The death of Hollywood's Golden Age and the changing American character.

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.

No child born into pre-World War II America possibly could deny the extraordinary power of film to shape our imagination, influence our expectations of life, give some glimpse of adulthood, and provide a sense of what kind of country we were living in. There was no television, and radio--as fondly as many remember it--did not come close to having the power and allure of the movies. Games, dances, and other forms of an earlier folk culture played a limited role in the lives of people in the newer cities.

Children raised during World War II saw the first glimpses of mass prosperity following the Depression. While the youth of the 1940s had none of the buying power possessed by future generations of the young, most had allowances and were not forced to work. In the residential middle-class neighborhoods, there was little to do that could compete with the movies. The cinematic experience of that generation was not confined to the Saturday matinee fare of grade-B westerns, Abbott and Costello comedies, and serials. If a youngster went to a Sunday afternoon movie, he had discovered at a very early age the world of adults.

In those days, a mature audience meant precisely that--not a sexually obsessed audience, but adults with more cultured, sophisticated tastes. This did not preclude children as it does today for obvious reasons. Kids' innocence was protected without any serious dilution of the intelligent content of film. If the Saturday matinee were showing a cartoon festival, or Randolph Scott western, the Sunday feature could be "Mildred Pierce," "Mrs. Miniver," "The Best Years of Our Lives," "Since You Went Away," or "To Each His Own." In these pictures, a child could observe adult behavior without harm. He or she could observe how adults lived, what they believed in, and what they were willing to sacrifice for.

Life in many of those motion pictures promised extraordinary adventures not just journeys of the seven seas, but those of the heart and of the mind. These were adventures that ordinary people could have, such as the three returning veterans in "The Best Years of Our Lives," or the druggist's daughter portrayed by Olivia de Havilland in "To Each His Own," or Walter Bailey, the small-town banker that Jimmy Stewart immortalized in "It's a Wonderful Life." Not all ended happily. For instance, Joan Crawford sees her daughter convicted of murder in "Mildred Pierce."

World War II enveloped the lives of all Americans, even children. Unquestionably, the war was one of the singular tragedies of world history, with 50,000,000 dead, cities obliterated, Jews and others exterminated, and countries virtually enslaved.

Yet, for children on the home front whose fathers were too old for military service and whose lives were not disrupted, the war was an exhilarating moment. This seems somewhat ghastly in retrospect, but in our innocence it was understandable. This was an extraordinary moment in American history, one of national unity, common purpose, and a shared sacrifice--a period, unlike the Civil War, when the battlefield was far away. It also was a time of remarkable prosperity, in sharp relief to the decade that had just passed. We had an enemy so villainous that we had no doubt of our moral righteousness. This was, in social commentator Stud Turkel's phrase, "The Good War."

The movies not only assured us of that fact, they gave us a totally romanticized view of war. Death usually happened without pain, and the gauze of self-censorship filtered what we saw in the newsreels. It was the liberal war against fascism, against the bully boys of the world. In Hollywood, many of the writers were European emigres--Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Anatole Litvak, William Wyler, Fritz Lang, to name a few--and most of the studio heads were Jewish, such as Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner, and Adolph Zukor. Appalled and frightened by Hitler, they were more than willing to lend their support for the war. As Neil Gabler puts it in his book, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. "They would create [America's] values and myths. its traditions and archetypes. It would be an America where fathers were strong. families stable, people attractive, resilient. resourceful. and decent.... [They] created a powerful cluster of images and ideas--so powerful that, in a sense, they colonized the American imagination. No one could think about this country without thinking about the movies."

"Bataan," produced in 1943, was the story of 13 doomed American defenders on that Philippine peninsula. As one critic described it. The losses were personal and the human tragedy of Bataan had a stunning and sobering impact. The picture, as did many other war movies of the period, had in the unit a Jew, an Italian, a Pole, an Irishman, a WASP, some guy named Texas, and, in this film, a black man. Many vividly remember Robert Taylor shouting in defiance and protest behind his machine gun, the last suvivor of his patrol, firing away as the Japanese soldiers swarmed toward his position. Of course, the Japanese completely were dehumanized in World War II films, but that was not what stuck with the audience--it was this image of our country symbolized by those doomed men.

There were other war...