"The beginning of a beautiful friendship" : World War II propaganda in feature films from 1939-1943

The United States government began to understand the importance of film propaganda during World War I. Hollywood and the film industry were valuable resources for the government's propaganda efforts during World War II. Like Rick Blaine said in Casablanca (1943), it was "the beginning of a beautiful friendship." This study examines the categories of World War II propaganda messages in six feature films released from 1939 to 1943 - The Wizard of Oz ( 1939), Gone with the Wind ( 1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Casablanca (1943). Each film was screened for propaganda messages relating to World War II. The numbers and categories of the propaganda messages were used to determine themes in the movies. The findings revealed two important themes - "good Americans" and "bad Germans." More than one-third of the propaganda messages (22 out of 64) were categorized as Pro-American (15) or Pro-Democracy (7). The Anti-German category also contained almost one-third of the messages. Together, these categories account for nearly two-thirds of all the propaganda messages identified in the sample films. Another finding was that the number of propaganda messages in the films increased steadily as the war progressed. The content of the messages was also reflected in World War II radio propaganda. Film proved to be a valuable tool for government propaganda during World War II, and researchers should continue to study its uses and effectiveness.