Summary: Using narration and authentic, feature and travel film, events from 1930 to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 are traced and reconstructed.
Description: Three aspects of Japan in the thirties are compared: the travelogue image, the modern state and the ancient militarist tradition. It is suggested that war was the militarists' solution to their desire for power; that in addition to the conquest of China and South East Asia their larger goal was war with the USA. Japanese preparations for war are compared with the escapist image of the US Navy. Political and diplomatic events are recounted from the attack on the gunboat "Panay" in 1937 through the Axis alliance, political changes in Tokyo and "intervention or isolation" in the US, to the final negotiations between Cordell Hull and Namura. Then Japanese preparations and attack on Pearl Harbor - a "blunder" in uniting America, and the memory of which "cannot... be erased".
Alternative Title:
Colour:B&W
Digitised:No
Object_Number:MGH 190
Sound:Sound
Access Conditions:NON-IWM
Featured Period:
Production Date:1963
Production Country: United States of America
Production Details: David L Wolper Productions (Production company)
United Artists (Production company)
Flaum, Marshall (Production individual)
Flaum, Marshall (Production individual)
Basehart, Richard (Production cast)
Personalities, Units and Organisations:
Keywords:
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W
Sound format: Sound
Soundtrack language: English
Title language: English
Subtitle language: None
Technical Details: Format: 16mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 1700 ft; Running time: 50 mins
