"#President #FranklinDRoosevelt mobilized the #Hollywood #film industry to boost national morale and enhance understanding of the #UnitedStates’ participation in #WorldWarII.

#Jewish #directors and #screenwriters ranging from #GeorgeCukor to #BuddSchulberg played a significant role in wartime #filmmaking. They #produced #documentaries and #movies that were at once educational, entertaining and politically useful in the advancement of #US war aims.

As Michael Berkowitz observes in Hollywood’s Unofficial Film Corps: American Jewish Moviemakers And The War Effort (The University of Wisconsin Press), they were “extraordinarily effective” in assisting the US armed forces and binding #Americans together."

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/jewish-american-moviemakers-and-world-war-ii/

The film "A Face in the Crowd" by Elia Kazan, written by Budd Schulberg and staring Andy Griffith & Patricia Neal was released this day in 1957.

"A Face in the Crowd" chronicles the rise and fall of Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes (Andy Griffith), a boisterous entertainer discovered in an Arkansas drunk tank by Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal), a local radio producer with ambitions of her own. His charisma and cunning soon shoot him to the heights of television stardom and political demagoguery, forcing Marcia to grapple with the manipulative, reactionary monster she has created. Directed by Elia Kazan from a screenplay by Budd Schulberg, this incisive satire features an extraordinary debut screen performance by Griffith, who brandishes his charm in an uncharacteristically sinister role. Though the film was a flop on its initial release, subsequent generations have marveled at its eerily prescient diagnosis of the toxic intimacy between media and politics in American life.

#AFaceInTheCrowd #EliaKazan #BuddSchulberg #AndyGriffith #PatriciaNeal