Hollywood In World War II

Throughout the United States’ participation in World War II, the American film industry was called upon by the federal government to produce film after film to inform the public of the events overseas and to emotionally influence the American people in order to keep them invested in the war efforts. From films of live combat during the Battle of the Midway, to cartoons promoting the donation of resources like rubber for military purposes, to dramas of romance between a soldier and his lover back home, the everlasting presence of the war found itself featured in nearly every film of the early 1940s. Thomas Doherty’s Projections of War seeks to thoroughly record that history of the role of the United States Film Industry in World War II, and …show more content…
The author clearly sought to reference to nearly if not every film that was released during his timetable of research and also achieves in making each picture relevant to his account. The narrative is written with such authority that is comes off as if Hollywood itself wrote it's own autobiography of their role in shaping the outcomes of the war. The desire to produce both an analytical reflection of how 1940’s Hollywood should be remembered as an industry within a historically accurate retelling of the film industry’s actions during the war is daunting in that the reader may find the history portion dry or the opinion sections unwarranted. Doherty manages to please both parties and factually romanticizes the necessary role Hollywood contributed to the American efforts of World War II. This book is important for Americans to read in order to truly appreciate an angle of the war that demonstrates how effective and necessary the film industry was to keep the American moral positive and focused on winning the war, as well as a way to gain an encyclopedic perspective of filmmaking during the