Prelude to War

1942

Documentary / War

4
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 51% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 7.0/10 10 2608 2.6K

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Plot summary

Prelude to War was the first film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight propaganda film series, commissioned by the Pentagon and George C. Marshall. It was made to convince American troops of the necessity of combating the Axis Powers during World War II. This film examines the differences between democratic and fascist states.

Director

Top cast

Robert J. Anderson as Boy Donating Money for Japanese Children
Adolf Hitler as Self
720p.BLU
480.79 MB
960*720
English 2.0
TV-PG
us  
23.976 fps
12 hr 52 min
Seeds 8

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by CinemaSerf 6 / 10

Crafted by Frank Capra at the instigation of

Crafted by Frank Capra at the instigation of General Marshall, this is a bit more sophisticated that the usual propaganda exercise Hollywood produced following the raid on Pearl Harbour. This time it uses an effective array of archive to not so much extol the virtues of the great American war machine as to chronologically vilify the axis powers. There’s not so much actual footage of the Emperor but they still manage to illustrate the processes of Japanese expansion through Korea, Manchuria and eventually Shanghai. Mussolini and Hitler provide much more fertile territory for the filmmakers as they use film and animated maps to demonstrate the salami tactics of the Italians in Ethiopia and the Nazis in Austria and Czechoslovakia. By 1942 the war in Europe was essentially the British against pretty much everyone else, there was little stopping the Japanese in the Far East and a grand design is presented here to show how a plan to conquer the world could easily emerge from these geographically unrelated theatres of war. It’s narration is more informative than jingoistic and after it’s all but one hour duration I actually felt more informed than indoctrinated, especially as some of the speechifying from Hitler showed us clearly just how megalomaniac the man really was. Much of the content isn’t especially new, but it’s still worth a watch, I’d say.
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Reviewed by rvosa 8 / 10

Very good to get an idea of perceptions at that time

The series "Why we fight" was US government propaganda to explain to American soldiers, and later the public, why the US was involved in WWII. It is very interesting to watch, and a good way to learn what Americans thought (or were supposed to think) at the time - but on its own this series does not provide an accurate account of the war.

Obviously, this was made before political correctness existed, and you can tell: there is talk of 'Japs', the Holocaust is largely ignored. Also, the movie is necessarily ambivalent about the Russian role, who were allies at the time. For example, the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact (especially the annex about the division of Eastern Europe) goes virtually unmentioned, and the Red Army's reasons for showing up in Eastern Poland are nebulous.

On the other hand, the movies are quite detailed about the people involved, the various Nazi leaders and so on - who would have been household names at the time, but would probably be left out of present day WWII documentaries. Also interesting is that one of the reasons, apparently, why Nazism must be fought was their union busting - surely a reflection of the post-Depression Roosevelt era.

All in all, well worth watching. I rate this highly both because it is essential viewing as an historical document, and because it is very well done propaganda (Frank Capra, animations by Disney)! Note that the US government has placed these movies in the public space, which means that perfectly legal, digital versions can be found on the internet.

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