Footage
Red Tails on the Silver Screen
George Lucas brings the story of the Tuskegee Airmen to movie theaters across the country in January 2012.
Ronald reagan learns to ID the Japanese Zero
Future president Ronald Reagan stars in a US Army Air Forces training film that teaches pilots how to recognize planes.
straighten up and fly right
A US Navy film teaches pilot trainees how to level their planes, climb, glide, and more.
Take It Away, Gene
Gene Krupa steals the show from Barbara Stanwyck in Ball of Fire.
Princess Virginia
Virginia Mayo stars with comedian Bob Hope in 1944's Princess and the PIrate. Louanne Hogan supplied the singing voice for Mayo's perfomance of "Kiss Me in the Morning," which begins at 1:01 in this trailer for the movie.
Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis
The star of the Wizard of Oz performs the classic "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" in this movie clip from 1944.
Ginger Rogers from the cutting-room floor
Sixty years before Renée Zellwegger played the starring showgirl in the Oscar-winning 2002 film Chicago, Ginger Rogers played the same character. In this scene that didn't make the final cut of 1942's Roxie Hart, Rogers does the Charleston as only she could.
America's First calypso king sings in a zombie movie
Sir Lancelot adapted his song "Shame and Scandal in the Family" for 1943's I Walked with a Zombie, now a certified zombie film classic.
An operatic national anthem
If you went to the movies late in World War II, you would at some point have seen this 1944 reel with operatic singing by Brooklyn's Merrill Miller.
Roller skating in technicolor
The Skating Vanities and its star Gloria Nord did a routine for the 1944 Betty Grable movie Pin Up. Skaters take the stage in glorious red-white-and-blue at 2:06 in this clip, and Nord, herself a popular pinup, first peeks out at 2:54.
The Outlaw
Censors thought the 1943 movie financed by multimillionaire Howard Hughes was too racy and blocked its general release. Undeterred, Hughes promoted the movie ceaselessly and by the time it came out in 1946, costar Jane Russell was famous. View the official trailer.
scene From Hitchcock's Lifeboat
Starving WWII shipwreck survivors anxiously lean over the edge of their lifeboat to watch a fishing line baited with sparkling diamon bracelet dance under the water to lure a big catch.
D-day at Sicily
WIth gliders and paratroopers taking the lead, the Allies invade Sicily in this wartime newsreel featuring live combat film shot from US Navy ships along the coast.
Abbott and Costello's 13 times 7 is 28
In a mind-boggling reminiscent of the Who's on First routine, Lou Costello makes his case for the equation 13 x 7 = 28 to an incredulous Bud Abbott in this clip from 1941's In the Navy.
China's American aviator heroes
Two period newsreel segments profile the 1st American Volunteer Group, with shots of its shark-faced Curtiss P-40 fighters in flight, of its pilots and crews in action, and of its innovative commander, Claire Chennault.
John Wayne, silver screen FLying Tiger
Watch the promotional trailer for the 1942 film Flying Tigers, Hollywood's take on the US airmen of the 1st American Volunteer Group who helped defend China from Japan.
Buzzing Death Bombs
See and hear the V-1 rocket—the buzz bomb—that tormented Allied forces and civilians in Europe. When an overhead buzz bomb fell silent, death was on its way.
The Bill that Created America’s Future
Check out Uncle Sam’s GI Bill for WWII vets—a deal that gave America an educated workforce and thriving middle class—in this no-malarkey wartime film.
The big, mighty B-29
Pull down the blackout shades and watch the artful wartime propaganda film Birth of the B-29. You'll be in 1945 faster than you can decipher MCMXLV!
The surrender is signed
This United News newsreel puts you aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945, as a witness to Japan’s official surrender.
GI fun at Hitler’s house
Take a GI’s victory tour of the Berghof—Hitler’s home in the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden, Germany—in this 1945 newsreel.
Hitler Youth tell their stories
In a March 1945 German newsreel, Hitler Youth boys—like the ones GIs encountered in Heilbronn—talk proudly of their combat experiences.
To the Shores of Iwo Jima, Parts I and II
Thanks to heroic military cameramen, you can follow the US marines onto Iwo Jima in this 1945 Office of War Information film. Shown in two parts.
Battle of the Bulge on film
The Battle of the Bulge unfolds onscreen—along with a toughen-up message addressed to home-front civilians—in this 1945 army newsreel.
Carmen Miranda in full flower
Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda adds Latin spice to the 1942 film Springtime in the Rockies with her take on “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.”
Germany crushes the D-Day Invasion?
Watch a wartime German newsreel footage and see how the Nazi government made German civilians think the Allied invasion of Normandy was another victory for the Third Reich.
The Marianas Turkey Shoot in color
Pilots and carrier crews of US Task Force 58 demolish Imperial Japan's naval air power in the June 1944 Battle of the Philippine Sea.
US Navy forces Battle a U-boat
A destroyer and carrier-based planes take on German sub U-505 in a classic Victory at Sea episode.
The Andrews Sisters on the silver screen
The iconic vocal harmony trio perform the quintessential swinging WWII song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" in the Abbot and Costello movie Buck Privates.
Veronica Lake and her dangerous hair
In this clip from the US Office of War Information, the silver screen sex symbol with the peekaboo hair gets a look that's safe for wartime factory work.
Bugs Bunny’s war bond shtick
Porky and Elmer back up the Cwazy Wabbit as he sings and dances for the war effort in the Looney Tunes short “Any Bonds Today?”
Leyte Gulf sea war
See real footage of air and sea combat during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in a segment from the 1950s TV series Victory at Sea.
Ella’s yellow basket
Songbird Ella Fitzgerald jazzes up a Wild West bus tour with her hit “A-Tisket A-Tasket” in Abbot and Costello’s 1942 movie Ride ’Em Cowboy.
