Reel History:
World war II in film

This guide leads you to both print, which you will need to follow up in the library, and web resources, some of which may need authentication.
Reference Collection materials can be found on level 3 of the Barr Smith Library.
If you need more help please contact your Research Librarian for History (83033706)
Margaret Hosking (Mon, Tues, Wed am) or
Peter Jacobs (Wed pm, Thurs am, Fri am)

Contents

First step:

Establish the exact details of your film by using the Internet Movie database or the All Movie Guide
where you will find release date, director, actors and maybe a bit about the film.

Searching for film reviews

Film & Television Literature Index (FTLI)

FTLI is definitely the best place to look for journal articles on film, 1976 to the present. It indexes 150 film and television journals from 30 countries cover-to-cover and 200 other journals selectively for articles on film and television.
For 1976-2001 you can also look at Indiana University's free access to the earlier version of this database, FLI Online. This is the electronic version of the print Film Literature Index and contains over 700,000 articles, film reviews and book reviews published between 1976-2001.

Newspapers are also useful as sources of film reviews and discussions.
Factiva provides full text and indexing of hundreds of newspapers, mostly from the 1990's onwards, but the Washington Post is available full text from 1984 and the New York Times is available full text from June 1980 and abstracts from January 1, 1969.

For Australian films such as Kokoda , use

APA-FT Australian public affairs -full text

Australia New Zealand Reference Centre

If you have trouble with older film reviews (1939-1976) try looking in newspapers near the date that the film was released.
We hold older issues of newspapers on microfilm.
MICROFILM PER 3 New York Times 1857- and index
Reference collection 05 N53y

MICROFILM PER 54 The Times (London) 1785- and index
Reference collection 05 T58a
Full text available online from the State Library - Times digital archive. 

also try for older articles in:

JSTOR is a full text searchable library of journals (mainly in the social sciences and humanities) which contains full content of selected journals from their first issue up to 3-5 years ago.Good for older articles, 1939-

Periodicals Index Online (PIO)
A database of millions of articles published in the arts, humanities and social sciences since approximately 1800, so you can look for articles (including reviews) published at a particular time, eg, 1950-1953.
From the PIO results screen there is a link to Periodicals Archive Online which provides access to the full text of hundreds of journals. Otherwise, many of the older journals are held either in the BSL or State Library - check catalogues.

More information can be found on the Library Resource guide for Film and cinema resources, compiled by Alan Keig

For articles that provide background to the films

History

Interdisciplinary

Academic OneFile
Replaces Expanded Academic ASAP. Academic OneFile is a broad international multidisciplinary database, providing full text for a large proportion of the 8000 journals covered.

Academic Search Premier
Replaces Academic Search Elite. This international database includes 8000 journals from all subject areas, and provides the full text of articles from over 4000 of those journals

JSTOR is a full text searchable library of journals (mainly in the social sciences and humanities) which contains full content of selected journals from their first issue up to 3-5 years ago.Good for older articles, 1939-

Project Muse full text of nearly 250 quality journal titles from 40 scholarly publishers covering the fields of history, politics etc.

Periodicals Index Online (PIO)
A database of millions of articles published in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Coverage goes back 300 years, so it is very useful for finding articles from history journals over the past 60 or so years.
From the PIO results screen there is a link to Periodicals Archive Online which provides access to the full text of hundreds of journals. Otherwise, many of the older journals are held either in the BSL or State Library - check catalogues.

The following very important index is still only available in paper form in the Reference Collection :

Reference collection 973.05 A512
America: history and life 1964-

Web resources

General Film/Video resources from the Voice of the Shuttle website.
Includes:
Internet Movie database,
All Movie Guide
These contain basic information on thousands of films.

infilm Australia Informative website covering not only Oz Films , but there is also an international movie review archive covering films from the mid 1990's onwards with signed reviews.

History in Film

The Perilous Fight - America's World War II in color - a PBS documentary

Screenonline (UK)

Savages, Swine, & Buffoons: Hollywood's Selected Stereotypical Characterizations of the Japanese, Germans, and Italians in Films Produced During World War II
by Ralph R. Donald, Images, #8: May 99

War movies and war propaganda: a bibliography of materials in the UC Berkeley Library
Includes books, journal articles and essays from edited collections.
Book and journal titles need to be checked in our library catalogue.

Oral history archives of World War II

Paths of Memory

For specific films, these may be useful:

Since you went away

Women and the Home front during World war II

Hope and Glory

Remembering the Blitz: Museum of London

Saving Private Ryan

D- Day at the Imperial War Museum

D-Day anniversary special - Time Magazine

D-Day anniversary : special reports : Guardian Unlimited

Encyclopaedia Brittanica's guide to Normandy 1944

Kokoda

Australian War Memorial - Remembering the war in New Guinea

From a hostile shore: Australia and Japan at war in Papua new Guinea
Edited by Steven Bullard and Tamura Keiko (Canberra, 2004)

L'Armee des ombres/Army of shadows
and
Lacombe Lucien

Simon Kitson's Vichy web-page
especially
Deportation
Collaboration

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia article on France

and other resources on the library Resource Guide for Modern France

Life is beautiful

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia article on Italy

Encyclopedias and dictionaries
for background and definitions

History

There are a large number of WWII reference tools to be found at
Reference collection 940.53 - Have a browse!

Reference collection 940.5303 Z12w
World War II in Europe : an encyclopedia, ed. D. T. Zabecki, 1999

Reference collection 940.53 D285o
The Oxford companion to World War II, ed. I.C.B. Dear, 1995

Reference collection 940.303 C573h
The home front encyclopedia : United States, Britain, and Canada in World Wars I and II, James Ciment, 3 vols, 2007

Reference collection 940.5344 G662h
Historical dictionary of World War II France : the Occupation, Vichy, and the Resistance, 1938-1946, ed. B. M. Gordon, 1998

other useful encyclopedias include:

Reference collection 941.085 A226c
A companion to contemporary Britain, 1939-2000, ed.Paul Addison, 2005

Reference collection 940.542103 T577b
Brassey's D-Day encyclopedia : the Normandy invasion A-Z, B. Tillman , 2004

Reference collection 355.003 F831e
Encyclopedia of 20th century warfare, ed. Noble Frankland, 1989
browse in Reference collection 355 for military history

Reference collection 940.5318 E56
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, I. Gutman, 4 vols, 1990
browse in Reference collection 940.5318 for Holocaust

Film

Reference books on motion pictures will be found in the
Reference collection at 791.4....... The most useful are listed below.

Reference collection 791.4365803 D2477e
Davenport, R. Encyclopedia of war movies: the authoritative guide to movies about wars of the 20th century, 2004

Reference collection 791.4303 M167.3
International dictionary of films and filmmakers. 4v. 1997-1998
Lots of background information and further references, but only for Casablanca ....

Reference collection 791.43092 W149w
Wakeman, John World film directors. 1987-88. 2v.
Biographical articles, include appraisal of films followed by a list of films and of articles about them.

Reference collection 791.4016 M268f
Manchel, F. Film study : an analytical bibliography. v1. - 1990-

Reference collection 791.4016 W439l
Welch, J.E. Literature and film: an annotated bibliography, 1909-1977. 1981.

Reference collection 791.4365803 L284e
Langman, L. Encyclopedia of American war films. 1989.
Gives a synopsis of the films but no references to articles about them.

Reference collection 791.43094403 O818h
Historical dictionary of French cinema, ed. D. Ischerwitz, 2007
No specific articles on the course films but an excellent bibliography (esp p 451)

There are articles on" War films" and some of the individual movie titles in:

Reference collection 791.4309 S571e Encyclopedia of Hollywood, 1990
Reference collection 791.430941 M143e Encyclopedia of British film, 2003
Reference collection 791.4303 B386o 100 years of American film

Using the catalogue

The library holds some very useful materials on your topics.
The catalogue is your key to these riches.

In subject heading or guided keyword search use terms such as:
For film:
War films
War motion pictures
World war 1939 1945 Motion pictures and the war
Motion pictures United States......France....... etc
Women in motion pictures

For the historical background:
World war 1939 1945 personal narratives
World war 1939 1945 social aspects....browse
World War, 1939-1945--Aerial operations, American....browse
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--France--Normandy
Operation Overlord
World war 1939 1945 Underground movements
World war 1939 1945 Collaborationists......browse countries
World war 1939 1945....and add keywords.... home front
France History German occupation
Europe history military
World War, 1939-1945 Prisoners and prisons, Japanese
Kokoda
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Italy

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Last update:
Margaret Hosking/Peter Jacobs
September 2007