Clayton R. Koppes is Houck Professor of Humanities and Chairman of the History Department at Oberlin College.
Black, Gregory D. : University of Missouri - Kansas City
Gregory D. Black is Chairman of the Communications Department at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and
Director of the American Culture program there.
Review
"Hollywood Goes to War is a thoroughly researched and informative study of the motion picture industry
in wartime, how the hundreds of movies it turned out were slanted, manipulated and altered in furtherance of the
war effort by their makers acting in concert with government officials, with emphasis on the disagreements, clashes
and occasional open rebellions engendered by so uneasy a collaboration."
--Philip Dunne, Chicago Sun-Times Book Week
"Koppes and Black, professor of history and communications respectively, have no evident ideological axes
to grind in this thorough . . . study. Their primary concern is to examine 'the enduring question of the appropriateness
of governmental coercion and censorship of private media' as it was raised by the relationship between the movie
industry and the U.S. government."
--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World
"Beware of censors bearing high ideals. That's the message of Hollywood Goes to War, a careful account of
America's flirtation with cultural commissarship during World War II. . . . The descriptions of behind-the-scenes
fiddling by bureaucrats (particularly with King Vidor's ambitious flop, 'An American Romance,' which was 'transformed
from a paean to rugged individualism into a celebration of management-labor cooperation') are instructive. They
expose the political mentality of the time and the mentality of propagandists of all times."
--Walter Goodman, New York Times Book Review
University Of California Press Web Site, April, 2000
Summary
Conflicting interests and conflicting attitudes toward the war characterized the uneasy relationship between
Washington and Hollywood during World War II. There was deep disagreement within the film-making community as to
the stance towards the war that should be taken by one of America's most lucrative industries. Hollywood Goes
to War reveals the powerful role played by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Office of War Information--staffed
by some of America's most famous intellectuals including Elmer Davis, Robert Sherwood, and Archibald MacLeish--in
shaping the films that were released during the war years. Ironically, it was the film industry's own self-censorship
system, the Hays Office and the Production Code Administration, that paved the way for government censors to cut
and shape movies to portray an idealized image of a harmonious American society united in the fight against a common
enemy. Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory D. Black reconstruct the power struggles between the legendary producers,
writers, directors, stars and politicians all seeking to project their own visions onto the silver screen and thus
to affect public perceptions and opinion.
