Prelude To War

While America sleeps, Japan & Germany slowly and methodically build their armies and launch their plans for global conquest.

Prelude To War was the first entry in the U.S. War Department's Why We Fight series, a group of seven moral-boosting documentaries supervised by Lt. Col. Frank Capra. As brilliantly assembles as any of Capra's "populist" Hollywood films, Prelude demonstrates how the diplomatic and political blunders made in the wake of WWI led inexorably to World War II. Especially culpable are those complacent citizens of the USA who were lead to believe that the problems of the rest of the world had no bearing on their lives. While America sleeps, Japan and Germany slowly and methodically build their armies and launch their planes for global conquest. Throughout the film, the lies of fascism and totalitarianism are contrasted with the ideals of Democracy. Unlike most other War Department efforts, the 53 minute Why We Fight was shown to both civilian and military audiences.