Watching Movies during World War II
Abbott & Costello, Mickey Mouse & Charlie Chaplin
I am reading Churchill : Walking with Destiny 1 and the author spends quite a bit of time on movies Churchill watched during the War including on board ship during his secret trip to meet with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Placentia Bay off the coast of Newfoundland in 1941.2 So, I looked to see what movies other World War II leaders watched. Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin & Hitler all watched movies during World War II and more or less what every day people watched.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt loved Abbott and Costello
FDR especially liked comedies, particularly the work of the 1930s and 1940s comedy team Abbott and Costello. He even invited them to perform at the White House several times while he was President. 3
Winston Churchill and Lady Hamilton
Churchill particularly enjoyed the film Lady Hamilton (That Hamilton Woman in the US), Alexander Korda’s 1941 patriotic epic starring Laurence Olivier, as Nelson, and Vivien Leigh as Lady Hamilton. It’s said he watched it seventeen times. 4
‘Magician Mickey’ liked by Hitler
The Fuhrer loved the Disney icon so much that he watched five of the mouse's cartoons in July 1937. That year, Goebbels gave him 12 Mickey Mouse films as a Christmas present.5 During the war, Hitler largely stopped watching feature films.
Charlie Chaplin was a Stalin favorite.
Stalin liked Charlie Chaplin movies -except for The Great Dictator - and the Tarzan series, as well as films starring James Cagney. Romantic musicals like The Great Waltz (1938). In Old Chicago and It Happened One Night were  favorites.6 For more on Stalin and movies see Soviet Cinematography 1918-1991 : Ideological Conflict and Social Reality.7
Diktatoren im Kino
The main protagonists of fascism and Stalinism were great movie buffs themselves and used the cinema for their own purposes. "Viva Villa" was one of Hitler's favorite films; he recognized himself in its main character. However, Joseph Goebbels considered the film too dangerous to release it for cinemas. Not only did he dictate the program selection in Nazi Germany, he was increasingly involved himself as an author and dramaturge. But the first to recognize the power of cinema for propaganda was Mussolini. He nationalized the entire film industry and tried to create a fascist Hollywood with Cinecittà .8
Roberts Andrew. 2018. Churchill : Walking with Destiny. New York: Viking.
Adolf Hitler, Film Fanatic Bill Niven. Hitler and Film: The Führer’s Hidden Passion (Yale, 2018). History Today March 14, 2018.
Shlapentokh Dmitry and Vladimir Shlapentokh. 1993. Soviet Cinematography 1918-1991 : Ideological Conflict and Social Reality. New York: A. de Gruyter.
There is an excellent McFarland title from 2003 by Rolf Giesen titled "Nazi Propaganda Films: A History and Filmography" that's worth looking at. It covers Leni Riefenstahl; Goebbels's marketing, oops, I mean propaganda techniques; and the rabidly anti-Semitic films. For those of you who have seen the new Netflix-released "All Quiet on the Western Front," it's interesting to note that the Nazis tried to sabotage screenings of the 1930 film by picketing it, buying out tickets, and releasing stink-bombs and white mice into the theater after the film began.
It 's interesting to hear about movies that world leaders liked. I wonder which films are being shown at the White House these day--or at Buckingham Palace. Or perhaps leaders don't have time for movies any more and just watch their twitter feeds.