Through a century of movies, the U.S. military held sway over war and service-oriented films. Influenced by the armed forces and their public relations units, Hollywood presented moviegoers with images of a faultless American fighting machine led by heroic commanders. This book examines this cooperation with detailed narratives of military blunders and unfit officers that were whitewashed to be presented in a more favorable light. Drawing on production files, correspondence between bureaucrats and filmmakers, and contemporary critical reviews, the author reveals the behind-the-scenes political maneuvers that led to the rewriting of history on-screen.

The little-explored story of how politics, propaganda, and profits were combined to create the drama, imagery and fantasy that was American film during World War II. 32 black-and-white photographs.

The newly expanded and revised edition of The Hollywood War Machine includes wide-ranging exploration of numerous popular military-themed films that have appeared in the close to a decade since the first edition was published. Within the Hollywood movie community, there has not been even the slightest decline in well-financed pictures focusing on warfare and closely-related motifs. The second edition includes a new chapter on recent popular films and another that analyzes the relationship between these movies and the bourgeoning gun culture in the United States, marked in recent years by a dramatic increase in episodes of mass killings.

War Movies and Economics: Lessons from Hollywood’s Adaptations of Military Conflict applies ongoing research in the relatively new genre of economics in popular media to Hollywood’s war movies. Whether inadvertently or purposefully, these movies provide numerous examples of how economic principles often play an important role in military conflict. The authors of the chapters included in this edited collection work to illustrate economics lessons portrayed in adaptations such as Band of Brothers, Conspiracy, The Dirty Dozen, Dunkirk, Memphis Belle, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, Spartacus, Stalag 17, and Valkyrie. Aspects of these stories show how key economic principles of scarcity, limited resources, and incentives play important roles in military conflict. The movies also provide an avenue for discussion of the economics of public goods provision, the modern economic theory of bureaucracy, and various game-theoretic concepts such as strategic moves and commitment devices. Where applicable, lessons from closely related fields such as management are also provided. This book is ideal reading for students of economics looking for an approachable route to understanding basic principles of economics and game theory. It is also accessible to amateur and professional historians, and any reader interested in popular culture as it relates to television, movies, and military history.

Now a Netflix original documentary series, also written by Mark Harris: the extraordinary wartime experience of five of Hollywood's most important directors, all of whom put their stamp on World War II and were changed by it forever Here is the remarkable, untold story of how five major Hollywood directors—John Ford, George Stevens, John Huston, William Wyler, and Frank Capra—changed World War II, and how, in turn, the war changed them. In a move unheard of at the time, the U.S. government farmed out its war propaganda effort to Hollywood, allowing these directors the freedom to film in combat zones as never before. They were on the scene at almost every major moment of America’s war, shaping the public’s collective consciousness of what we’ve now come to call the good fight. The product of five years of scrupulous archival research, Five Came Back provides a revelatory new understanding of Hollywood’s role in the war through the life and work of these five men who chose to go, and who came back. “Five Came Back . . . is one of the great works of film history of the decade.” --Slate “A tough-minded, information-packed and irresistibly readable work of movie-minded cultural criticism. Like the best World War II films, it highlights marquee names in a familiar plot to explore some serious issues: the human cost of military service, the hypnotic power of cinema and the tension between artistic integrity and the exigencies of war.” --The New York Times

"War Movies and Economics: Lessons from Hollywood's Adaptations of Military Conflict applies ongoing research in the relatively new genre of economics in popular media to Hollywood's war movies. Whether inadvertently or purposefully, these movies provide numerous examples of how economic principles often play an important role in military conflict. The authors of the essays included in this edited collection work to illustrate economics lessons portrayed in adaptations such as Band of Brothers, Conspiracy, The Dirty Dozen, Dunkirk, Memphis Belle, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Spartacus, Stalag 17 and Valkyrie. Aspects of these stories show how key economic principles of scarcity, limited resources and incentives play important roles in military conflict. The movies also provide an avenue for discussion of the economics of public goods provision, the modern economic theory of bureaucracy, and various game-theoretic concepts such as strategic moves and commitment devices. Where applicable, lessons from closely-related fields such as management are also provided. This book is ideal reading for students of economics looking for an approachable route to understanding basic principles of economics and game theory. It is also accessible to amateur and professional historians, and any reader interested in popular culture as it relates to television, movies, and military history"--

No other cinematic genre more sharply illustrates the contradictions of American society - notions about social class, politics, and socio-economic ideology - than the war film. This book examines the latest cycle of war films to reveal how they mediate and negotiate the complexities of war, class, and a military-political mission largely gone bad.