Prelude to War (1942). US War Department, Special Services Division. Held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Prelude to War
The opening film of the War Department's orientation series: two worlds, free and slave, argued out over captured enemy footage and a narration written to be heard by men who had just been drafted.
- Year
- 1942
- Made by
- US War Department, Special Services Division
- Directed by
- Frank Capra
- Free to use because
- A work of the United States government — no copyright, anywhere
The note
Capra was handed a mountain of enemy propaganda and told to answer it. What he made instead was an argument, and Prelude to War is where the argument is laid out: the free world and the slave world, the long slide from Manchuria to Poland, the case for why an American conscript should care about any of it. Heard without picture it becomes what it always partly was — a radio editorial of enormous confidence, carried by Walter Huston's narration and Alfred Newman's scoring. It won the Academy Award for documentary feature in 1942 and was later released to civilian cinemas, which is why it is so widely held. As a work of the United States government it carries no copyright at all.
Prelude to War, 1942. US War Department, Special Services Division. Directed by Frank Capra. This is the film’s soundtrack: narration, score and location sound, streamed from the Internet Archive’s master. No picture — the audio is the work. A work of the United States government, and therefore free of copyright anywhere it is used.
The soundtrack