Title: One world, big screen : Hollywood, the Allies, and World War II /
Authors: Bennett, M. Todd.
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press,
Year: 2012
Subjects: World War, 1939-1945 Motion pictures and the war.; Motion pictures United States History; Motion pictures Political aspects United States History
Abstract: "World War II coincided with cinema's golden age. Movies now considered classics were created at a time when all sides in the war were coming to realize the great power of popular films to motivate the masses. Through multinational research, One World, Big Screen reveals how the Grand Alliance--Britain, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States--tapped Hollywood's impressive power to shrink the distance and bridge the differences that separated them. The Allies, M. Todd Bennett shows, strategically manipulated cinema in an effort to promote the idea that the United Nations was a family of nations joined by blood and affection. Bennett revisits Casablanca, Mrs. Miniver, Flying Tigers, and other familiar movies that, he argues, helped win the war and the peace by improving Allied solidarity and transforming the American worldview. Closely analyzing film, diplomatic correspondence, propagandists' logs, and movie studio records found in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the former Soviet Union, Bennett rethinks traditional scholarship on World War II diplomacy by examining the ways that Hollywood and the Allies worked together to prepare for and enact the war effort."--Publisher's Web site.
Contents: Introduction -- The "magic bullet": Hollywood, Washington, and the moviegoing public -- "Pro-British-American war preachers": internationalism at the movies, 1939-1941 -- One world, big screen: the United Nations and American horizons -- Kissing cousins: how Anglo-American relations became "special" -- Courting Uncle Joe: the theatrics of Soviet-American matrimony -- Negotiating the color divide: race and U.S. paternalism toward China -- Conclusion.