 Greetings from the National Archives flagship building in Washington, D.C., which sits on the Ancestralands of the Nacarch Tank Peoples. I'm David Terrio Archivist of the United States, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to tonight's virtual book discussion about Hollywood Victory, the Movies, Stars and Stories of World War II, which we're pleased to present in partnership with the Turner Classic Movies. Tonight, we welcome our special guest, Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz and Christian Blauvelt, author of Hollywood Victory. Before we begin, I'd like to tell you about two other programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Wednesday, November 3rd at 6 p.m., we welcome Steve Roberts, who has written a tribute to the extraordinary life and legacy of his wife, journalist Koki Roberts. In his new book, Koki, A Life Well-Lived, Steve and Koki's daughter, Rebecca Boggs Roberts, will join her father in conversation. And on Thursday, November 4th at 1 p.m., Philip Bigler, the author of Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, will share the history of the tomb, which marks its 100th anniversary this year, and is America's most cherished and revered military shrine. The National Archives preserves more than 520,000 reels of motion picture film, representing well over 150,000 titles, and making it one of the largest and most historically rich documentary film collections in the world. Among those thousands and thousands of reels, World War II films represent the single largest subject area in our moving image holdings. It speaks to the monumental nationwide and government-wide war effort that these films, out of all the subjects in our collections, come from the greatest number of federal agencies. We acquired World War II and post-war films from federal military and civilian agencies, and from private individuals or organizations as donations. This extensive collection of domestic and foreign films related to World War II covers events, people, and activities in the European, Mediterranean, African, and Pacific theaters of operation, as well as the home front and the civilian war effort in the United States. Tonight, we look at Hollywood's contributions to the war effort. In the archives, you can find Army training films featuring Ronald Reagan, Frank Capers, Why We Fight series, and newsreels showing war-bond drives with Hollywood actresses like Carol Lombard and Hedy Lamar, and stars in uniforms such as James Stewart and Clark Gable. Their stories and much more are chronicled in Hollywood victory, so let's hear about them now. Christian Blavaut is an entertainment journalist who serves as the managing editor of the leading film and TV industry website Indie Wire. Blavaut is the author of several books, including Cinematic Cities. Ben Mankiewicz is the prime-time host of Turner Classic movies. When he made his TCM debut in September of 2003, he became only the second host hired in the network's history. During his career at TCM, he has introduced thousands of movies on the air. Additionally, he has become one of the best interviewers in the business, leading, thoughtful, and entertaining long-form conversations with more than 200 of the industry's top talents. Mankiewicz also hosts TCM's podcast, The Plot Thickens, now in its third season. Since 2019, he has served as a contributor to the PVD and Emmy-winning news magazine CBS News Sunday Morning and has hosted the American Society of Cinematographers Awards since 2018. Now, let's hear from Christian Blavaut and Ben Mankiewicz. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you so much for having us. It's an honor to be hosted by the archives. So thanks very much, and I've got to remind myself to just say, Ben Mankiewicz, Turner Classic Movies host, there is nothing worse than hearing your own bio, which I've written. But thank you. You read it perfectly. But I've got to remind people to shorten it. I always forget. Christian, it's great to talk to you again. We've formed a nice friendship, and your book is just wonderful, and I'm thrilled to be discussing it with you today. Oh, thank you so much, Ben, and I think you wrote your biography just beautifully. Yeah, but it's really why you shouldn't trust anyone's Wikipedia page. Although everything that David read is indeed true. Okay, so Christian, first of all, how did the book Hollywood Victory come about? What was the, did we come to you, or is this long? But I'm sure it's been an interest of yours, but how did the process begin? The mutual meeting of the minds, the 1940s have long been my favorite movie decade. I think just for the sheer variety of films made at that time, melodramas, musicals, the birth of Film Noir, the advent of an international art house, that decade always really spoke to me. And then you have the colossal story of World War II. You could spend lifetime after lifetime after lifetime delving into World War II and even scratch the surface. There are just an infinite number of stories, and Hollywood was a part of that. Well, let's get right into it. What I wanted to start with, first of all, the book is, it's so well researched and really wonderfully written. I mean, it is a detail that is unafraid to tackle difficult subjects, but it is clearly written for a broad audience while still maintaining, I'll describe as a degree of academic integrity. So it's really an outstanding piece of work and really informative to anybody who cares about movies or cares about World War II. And as we know, those things often go together. So well done, Christian. Thank you. Let's start with, you know, whether we're talking about documentaries that Hollywood filmmakers made, propaganda films they made to contribute to the war effort, like Capra's Why We Fight series, or whether we're talking about feature films that sold the American public on the necessity of war and the importance of victory. Really, up until 1939, when the first crack opened up with film Confessions of a Nazi Spy, there was enormous resistance in the United States to Hollywood doing anything to help a war effort that most of the country wanted no part of. What was, if you could, take us through the enormity of the challenge faced by those who wanted to contribute through Hollywood to the war effort. There was profound isolationist sentiment across the board throughout the U.S. even after the horror stories came out from Germany, after Kristallnacht when it became clear about the nationwide pogroms against the Jewish people who lived in Germany that ultimately resulted in the deaths of 6 million Jews across Europe. Even at that point, there was still a feeling of, we don't want to get involved in another war. And we just can't afford to suffer what we went through in World War I. So there was that feeling. But then within Hollywood, there was actually a business relationship conducted by many of the studios with Nazi Germany. Germany was the largest foreign market for Hollywood films. And so there had been a cozying up there. In fact, the Third Reich even had a charged affairs in Los Angeles named Georg Gisling, who basically the studios would run movie scripts past to make certain that it did not offend the Nazi German ideas. Which is really shocking to consider that even MGM, you know, Louis B. Mair would be okay with that. And we're like, well, this is part of, this is the price of doing business. And then the third level is that simply there was a lot of fascist sentiment in the U.S. at that time, which we don't really talk about that much today. But Jack Warner writes in the 30s about seeing young kids, teenagers, maybe even younger, walking down Hollywood Boulevard wearing swastikas. In Pacific Palisades, there was actually a fascist compound, this group called the Silver Legion, that basically created this ranch, this sort of fortress where they decided to hold up until fascism took over the world. As many know, there was a huge Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in early 1939. Tens of thousands of American Nazis attended. So the pressure to not confront the Third Reich was really immense. And the production code office, the Hollywood censorship board to simplify what those guys did. I mean, maybe it's not fair to call them, well, certainly they weren't all anti-Semitism, but maybe it's not fair to say they were driven by anti-Semitism. But they were driven by anti-Semitism. They were a large part. I think you are fair to say that. I think that Joseph Breen, over time, his anti-Semitic views did soften a bit. Actually, Jeremy Arnold has a great book about the pre-code days released by Running Press and TCM that addresses some of that. But there's no question about it. When he came to Hollywood, he was an anti-Semite. And those views were common in Hollywood among those whose job it was to police the motion picture industry. And four of the five movie studios were run by immigrant Jews or descendants, at least, of immigrant Jews. And that informed their way of thinking and this sort of idea that you wouldn't deny that you were Jewish, but I think the phrase was, but you didn't broadcast it. Yeah. There was a feeling that if they were to make films that targeted Nazi Germany that showed what the Third Reich was doing to Jews in Europe, that it could actually make life worse for Jews in Europe. That was one feeling. And then I think there was also just a real sentiment that we are immigrants to this country and we want to assimilate. And we don't want to focus too much on our ethnicity, our religion, where we came from. And that drive toward assimilation is very powerful at that time. And one of the first films, and a film that we, I think, give too much credit for TCM for being the first. We don't pay enough attention to Confessions of a Nazi Spy. But MGM's film, The Mortal Storm from 1940 with Jimmy Stewart, who we'll certainly talk about today, and Margaret Sullivan. That made a lot of money. And it was the first movie, again, they didn't ever identify Germany. And I don't think specifically Jews were identified, but it came pretty close and it was very obvious, even to people not paying attention to what they were talking about. The fact that that movie made a ton of money showed some of these people that there was a valid business reason to take on Nazi Germany and take up this cause in the days before America entered the war. That's right, because previously, as you mentioned, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, a film from Warner Brothers, which really was the first film to take on Nazi Germany and show these ideas, this ideology needs to be attacked. It needs to be exposed and attacked and shown for what it is. And we need to stand up to it, even if it means fighting a war against it. That film ultimately was not that successful in 1939. But the next year, yeah, the Mortal Storm from MGM, it exposes the brutality of the Nazi regime. It treads very lightly when actually talking about its victims. There is a great moment where Frank Morgan, the wizard from the Wizard of Oz, he plays a character named Professor Roth, obviously Jewish, who is sent to a concentration camp. And we do see him wearing an armband that has the letter J on it. And that's the only acknowledgement, really, that he's Jewish in the film. The word Jew is never spoken, Jewish is never spoken. But just seeing that J, everyone knows what that means. And that's a powerful moment. But yes, and I think it's definitely true that, of course, you know what it means. Although I'm struck by how many people know what it means, how many people I know who wouldn't instinctively know offhand that Roth was a Jewish name. And it does say a little something that they couldn't show him wearing the Jewish star. The Jews, of course, actually would have worn the gold star. So they made it a J. I mean, credit to them for doing something. I agree. But it just, while being a breakthrough moment, it also gives you a little insight into what those who wanted to tell this story were up against. Because anti-Semitism was also widespread throughout the U.S., there was a recognition by Jewish executives in Hollywood that just appealing to the idea that Jewish people were being persecuted and generating sympathy for them would not be enough for a lot of Americans to condone the idea of going to war again. And that's a very sad thing to consider. But that is part of the motivating factor there. Yeah. My last thought on this part before we move into the work that Hollywood did during the war, you know, you include a lot of polling data in your book, which I love. And that after Kristallnacht in November of 1938, Americans were coming around to the idea that the Jews didn't bring this on themselves. There was a change in the polling there. But still, even after Kristallnacht, 67%, two-thirds of all Americans did not want to open up our shores, not merely to Jews fleeing persecution in Europe, but to their children that we didn't even want. Two-thirds of Americans didn't even feel right letting in Jewish children to escape Nazi Germany as late as 1938. Again, an example of it, it wasn't just Hollywood and the Hollywood censors and Congress, that the body politic of America wanted no part of this and did not have overwhelming sympathy for the plight of those persecuted by the Nazis. I'm afraid that's terribly true. You're absolutely right that there was no desire by the majority of Americans to welcome Jewish refugee children that would otherwise be killed back in Nazi controlled territory. It's just shocking and unbelievably sad. So there's a wonderful point you make, obviously the United States enters the war December 7, 1941 and then in a moment that still has historians somewhat confounded four days later, December 11th, Hitler and Italy declare war on the United States, saving us the problem of figuring out how to go to war with Germany. But your point is that perhaps the most important years for Hollywood during the war were the 1940 and the first 11 months of 1941 before December 7th. Why do you make that point? There was an element of laying the groundwork by the Hollywood studios to prepare for war. Certain really foresighted directors had an idea that war was on the horizon. John Ford actually started making films for the Navy in 1940. He made a film about sex hygiene for recruits. It's a great, great film, by the way. It's considered so gruesome that he would just throw up whenever he would see it. It is a grisly film for those of you who are brave enough to check it out. Just the depiction of venereal disease is quite brutal. Hang on just because it's such a great quote. I think it made its point, said Ford, and helped a lot of young kids. I looked at it and threw up, he said. That was worth putting him there. Directors like Ford and Capra and Marion C. Cooper knew that war was on the horizon, that it was inevitable. Eventually some of the studio bosses really started to realize that too. Tell people, Marion C. Cooper made King Kong in 1933. Tell people, because I think many don't know what he did. Well, it's really extraordinary. He went to China in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor and helped create an American expeditionary flyer unit there, which ultimately became known as the Flying Tigers. It was up to about 100 American pilots who served essentially as the Chinese national air force at a time when the Chinese nationalist government, led by Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese invaders, did not have really an air force of its own. These Flying Tigers were so revered and beloved that actually right now in China, they're like 50 different museums devoted to the Flying Tigers. They remain such a source of inspiration and a source like even as Sino-American relations became so strained in the decades after, a source of remembrance and possible connection again. And actually during the COVID pandemic, right at the start, some of the Flying Tigers museums in China actually donated money to various veterans groups in the U.S. That is a sign of the connection that is still there. How significant, there's a question we got from an audience member that is perfect because I was about to ask it myself. But how important were the films made in 1940 and 1941, not just the work that Marion C. Cooper and John Ford did and obviously recognizing what was happening. Jimmy Stewart and we'll certainly again, second mention to Jimmy Stewart, we got to tell people what Jimmy Stewart did during the war. But how important were those movies in setting the and laying the groundwork sort of in influencing American opinion about the necessity of war. And specifically, of course, a movie that it appears, Adolf Hitler may have watched twice, requested twice himself. Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Well, you can tell that the national mood was beginning to shift a little bit in 1940 because The Great Dictator actually did end up as one of the top 10 box office hits of that year. So that's really significant because The Great Dictator doesn't just lampoon Nazis. It actually does generate sympathy for Jewish characters who are explicitly Jewish characters. Their Jewish identity is foregrounded. Chaplin himself plays a Jewish barber. So that's really important. So I think that film, along with 20th Century Fox's Man Hunt, along with even just like The Three Stooges' Lampoon the Nazis all of a sudden, you know, in The Great Dictator, you've got the countries of Tomania and Bacteria, which are like Germany and Italy. And for The Three Stooges, it was in you, Nazi spy, it was the country there was Moronica, which I love. But, you know, people were starting to come around and starting to, you know, I don't know if people wanted to go to war, but they were at least starting to realize, okay, the Nazis are bad guys. And the studio heads for their part of making all these films were saying, you know what, we actually don't care about the German market anymore. We don't care about losing our biggest international market. We can't do business with these guys. We're done. Because even just a couple of years earlier when Chaplin, who by the way, I think Chaplin himself didn't know how to answer this question because he wasn't Jewish. And I think perhaps because of the power of the great dictator, many people presume that he was Jewish and he never wanted to answer it either way because they didn't want to say no, like he was, you know, the answer he wanted to give was no, but I'd be proud to be. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the kind of thing like there's no good answer you could give that question. Because yeah, if you say no, it seems like you're denying it and that you'd be ashamed to be Jewish or something. If you say yes, then, you know, you're lying. And so I was just saying that I wanted to get to just a couple of years earlier. It was his production for the great dictator was halted. That's right. That's absolutely right. He, you know, there was just, he couldn't really get financing for it. There was a real sense that he might, maybe he could make life worse for Jews who are living there. That was a real, that was a real concern. And I think there was just such a, among the artists of the day, the, the, the, the tours, there was a real feeling of how do we grapple with this? How can we just use comedy, say, to deal with Hitler? There's that, there's this amazing moment where Chaplin and Louise Boonwell and Renee Claire went to MoMA in New York City to see Triumph of the Will when he referenced off from glorifying Hitler. And Renee Claire and Louise Boonwell were just devastated. They were like, how can we possibly stand up to this? This is where his Chaplin was just like howling, like it was howling laughter for him the whole time. He thought it was so funny. This is so ridiculous. This is so self-evidently absurd. How could anyone buy into this? And it was that, that kernel that, even though his production had been shut down, that made him want to revisit it and get back to it and ultimately make one of his best films, I think. Renee Claire and Louise Boonwell and Charlie Chaplin just hanging out and going a moment to see Reeve and Dahl's movie. That's, I mean, like what did they do after? Like where did they go to lunch? What did they talk about, you know? I love that stuff. You know, to my grandfather, Hermann Mankiewicz, who was the subject of the Netflix film Mank, you know, he wrote a, he wrote a screenplay. And as you know, in 1933, the year Hitler came to power called Mad Dog Europe about a madman who takes over Germany. And just to, in case there was any confusion, sometimes they changed the names. Hermann changed the name. The lead carry, the dangerous madman taking over the country was named Adolf Mittler. Because he didn't want anybody to be confused. And that movie, you know, I mean, I've read this as you may have as well, the letters back and forth between the various people who were going to produce it at times and the production code office, there was just no interest in making this movie. None, none. And a couple of starts throughout the 30s and even almost into 1940, and then also by then, my grandfather had certainly lost his cachet until he got it back for a minute with Citizen Kane. So how important was this groundwork that you say, well, obviously we know it was important, but what did it do? Like did it persuade moviegoers? Who was most persuaded by this? It persuaded ordinary moviegoers to realize that the Nazis were evil, which was really important, because a lot of people didn't feel that before these films. So that was essential. And it also just laid the groundwork for sort of a deeper sense in the collective American psyche that whether we like it or not, whether we started or not, whether we get into it ourselves, we're probably going to end up in this war. And it'll be a shock when it happens, but we shouldn't be too shocked. And I think that was the attitude that a lot of people had when December 7th happened. It was a sneak attack. It was not something that people just thought, oh yeah, this was an inevitability for sure. But there was a feeling like, okay, this has happened. We had an idea that it might happen. Now we need to spring into action and face this threat from Germany and Japan and defeat it. It sounds to me also as if that when the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1st, 1939, that although there was still a very strong isolationist sentiment in the United States, it became much harder to deny the threat of the Nazis, allowing the films in 1940 and 1941 to flourish, to happen, to add into production. And also just what was happening to Britain, our closest ally, such a strong cultural tie to so many in the U.S. And seeing London being bombed to smithereens during the Blitz and all across the country and the threat of invasion there, I think that really woke up a lot of parents. There's a couple of things. This book is littered with information and I know a fair amount about the war and Hollywood's role in the war and there's just so much in here that I didn't know. But I never even put together the Joe McCrae talking about at the end of the film, right? Talking about the bombs falling on London, the lights going out all over the world, we got to keep the lights on in America and we got to put guns around the lights and protect the lights. Blitzkrieg hadn't even started yet. You presumed that that must be happening, but it's not. That's really a stunning piece of movie trivia. That's Alfred Hitchcock who was a great prophet there because at that point it was just so obvious that something was going to happen. So when foreign correspondent opened, the blitz was just starting. The kind of what it depicts at the end there with Joe McCrae giving that speech, keep the lights on America, you're the last light in the world as the bombs are falling on London. That was shot months before but it was just like this is going to happen eventually. We're going to get there so when the movie comes out, it's actually happening for real. It's uncanny. My grandfather's unproduced film there, Mad Dog of Europe, it got him banned by Goebbels, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of propaganda banned all Hermann Mankewitz movies in Nazi Germany, which is a huge batch of honor. It was in my grandfather's New York Times obituary. Warner Brothers films were banned in Nazi Germany after confessions of a Nazi spy, correct, in 1939. And then there's other chilling little piece of data that you have is that after the Nazis invaded Poland, they rounded up seven owners of theaters who had shown the film, I guess, in Poland. And hanged? Well, when the film came out right and they rounded them up and they hanged. Yeah, for just having shown confessions of a Nazi spy, there were also retaliations against some people who had just gone to see the movie. It's really extraordinary. In Kevin Brownlow's 2002 documentary, The Tramp and the Dictator, there's a great story that shared there as well about just the visceral reaction of the great dictator inspired in German troops who were forced to see it. There was an incident in Serbia, I think occupied Serbia, where someone actually swapped in a copy of the great dictator and a German soldier 30 minutes into it, it took the crowd that long to realize what was going on. Just actually like machine gun the screen. No, I mean movies are powerful and that's the thing. If you have to hang a number of movie theater owners just for showing a movie, that shows how powerful movies are. And certainly President Roosevelt recognized early on and in fact lent significant support to Chaplin, correct? To press ahead and make the great dictator. Roosevelt in general recognized that there was a critical role to be played, a critical propaganda role to be played in Hollywood for the war effort. Absolutely, no question about it. This was a time when the average American went to the movies twice a week. That's absolutely incredible. The sheer amount of time and investment that most Americans actually had in the motion picture business. And so FDR recognized that he actually said that entertainment is useful in peace time but indispensable in a time of war. To rally people to get their emotions riled up but also to give them a sense of what they were fighting for and what they could look forward to when the conflict was over. And there's some instances where movies could even model good behavior to follow. Veronica Lake famously had her very long hair in movies like I Married a Witch. She was a real bombshell of the early 40s. But with women now going into the war industries, working factories at heavy machinery all hours of the day, long hair was not to be valued. You needed to put that hair up or cut it. And so she put her hair up into what was called a victory roll and made a number of movies with this short hair. Arguably it ruined her career but it did model the kind of behavior that women were supposed to follow during the war. And there are all kinds of examples like that from the war years. And I think it's so interesting where it's like movies are really sending messages that people can follow in order to achieve ultimate victory. Yeah, I mean you know until I read really until I read and we had him on the TCM for a month, Mark Harris and his wonderful book Five Came Back about the five directors who I'm sure we'll be talking about here who went over to make movies for the country to support the war effort and shoot documentary footage that you know the word propaganda you know it's not just the Soviets and the Nazis who engage in propaganda. I mean it's so obvious, right? And propaganda can of course if the cause is good be just we all engage in propaganda, right? I mean publicity and propaganda they go hand in hand. So these were these were propaganda films. Roosevelt recognized that we needed to sell the war effort because the sacrifice that he was going to expect Americans to make was significant and he asked Hollywood to make that same sacrifice and really with very few exceptions Hollywood it took him a while but when they stepped up they stepped up big. They certainly did Capra went to Washington DC almost immediately after Pearl Harbor finished up Arsenic and Old Lace but by January of 1942 at least like five or six weeks after Pearl Harbor he went to DC and opened up an office of the Library of Congress brought in screenwriters like the Epstein Brothers who worked on Casablanca, Julius and Philip Epstein and began the creation of the Why We Fight films for that very reason. The average American high school diploma no college education didn't really know what was happening in Europe throughout the 1930s that's part of why there was all this isolation and certainly they don't know what's happening with Operation Barbarossa Germany invading the Soviet Union Soviet Union were bad guys for a while. So those films were absolutely critical for yes being propaganda sponsored by the government funded by the government but utilizing Hollywood talent in a really powerful way and then what I think is so interesting is that you see elements of propaganda suffusing even you know non-government funded films you know films just being made by Hollywood in general as entertainment for the next few years and there's that component of it as well it's not just like everyone in Hollywood was being told what to do by the government it's a remarkable feeling everyone was kind of on the same page. Yeah I mean let's discuss first of all because we mentioned it those directors you Frank Capra John Ford William Weiler John Houston George Stevens who all served and made these vitally important films and they're just the five best known directors but many went and served but you Casablanca for example I mean nobody mandated they make a propaganda film about North Africa right and it's had a bar that's just that was just how Wallace thinking that that was a good idea but this is one of my favorite little facts because that treatment for Casablanca which was adapted from an unproduced play called everybody goes to Rick's or comes to Rick's had been in the hands of Warner Brothers script readers for some time but it was on Monday September 8th or maybe a couple days after that week I think that a guy in how Wallace's unit named Stephen Carnot I think is his name read it and I always think like first of all he went in on December 8th Monday right I would have taken the day right and but he goes in and he reads it and if he read it on Thursday the fourth it just might not have resonated in the same way that had him think you know this is sophisticated Hockham as he said and praised it and then thought it'd be good for Bogart and set it up the chain to where it eventually reached how Wallace that's just this wonderful little bit of Hollywood kismet working perfectly that he read it on December 8th the day after Pearl Harbor and there's so many things like that throughout Hollywood history of this time I mean that's incredible that you know he read that on December 8th the day after Pearl Harbor but then how amazing that when the film actually came out when Casablanca was ready in late 1942 it coincided with the Allied landings in Morocco so suddenly Morocco was in the news Casablanca was in the news it was like this movie could not be more relevant in addition to being a metaphor for the experience of the entire country going from being isolationist to waking up to this very real threat and realizing that we had to engage with that which that film does better than any other how did you've mentioned Veronica Lake I've mentioned Jimmy Stewart twice how did we've talked a little bit about the directors how did actors you know men and women who were the faces of the movie industry in general how did they respond to December 7th December 20th 1941 they all got together a whole bunch of the most glittering A-listers in Hollywood got together at the Roosevelt hotel to form the Hollywood Victory Committee and that would stand throughout the entire war organized war bonds rallies and fundraisers and tours and various outreach shows events to entertain the troops and something as really unique as the Hollywood Victory Caravan which got underway a few months later in 1942 which was a train tour from LA to Washington D.C. in which all these amazing stars Carrie Grant just basically practically everyone you can name Bing Crosby joined at Chicago you know went to Washington D.C. met with FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt had all the photos taken on the lawn of the White House and then went on this multi-city tour to raise money for the war effort and this was a time where yeah of course people pay their taxes tax rates were much higher than they are now and you know that was important for funding the war effort but no people at that time were willing to pay more than their taxes by taking out war bonds and the idea was that you give your money to the government and then after the war you'll get it back with nominal interest and in the meantime that can be used to actually fight the war and so all of these stars contributed to that and actually we've got a little clip here which is sort of a reenactment now mind you this is from 1945 this actually was from right as the war was wrapping up but it shows you it gives you a real sense of what that Hollywood victory caravan train tour would have been like in 1942 should we show that first clip yeah let's see this is the first clip yeah this is the the Ben Crosby clip so it's for boys like him that we're doing his victory caravan certainly a little enough to do look at the fruit salad on his chest there huh? Looks like your big brother's been up where they really play for keeps and all they ask us to do is to buy victory bonds honey we're going to get you on that train if we have to make the engineer get off and walk riding through here Carmen Cavallaro's going to give us some very good Gershwin I got rhythm you want to go over there with me and sit down and see what we can figure out of course we can listen a little too with today Carmen thank you Ben say I have an idea what's this why don't you and Bob Hope double up in your lower berth oh I'd hate to ask them to do that oh mine but Hope may be a little difficult you see this is the first time he's ever had a chance to ride inside the train why don't you go to Bob and tell him your story yes then he'll tell you his story and you better have your track shoes on oh I'm kidding and he's really a very sympathetic understanding man he'll probably show you his scrapbook and then you can both have a good crush go to him I will and thank you very much goodbye the uh can play the piano who would not open up their wallet with a payment like that you just immediately have to buy a warbomb uh now at that line uh look at the fruit salad on his chest that to me is like the quintessential Bing Crosby joke I love that it's just perfect it's a perfect object I love that but you know that's the kind of entertainment that really did get people to part with their money and uh that initial tour of the Hollywood Victory Caravan was just a rousing success no doubt about it and it inspired stars to continue doing that all throughout the war um you know those who weren't actually in uniform themselves uh it's pretty incredible you know just to but if you think about it there was something really unique at that time because it's not like people around the country they would have an opportunity to see any of their favorite actors up close and now suddenly they can they're coming to them they're coming to Chicago they're coming to Baltimore they're coming to Boston you know they're going to Philadelphia it's it's a pretty remarkable thing uh and actually we have a second clip uh yeah I I like the second I like the second clip because for all the the brightness and energy that uh Bing Crosby and Carmen Cavallero bring to the first clip um Humphrey Bogart essentially plays Rick Blaine uh in this next clip uh and he is uh well he's just Humphrey Bogart this is after the war right this this would have been put together that yeah that's right so what he's saying here it's he's actually sort of talking about the GI Bill so this is you know after the war this actually came out in October of 1945 and so he's addressing the viewers at that moment even though they're recreating this event from the start of the war uh but yeah there is a degree of lethargy here on Bogey's part and uh well I think that the lethargy may be because as you're about to see uh Bogey needs a new belt he does he does uh I think with that what better cheese could we give them that roll it now ladies and gentlemen Mr. Humphrey Bogart we've had a lot of barn drives new people have proven by your magnificent response to each one of them that you know exactly why they were necessary we've also had a lot of patriotic speeches I'm sure you don't need another one for me to tell you why we need this victory loan now why it's important that we make this victory loan the smashing climax of all barn drives our fighting men have just won history's greatest victory for freedom they didn't stop until they finish their job it's up to us not to stop buying barns until we finish our part of the job we've got to bring those boys home it's up to us to see that they get what they were promised and what they have every right to expect in medical care hospitalization rehabilitation and economic opportunity your victory loan dollars will fulfill your pledge to the man who won the victory this is the last chance victory loan it's your last chance as a member of an organized civilian army to buy barns for their future and for your own future this theater staff stands ready at all times day or night to sell you victory loan barns with your help this theater staff has a magnificent record in seven war-loan campaigns they have a quota in this victory loan as part of the states your city's quota I just I don't know man I can't help it I love I don't care what he does I don't care if his belt does I just it's so I'm like almost to me more than the first one I'd be like yeah I gotta give him some money because of all bogey needs a new pal but I just he's pulling up his pants there at the beginning maybe not the best way to start I don't know I feel like it's an affect like he needed to have a little actor's business that's what I'm sure yeah I think that's what it was but I don't anyway I still like it I still loved it I tell you what let's fly through these what's the third one yeah so the third one is reconnaissance pilot actually starting a young I think this is the training film isn't the third one or did we that's the one where William Holden plays a flyer and it's giving a message about how well the clip we're about to see is about what you can what we'll be waiting for you and you'll be looking forward to when I think hold on I think that's the fourth clip and I want to make sure unless we ditched one of them isn't there a third one about the all the movies that are sort of that there's also movies at war as well I'm in the reverse order so let's go ahead I'm sure you're correct and if it's not first of all they're self-explanatory so movies at war is really interesting because that tells you a little bit about first of all all these clips I guess we should have said from the start these are all in the National Archives collection you know these are available to watch on YouTube anytime so we're just showing little clips you can watch the whole thing but movies at war is interesting because that's about how the motion picture industry mobilized in general so there were 30,000 members of the motion picture industry in Hollywood who actually joined up, got in uniform and you know entered the service in one way or another themselves and this tells a little bit about what those movies did to inspire the troops who saw them music yesterday USA sights and sounds left behind for the duration but never forgotten the motion picture is seen to that it follows the soldier to the far reaches of battle right lights, laughter, home for those who thirst for sights and sounds not alien to American eyes and ears from the first day he's in camp motion pictures play a varied role in the average soldier's life not only is he entertained by them he's also oriented and trained through the medium of the silver screen training films boast a world wide attendance of 30 million GIs monthly to date the army has produced 708 training films the industry adds 101 as its nonprofit contribution army operated libraries supply the armed forces with all types of films and equipment for projection of motion pictures 260 libraries in this country approximately 60 overseas booking soaring into astronomical figure a barometer for gauging the response of the using branches to films designed solely for the military and there's no denying Johnny Doughboy's interest in the fighting men series a 100% Hollywood product providing grim training lessons to fully appreciate their popularity is to reveal that 5 million soldiers monthly attend screenings of the fighting men film these and thousands of additional reels shown and re-shown must necessarily receive careful handling inspection and repair of films and machines occupy soldier technicians skilled at this type of work equipment that gives life to precious celluloids such as the why we fight orientation films fashioned by Hollywood train craftsmen worldwide army release alone requires 225 prints per subject dramatic to the extent of arousing those who must meet the common enemy this series goes a long way toward familiarizing our soldiers and the nation with the fitness and roughnessness of the fold Britain and Russia display wide interest in these and other United States Army film yes so uh and then because we teased it let's just jump right ahead to William Holden in what I think is his most challenging role a man being and saying nothing and hardly blinking here's the last one it's short you can't sleep you envy that kid next to you Swabis can sleep anywhere but you can't sleep because you keyed up you're going home home to Culver Springs you've been out there 14 months and you're tired you're tired from flying 52 long combat missions in the P-38 but you feel good about one thing you're going home and when you land she'll be waiting for you at the airport Catherine she'll be there and when you feel her in your arms those 14 months will melt away like a ground haze in the morning sun Packard A. Cummings First Lieutenant Army Air Forces dog tag number 0451859 you're headed for home and Catherine will be waiting I'm sorry I I didn't realize that he had to take a pillow and put it behind his hat he did have some business it was some heavy thinking like he was doing there it required the pillow for support when I saw that the first time we were discussing this day for a while and I saw that clip and I was like that's William Holden that's not Parker Cummings that's William Holden he's only 24 or 25 there which is extraordinary he'd been in one major film before Golden Boy he was only like 20 or 21 in that film for Columbia with Barbara Stanwyck and then like so many he ends up in uniform and found that he was suited to making films for the armed forces like that so many others did that as well Gene Kelly did that he was making documentaries in Washington DC let me ask you about some of the better known folks and I want to get to a couple of questions that we have here you have a nice little moment in your book talking about where some people were on December 7th John Ford oddly was having lunch with an admiral in the Navy he had an injury of Virginia where was that could say where because it's really relevant where Jimmy Stewart was because he was already in the service so he had already been in the Army for nine months at that point so he was at a California Air Base I think it was near San Mateo and he had at that point past basic training which then meant that he could apply for the Army Air Forces he's 32 years old at this point the average recruit for any kind of aerial service was like 23 like 26th absolute limit 32 was really unheard of and the fact that he would join up nine months before Pearl Harbor was a really extraordinary thing in part it shows how dissatisfied he had been with the movies that he had been making up to that point a lot of the films that he had made after Mr. Smith goes to Washington he felt really lacked guts including the film for which he won the Oscar the Philadelphia story he was not a fan of his performance in that he won Best Actor he felt it should have gone to his friend Henry Fonda for The Grapes of Wrath and he like some who were more foresighted realized that war was inevitable so he wanted to be a part of it he wanted to shape it and he felt ultimately that he could make a more meaningful contribution in uniform than he could in Hollywood and what he does in the years after Pearl Harbor is just extraordinary tell people a little of what he did for those who don't know so he commanded E-24s over Europe over occupied Europe on bombing missions that saw some of his companions killed saw his planes shot up and as the war moved on he kept getting promoted up and up the ranks of the air forces until he was a colonel and he was commanding squadrons he did not fly on D-Day as some have reported but he was commanding squadrons from Buckingham in East Anglia and giving orders to squadrons hitting targets leading up to the invasion on June 6, 1944 he had the responsibility of dozens hundreds of men many of whom of course did not come back and now we know we know to say that Jimmy Stewart suffered from PTSD significant PTSD back then shell shock and there was some degree of shame like you weren't tough enough so like everybody else he would have tried his best to hide it but Jimmy Stewart who signed up as you say nine months before Pearl Harbor was a genuine war hero and that day he was a corporal he had just been promoted to corporal and he retired from the reserves during Vietnam as a brigadier general which is one of the most remarkable career tracks for anyone in the US military in history because he started as a private first class and yeah by the time that by the time of Vietnam and all he was in the reserves and hadn't actually done anything it was more ceremonial but yeah to actually be a brigadier general that's an extraordinary career path and shows that he truly fought in this war I mean what he did in commanding all of these lives commanding all of these men and risking his own life I mean he flew himself in about 23-24 missions actually over Europe himself putting himself in harm's way and it's an incredible thing he was not Adolf Hitler's favorite actor that was Clark Gable who also flew missions as a gunner on B-17 bombers there he is you know his ammunition and yeah he was a gunner on B-17s and also a documentarian he took some remarkable color footage of aerial combat which became another film called Combat America which you can see on YouTube and it's an amazing color document of the war but you know he flew only about six missions over Europe but there was on one of those a huge anti-aircraft shell came ripping through the fuselage of his plane and just like inches past his head I think it actually even did hit a little bit of his boot and nipped a little bit of the boot a little bit of the leather off his boot so it came that close to killing him he was Adolf Hitler's favorite actor and there was even a bounty out on him that if any German pilot found Clark Gable and they could bring him back to the furor that would have been quite a prize and one can only imagine how horrific what would have ensued it's a question from the audience from the chat anyway a good question what was Walt Disney's contribution it was not insignificant oh it manifolds so we are in the movies at war clip about how the motion picture industry had been mobilized in part to create training films for people in uniform and Walt Disney was a huge part of that he right after Pearl Harbor was commissioned by the Navy to make 20 training films and we're talking stuff like a little animated film about how to use a tank busting gun like very basic stuff like you know definitely given some Disney personality but not you know anything that you necessarily would go out of your way to watch you know it's like a Disney fan today it's not going to be something that you're going to find at the vault necessarily but you know it was pretty incredible the way in which he personally met the challenge of World War II is extraordinary because just the day after Pearl Harbor he's waking up like everyone in the country is at that point and he gets a call from someone at his studio which had just opened the Burbank this huge campus and you know one of his production executives says Walt the Army is moving in on us and actually it turns out that like 800 Army anti-aircraft gunners were stationed there for a number of months after Pearl Harbor because there was such a fear that the Japanese would invade the west coast that we need to have these gunners stationed here just in case now it's in Burbank so it's not quite in Hollywood Central so it won't cause a panic to have them stationed there but they're also close to a lot of like you know aircraft factories and everything just in case they do need to spring into action yeah I took it when I read that in your book that that was the real reason and a totally valid reason is to protect the factories to protect the aircraft for the munitions factories that we had there and here in spelling California so yeah so US troops moved in I like the line you have the guy calls Disney and he's like I told them that I have to call you first and the guy says the Army says go ahead and call him but we're moving in like but feel free to call your boss but we're still coming exactly no matter what Walt Disney was very powerful at that point you know other than Gone with the Wind Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was arguably the biggest hit in in the history of Hollywood that was such a massive film that's what allowed him to build such a big studio in the first place but also he sunk so much money into it that then he had all these debts which the Warriors actually really helped him pay off because of all these government contracts making training films going on this even before the war even before Pearl Harbor he went on this whole tour of South America as a part of cultural diplomacy to reach out to Brazil and Argentina like countries that at the time were considering joining the Axis and thankfully did not in part due to the cultural diplomacy of people like Disney and Orson Welles and you know in reverse Carmen Miranda coming to the US you know so I mean Disney's contribution was huge there's even you know he made this film called Victory Through Airpower which is very strange it's basically just like him endorsing this whole concept of building like long-range bombers that could he thought win the war very hypothetical it's so weird to imagine like Bob Iger or Bob Chapit now you know coming up with a film to present to the government like this is how you should conduct your warfare that would never happen today but you know there was actually a bomb visualized in that that had like rocket engines to it that ultimately was developed before the end of the war developed by the British actually to be like a bunker busting bomb and it was actually called the Brits called it the Disney bomb so that is the level of impact that Walt Disney had he even had a bomb after him Roosevelt and the Roosevelt administration really understood the value of putting people like Walt Disney and Orson Welles to work in an enormously valuable way as you say these countries Chile Argentina Brazil these were countries that the Nazis were interested in right and and and thought that there was headway to be made there and so sending these guys down there to sort of as a continuation of what had been Roosevelt's good neighbor policy during the 1930s like a good neighbor plus policy here there was a strategic advantage to using these famous movie stars and executives to to advance the war effort absolutely absolutely you know and Orson Welles was already in South America on the night of the Academy Awards in 1942 and he and your grandfather shared the Oscar for for best original screenplay for for Citizen Kane and yeah I mean that that cultural outreach and diplomacy was so invaluable I have to say it's it's pretty it's pretty incredible I mean you can say that like Welles himself took on so much stuff at this time you know he would be then making a show like for the radio about aviation on top of this plus trying to finish journey into fear plus you know Magnificent Ambersons gets completely you know discarded you know in the meantime you know that of course his career really suffered as a result but at the mention of your grandfather there I'm really curious you know your father you know unfortunately of course you never knew your grandfather Herman Mancowicz because he died in 1953 but your father served in World War II himself he was 17 when Pearl Harbor happened and can you tell us a little bit like what you heard about Hollywood during World War II through him yeah I mean my dad was 17 years old as as you said on December 7th 1941 he was returning from playing softball playing a doubleheader on Sunday which he always played when he heard it on the news you know around you know around 11 30 in the morning I think Pacific time and as soon as he turned 18 in May he signed up you know and I always say you know it was a kid I'd say I was so brave he didn't wait to be drafted he was like I was going to get drafted everybody was going to get drafted he was not there was nothing heroic he would say any about it it's what everybody did and that's really what the it's essentially what your book is about and there was this national sentiment no no of course I'm going to go I'm 18 we're all going to go right nobody's getting out of it nobody's avoiding it Jimmy Stewart's not avoiding it nobody's avoiding it I got it I'm sure there were exceptions but there was this rare sense in Hollywood and around the country that you had to do your part and you know I mean my grandfather who you know had a brief bit of influence back for a time he was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood you know he was not going to make any effort to keep his two sons my uncle Don went as well out of the war we got the picture of my father here serving he's my father's on the right I think they can see that photo that's either in France or Germany he wasn't sure with Dan Murphy his best friend from the war and you know you just you did your part there was this immediate sense of sacrifice and you didn't question it it was just it was clear and obvious that's what you did you know and you know I'm sure you I regret that I don't regret that we're not at war I don't want that but this sense of unity that must have been enormously comforting to people that we were all and nobody looks cool we're smoking a cigarette right there than my father in uniform this sense of unity that we're all in this together that's you know obviously we do not have that now and that is the one enviable thing about the war that's a picture of my dad and Ann Orson Welles my grandfather excuse me Ann Orson Welles when they were speaking to each other during I would have been I would have been before the release of of Citizen Kane I will give my Uncle Don Don Manco it's some credit my father's older brother my grandfather Herman who wrote Citizen Kane he died on 5th 1953 and that's the same day that another very relevant figure from World War II Joseph Stalin died and when news that Stalin had also died that day my Uncle Don said to my father well at least we split the doubleheader which I thought was a very clever nice line that's with that's I love that let me ask one question that we have from the audience because I think it's really interesting is our final question I think I know the answer but I actually have no idea the question is once the US entered the war were there any movies which opposed the war effort isn't that interesting you know World War II did not inspire a peace movement the way that other conflicts have I think just because the the battle lines were so clearly drawn the good guys and the bad guys were so easily identifiable and I did not want to write a hagiography in writing this book I do call out actions from the Allied forces and even things that Hollywood were involved in that were not great there's no question about it you know the Allied side was not perfect far from it but compared to the other side it was so stark the difference that there really wasn't a peace movement which is so remarkable now as soon as the war is over you can see how that started to shift like almost immediately so we were just talking about Orson Welles you know the summer the year after the war in 1946 they're going to the US is going to detonate another atomic bomb as a test at Bikini et al in the Pacific and they put Rita Hayworth's image on there basically just like a glamour shot of Rita Hayworth on the atomic bomb itself and blew it up basically you know pointing the idea of well it had been around before but it was the idea that she was a bomb show this was a literal bomb show and she was aghast she was so upset she felt like that you know this was such a betrayal and that this was a real misuse of her image and everything that she stood for and by that point you could see okay the war is over and now people are starting to think a little bit different about armed conflict and all of us which you know those divisions have been with us ever since but during the war itself no there are no movies coming out against fighting there are no overtly pacifist films I mean there are films that wish for a world in which someday there will be peace there will be Nazis but of course that is a sentiment but to get there you have to fight the war that is always that minute and even when you have directors of great pacifist films like All Quiet and the Western Front with Lewis Milestone or Grand Illusion with Jean Renoir both of those directors made very pro war films during the war years and I think that you know we there was no division there was nobody on the side of the Nazis who could get a movie made and Hollywood was completely united the country largely completely united and that would change as we know a topic for another day another night immediately after the war when we get the blacklist and the red scare and then Hollywood is fractured in a way that it had never seen before but during the war it held together and part of that fracture can be seen through the fact that we were promoting movies like Mission to Moscow because the Russians were our allies and then the moment the war was over God forbid you worked on that movie or showed any sentiment that could be seen as in favor of the Soviet Union who again were our allies so but that as we said that was a conversation Christian Blavell's book is Hollywood victory it is excellent it is really worth reading it doesn't it doesn't read like history it reads like a novel a novel about people you know and care about and movies you love so Christian great work and this has been a pleasure to talk to you and thanks to the archives for hosting us just a wonderful experience alright Christian thanks very much everybody should buy the book and Christian we will talk soon thanks very much and again thanks to everybody at the National Archives and thanks to everybody who watched participated and sent their questions and we appreciate it