American Documents, Vol. 10: The Moving Picture Boys in the Great War on AllMovie

Anxious to create unified support for isolationist America's entry into the World War, in 1917 President Woodrow Wilson created the Committee on Public Information to drum up support for the war. This propaganda and censorship arm of the federal government came to be known as the Creel Committee, after its chief, George Creel. As this documentary shows, Hollywood, which was initially as isolationist as the rest of the country, eventually produced anti-German and anti-Communist propaganda. This is the tenth installment in the 13-volume American Documents documentary series, which presents United States history in an entertaining, yet well-researched manner. Highlights of the program include newsreel footage and clips from silent films such as Thomas Ince's 1916 anti-war picture Civilization, and D.W. Griffith's Intolerance. The program is hosted by Lowell Thomas, a broadcast journalist who was the voice of Fox Movietone News for 17 years and covered several wars for CBS Radio. This documentary won the Chicago International Film Festival Award.