It's Everybody's War (1942)

Directed by

Will Price

Genre

documentary film, war film, propaganda film

Country

United States

Runtime

18 min

Rating

5.9 of 10 from 7 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This short film shows how a typical American small town experiences World War II from 1940 to 1942. It traces the town's journey from sending soldiers overseas to receiving news of their deaths in the Philippines to eventually rallying behind the war effort at home.

sombereducationalpatrioticemotionalhistoricaldramaticearnesturgent

What happens

It's Everybody's War is a dramatic propaganda short film produced by 20th Century Fox and distributed by the Office of War Information in 1942. The film is designed to show the chronological effects of the war on a typical American small town. Two years ago they sent their company of the National Guard but didn't think they would actually go to battle. They first get sanguine letters about their training and being stationed in the Philippines without a thought to the possibility of combat. Then the Japanese invade the Philippines. Over winter 1942, one by one, many of the parents get telegrams from the government saying their children have died. People start joining the war effort with bravado, but then slack off, taking days off work and wasting resources, until May 6, 1942, when Corregidor falls and the rest of the company is taken prisoner by the Japanese. The town then rallies, and more and more people go to work for war industries, go without luxuries to supply more materiel, and buy bonds. The next time that their company goes off to the front, they will have more planes, more tires, and better equipment, and they won't have to surrender. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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