ABSTRACT
While the government propaganda messages delivered in Prelude to War and the other Why We Fight films were a part of the serviceman’s experience, most Americans on the home front were not influenced by those powerful documentaries. For the vast majority of citizens, the war, while of immediate and vital concern, was an adventure that was lived out in the United States. Much more significant than government propaganda films in both shaping and reflecting the hopes, attitudes, and beliefs of the American population were the motion pictures produced in Hollywood for the domestic audience. As Walter Wanger had observed on the eve of American intervention, the movie industry was prepared to assume new responsibility in the effort to maintain public morale in a democratic society at war.
