The educational screen (c1922-c1956])

November, 1943 Page 329 Motion Pictures Go to War NICHOLAS W. WILLIAMS Training Division, Lexington Signal Depot Lexington, Kentucky IX the preface to, a booklet entitled "The War in Outline," prepared by the Special Service Division. Army of the United States, General George C. Mar- shall states very forthrightly that a knowledge of the causes and events leading up to the present war and of the principles for which we are fighting "is an indis- pensable part of military training and merits the thoughtful consideration of every American soldier." At the United States .Army's Le.xiiigton Signal De- pot, Colonel Laurence Watts, Conunanding Officer, has encouraged the use .of motion pictures. To the ca.sual observer a film is a "picture show," a "movie." Educationally and semantically. to the uninitiated, these latter terms may be meaningful but without proper meaning. Nearly every army post does have "movies," entertainment films which are important recrcationally. Tlie Lexington Signal Depot is no ex- ception. Regular feature entertainment pictures an<l short subjects are shown to the military personnel at the reservation during off-work hours. The impor- tance of relaxation in the war of survival, the war of nerves, is not overlooked bv a farsighted Commanding Officer. An entertainment motion picture is only one of sev- eral types used by the Army. .Anotlier type might be labeled "informational." The tliird cla.ss of motion pictures, of which there is a predominance used b\- the armed forces, is the training film which is used as an aid to teadiing, whether it be designed to give cor- rect instruction on how pro])er]y to administer splints on the battlefield, how to safeguard military informa- tion, or how effectively to combat tank warfare. When General Marshall pointed out the necessity fur informing a .soldier of "why we fight," the dra- matic medium of the motion picture was not over- looked. From the Adjutant General's office, Wash- ington, D. C, came the announcement of the -Special .Service information films, seven in number, to be sup- plemented by lectures and discussion periods on "The War in Outline." These seven films are a "must see" for all United States .\rmy personnel. The first of the seven films in the Orientation Series is called Prelude to War. This film, and two others of the series, has already been shown at LSD. Prelude to IVar rfeals with the rise of the Axis powers and their challenge to America. It was released to the public on May 27; it has already caused nationwide comment by those who, like Dorothy Thompson, have previewed it. A recent sample poll of theatre managers indicated that the public is tired of war pictures. No doubt the public is tired of Hollywood's conception of war. with all its usual stereotyped plots, but America continues very avidly to read Ernie Pyle and Henry McLemore, who observe the human side of the war; America listens to its radio with great anxiety or hope as the A fine example oi intelligent utilization of various types of films at an Aimy post, and the functions of each in the war program. Two scenes from "Prelude to War." (Produced by Special Service Division, War Department. Released through OWI.) case may be; when the President speaks, he is heard. When the army released Prelude to War to the Ameri- can public through the film industry, it saw and heard perhaps as it has never seen and heard before. Military and civilian personnel at Avon, and at many other military stations throughout the United States, have seen Prelude to War. All but comparatively little footage of the fifty-minute motion picture is au- thentic. Produced by Frank Capra, the film is very carefully edited so as to create a singleness of impres- sion : it is composed of shots from news reels, shots from captured Axis motion pictures. No Edgar Allen Poe short story could be more dramatically con- -structed. There are no Hollywood villains in Prelude to War; the characters are our enemies, singly, in the forms of such as Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini; collectively, in the people who represent our antago- nists. The least educated can understand the simple