War Comes to America

War Comes to America was the seventh and final film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight World War II propaganda film series. The early part of the film is an idealized version of American history which includes mention of the first settlements, the American Revolutionary War (omitting the American Civil War), and the ethnic diversity of America. It lists 22 immigrant nationalities, 19 of them European, and uses the then-current terms "Negro", "Jap", an... more

War Comes to America was the seventh and final film of Frank Capra's Why We Fight World War II propaganda film series. The early part of the film is an idealized version of American history which includes mention of the first settlements, the American Revolutionary War (omitting the American Civil War), and the ethnic diversity of America. It lists 22 immigrant nationalities, 19 of them European, and uses the then-current terms "Negro", "Jap", and "Chinaman". This section of the film concludes with a lengthy pean to American inventivenss, economic abundance, and social ideals. The run-up to World War II is then described, beginning in 1931 with the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. The film examines how American public opinion gradually changed from one of isolationism to one of support for the Allied cause, and demonstrates this using a series of Gallup polls. In 1936, public opinion is firmly isolationist, with 95% of Americans answering NO to the question "If another world war... less