December 7th (1943)

Director: John Ford, Gregg Toland
Starring: Walter Huston, Harry Davenport, Dana Andrews

Synopsis:
A dramatization of the attack on Pearl Harbor, prefaced by a pre-war Uncle Sam grappling with his conscience.

Impressions:
I'll start by saying that this is a review of the original uncut version and not the shorter version recut by John Ford. Ford's version is the one that won an Oscar as a documentary. Gregg Toland's original is a 'docudrama' at its most charitable. Nearly half the runtime is dedicated to the dispute between Uncle Sam, played by Walter Huston, and his conscience, played by Harry Davenport, who seems more like the devil on his shoulder. While Uncle Sam defends the Japanese population of Hawaii, Mr. C sows suspicion and paranoia, even farther than any due prudence at the time would warrant. Other commentators have pointed out the issue with having a Korean-American actor play a kannushi to give a false depiction of the tenets of Shinto. When we finally get to the main event, we're treated to a rather mediocre and fairly inaccurate dramatization of the attack on Pearl Harbor. One of the key reasons for the censorship of this film was George Marshall's objection to Toland highlighting the failure to act on the radar operator's early detection of the incoming planes. The post-attack commentary, which includes a fair bit of praise of the local Japanese-Americans' displays of patriotism, works to undermine Mr. C's scaremongering, which makes me wonder if the whole thing isn't meant to be subversive. The final sequence with a discussion between the shade of a sailor killed at Pearl Harbor and a soldier from WWI is terribly ironic looking back over 70 years later. The primary virtue of this film is as a historical curiosity and for that reason, it'll warrant a watch by history buffs.

Rating:
Watch It