and realistic
00:53:18about the war in Europe,
00:53:20something that would show homefront audiences
00:53:23that the course of the war was changing.
00:53:29In September 1943, the Allies began an invasion of Europe,
00:53:33landing in southern Italy.
00:53:37Allied troops entering a town just taken from the Nazis
00:53:40are alert for lurking snipers.
00:53:46Capra wanted to show an Italian town being liberated
00:53:50and the people coming out and welcoming the soldiers.
00:53:53Eager to move on from their work in London,
00:53:56Capra assigned the project to John Houston.
00:53:59From England, I was sent to Italy.
00:54:03We got to the threshold of Leary Valley,
00:54:07which was defended by the little town of San Pietro.
00:54:12The rain had just fallen,
00:54:15and everything looking very bright,
00:54:18and the sun had come out after the rain.
00:54:21It was quite a day.
00:54:24There were numbers of dead.
00:54:29Men dead behind their machine guns.
00:54:34The town they were going to do this, San Pietro,
00:54:37had been bombed to hell.
00:54:39There was hardly anything left.
00:54:41The people were hiding.
00:54:43They were in caves and what have you.
00:54:45The battle had ended a few days before Houston's arrival.
00:54:48So Houston and his team decided
00:54:51to do this whole fake liberation
00:54:54of a town that was already a rubble.
00:55:05With the full resources of the U.S. Army,
00:55:08including equipment and battle reports at his disposal,
00:55:12Houston meticulously recreated the entire three-day siege.
00:55:17EXPLOSIONS
00:55:20Houston was extremely ingenious
00:55:23in the way he decided to simulate
00:55:27all of what it would be like if the footage was real.
00:55:31Cameras getting knocked apart and going out of focus
00:55:35and using all that stuff.
00:55:37EXPLOSIONS
00:55:39The way he would shake the camera
00:55:42and he would have even instruct the soldiers
00:55:46as they walk into the assembly
00:55:49to kind of glance at the guy shooting the camera.
00:55:53In other words, in staged material,
00:55:55you might think a movie director would say,
00:55:58okay, just go in, don't look at the camera.
00:56:00But Houston was so smart,
00:56:02he knew that in a real combat situation,
00:56:04the young guys would look at the cameraman who was sitting there.
00:56:08So he had them do it.
00:56:10To break the deadlock,
00:56:11orders were given for a coordinated divisional attack.
00:56:15EXPLOSIONS
00:56:22Had largely to do with the 36th Texas Infantry Division.
00:56:27They were a wonderful outfit.
00:56:30We were attached to them.
00:56:33It was the story of that regiment in the operation.
00:56:38Our initial assault on San Pietro
00:56:40had been repulsed with heavy casualties.
00:56:44Though the battle scenes had been staged,
00:56:46the footage of slain soldiers that Houston had captured was real.
00:57:01I remember when it was being first shown.
00:57:05This was in the Pentagon.
00:57:07We were in a projection room.
00:57:09The big brass was assembled.
00:57:11And I realized that it wasn't like any picture
00:57:15about combat or any military film they'd ever seen.
00:57:21But I wasn't prepared for the shock with which they received it.
00:57:28There were several generals in the room,
00:57:30and the highest-ranking general,
00:57:32presently in the middle of the pictures,
00:57:34stood up and walked out.
00:57:38Well, then the next ranking general walked out.
00:57:45Finally, we got down to colonels.
00:57:49And so they went, one after the other,
00:57:52until I was alone.
00:57:55I thought, what assholes.
00:57:58The army didn't like the picture at all.
00:58:02The reason was they thought it would demoralize troops,
00:58:06demoralize men who had never been in combat.
00:58:13The generals had felt, though, he had made an anti-war film,
00:58:17and of course his response was,
00:58:19well, if I ever make a pro-war film, I ought to be shot.
00:58:25A couple of weeks, I guess, went past.
00:58:28And then, by one of those fortunate accidents,
00:58:33General George C. Marshall saw the film.
00:58:37I suppose he'd heard enough bad things about it
00:58:40to enlist his interest.
00:58:45His reaction was exactly the opposite of everyone else.
00:58:50Marshall said that they were the very men
00:58:53who should see such a film to prepare them
00:58:56for the experience of combat.
00:59:00Well, the atmosphere changed overnight.
00:59:04I was decorated, and I was in a major.
00:59:11So the result was that when the film was opened,
00:59:15it got great reviews, and they were saying
00:59:17how compelling the combat footage was.
00:59:24I didn't know until years after I saw
00:59:26The Battle for San Pietro
00:59:28that John Houston had actually staged some of it.
00:59:31I didn't realize that until much later.
00:59:33When I saw it, I really believed that it was actual footage
00:59:37and that some of it, especially the man that is shot
00:59:40to the right in the camera pan,
00:59:42just in time to get him hitting the ground,
00:59:44I didn't know that was staged.
00:59:47Did you feel that you and your men
00:59:49were in real danger at San Pietro?
00:59:51Of course, of course.
00:59:53It was under fire a good part of the time.
01:00:00I was disappointed when I found out that that had been staged,
01:00:04but I also was very respectful of the impact
01:00:07that film had on audiences and had on me when I first saw it.
01:00:13I myself am less critical of the fact
01:00:16that they were saying this stuff was real combat footage.
01:00:20In fact, it was staged.
01:00:24The filmmaker and a writer, filmmakers such as Houston was,
01:00:29is inside the thing he's creating,
01:00:31so whether or not it really is The Battle for San Pietro
01:00:35or it's the fiction of The Battle of San Pietro in his mind,
01:00:39there may be little difference.
01:00:44You get the essence of the thing,
01:00:46it doesn't matter whether it was,
01:00:48I mean, there could be a real document
01:00:51happening during some incredible war
01:00:54that has less to it than one of these reenactments
01:00:59because cinema is magical.
01:01:01I like to think that all war movies are anti-war movies.
01:01:09I made Apocalypse Now,
01:01:10and I certainly don't think that's a pro-war movie.
01:01:13Don't look at the camera, don't look at the camera,
01:01:16just go by like you're fighting, like you're fighting!
01:01:19But on the other hand, when a film has the excitement of combat
01:01:24and the adventure connected with combat,
01:01:28it can't help but get those juices flowing in the audience.
01:01:36So that even though you may consider
01:01:38that you're making an anti-war film, it's not really
01:01:41because it tends to, if not glorify,
01:01:44but at least enhance the sensation
01:01:47that makes people be able to participate in this kind of thing.
01:02:04Inside Nazi-occupied Europe,
01:02:06the enemy waits grimly for the day of invasion
01:02:09as across the English Channel,
01:02:11Allied forces plan the great offensive that is sure to come.
01:02:14Prime Minister Churchill and General Eisenhower, Allied Commander,
01:02:18see thousands of American paratroopers drop from the skies
01:02:21in a spectacular rehearsal for the day of invasion.
01:02:32Eisenhower decided this grand invasion,
01:02:35which had been planned for years
01:02:37and which was the most top-secret operation of the war,
01:02:41should be covered by film.
01:02:45I got an elite group of cameramen.
01:02:49They weren't newsreel men.
01:02:51They were army cameramen, headed by George Stevens.
01:02:58I think at the time that Stevens runs into Capra
01:03:02and says to him, what can I do?
01:03:05He was quoted as saying in his diaries,
01:03:08I wanted to be in the war.
01:03:10It's very hard to get a 50-yard line seat to something like that.
01:03:14And the fact is that he got exactly that.
01:03:18You can't get any more central to the operation than to cover D-Day.
01:03:26Ford received orders to go to London.
01:03:30While Stevens was setting up the army filmmaking effort,
01:03:34Ford was asked to supervise preparations for the navy.
01:03:38When they realized the scale of the operations,
01:03:41Stevens and Ford agreed to coordinate efforts.
01:03:44Together, the two men prepared army and navy filmmaking teams for D-Day.
01:03:51It was the largest combined operation in history at that point.
01:03:56Who better than John Ford to film D-Day?
01:04:02Famously, I think he told his wife
01:04:04he was going off for a little local skirmish.
01:04:08The fact that Stevens had that wish
01:04:11is an indication of his courage and his commitment to the cause,
01:04:17which he thought was worth risking family, friends, career, life.
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