“There were a few men in Hollywood who, as soon as war was declared, were in uniform,” recalled John Huston in the 1984 documentary George Stevens: A Filmmaker’s Journey. ![]() In a 1942 Christmas greeting to members, Guild President George Stevens noted that “many of you are stationed at the far corners of the globe, doing your part in finishing the biggest and most important production on which you have ever worked.” By the end of 1944, more than 6,000 Hollywood workers - including 143 directors - had signed on for active duty. 7, most of Hollywood, like the rest of the country, turned its attention to the war effort. There was no problem enlarging its ‘plant capacity’ - its chief ‘raw material’ is talent.” As The Wall Street Journal noted in a January 1942 front-page story: “The movie industry’s production facilities were ready for immediate utilization in the war effort. Hollywood was well situated to mobilize for war, and film directors were essential in educating both the public, who wanted to know just why war was necessary, and new recruits, who needed to quickly learn how to use highly technical military machinery. ![]() Why return to the military’s “iron dictatorship,” he asked rhetorically in his 1971 autobiography, The Name Above the Title? Why, especially when it meant declining multi-million dollar studio deals that would have given him the financial security he had long desired? For his part, Capra said he was simply “bored” with his success and was nagged by “a guilty conscience,” championing the downtrodden on screen while beginning “to live like the Aga Khan” in Hollywood. (Granted a month-long extension to finish Arsenic and Old Lace, he left for Washington on Feb. 12, just five days after Pearl Harbor, he signed up for the Army’s Signal Corps with a major’s commission and was ordered to report for active duty in mid-January. Capra, a WWI veteran already well into his 40s, had volunteered his services as the dark storm clouds of war gathered over Europe earlier that year. “There they were, filming this hysterically funny comedy about murder and mayhem, and, suddenly, the entire world shifted under their feet,” recalled film historian Jeanine Basinger, a longtime friend of the director. No one was working on that fateful Sunday, but when the cast and crew returned to the Burbank set the following morning, the emotions were overwhelming. ![]() Then, with just a single week to go, Japan attacked America’s naval base at Pearl Harbor on Dec. ![]() Convinced that he’s Theodore Roosevelt, the delusional character “Teddy” storms up the grand staircase - which he believes is San Juan Hill - screaming at the top of his lungs for his troops to follow him into the fray: “Charge!” Director Frank Capra spent seven weeks shooting this macabre comedy in October and November 1941. "CHARGE!" The battle cry reverberated throughout the Victorian mansion set used for the film version of Arsenic and Old Lace, as Cary Grant and the ensemble of actors portraying a family of lunatics ran around a Warner Bros. IN THE ARMY NOW: Frank Capra, who enlisted as a major in theĪrmy Signal Corps, made the Oscar-winning Why We Fight seriesīy adding this own narrative to enemy footage.
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