WW2

Authored by Serban V.C. Enache via Hereticus Economicus:

The post-WW2 period was the zenith for military and war movies – over 200 were made in the 1950s, and...

Captain Marvel opened this weekend to a monster box office haul of $153 million domestically and over $450 million worldwide....

A few months ago, then DOD Hollywood liaison Phil Strub gave an interview in which he described the work of the entertainment liaison offices.



Nazis make the perfect Hollywood villains – instantly recognisable, obviously deplorable and easy to recreate. So why were there no anti-Nazi films until 1939, on the eve of World War 2? This week I explore the history of Nazis in Hollywood in the 1930s, how the German government influenced American film-making, and the Jewish intelligence organisation who did what the FBI wouldn’t – infiltrated and helped prosecute the Nazis.

Four years ago, scholar Ben Urwand revealed how the Nazis' man in Hollywood Georg Gyssling censored and rewrote film scripts to remove scenes and dialogue that criticised the Nazi regime. He also repeatedly removed references to the suffering of Jews in post-WW1 Germany. Hidden until now, the DOD continued this policy after the war, helping rehabilitate Germany's image and cover up for anti-semitism.

The latest release from the US Army's entertainment liaison office provokes many questions. Why did they refuse to support the movie Rampage? Why are the military pitching ideas to studio executives? Who is in charge of the Pentagon's operations in Hollywood? And why does the US Army have a collection of Nazi art?(Read more...)

Hollywood doesn’t make war films any more. This isn’t entirely true, but compared to the post-WW2 period there are a lot less war films being made today. In this in-depth episode I offer a brief history of war movies and anti-war movies, and how the Pentagon’s policy on supporting films depicting war seems to have changed over time. I highlight some of my favourite anti-war movies, along with the most anti-war films the DOD has supported.

Ever since the revelation that the radical author George Orwell had provided names of possible communists to British intelligence, liberal revisionists have claimed he was a crypto-racist and a British spy.