Earliest Pearl Harbor-related feature films? (1 Viewer)

[Colin Jacobson]

I read an article about the premiere of United 93 in which one of the movie-goers complained about it being "too soon" after 9/11/01. He muttered that it took 60 years until Michael Bay made Pearl Harbor but this flick was out less than five years after 9/11.

He's correct about the space between Pearl Harbor and Pearl Harbor, but that sentiment seems to imply Bay's flick was the first to take on the subject. Obviously that's not true.

But what was? I know From Here to Eternity was out 12 years after 12/7/1941. Was that the first? I doubt it, but I don't know of any earlier PH-related feature films (NOT documentaries)...

 

[Francois Caron]

"Tora! Tora! Tora!", made in 1970, is the earliest I remember. I'm checking out the IMDB for earlier titles directly related to the Pearl Harbor attack, but I haven't found any yet.

EDIT: Ok, I found two of them -- made in Japan!

From the IMDB:

The second title is directly related to the event while the first one combines Pearl Harbor with Midway.

 

[Robert Crawford]

There were some films made during WWII that either reference or showed scenes in regard to Pearl Harbor. The first one off the top of my hat was "Air Force" directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Garfield. It came out in 1943, and showed the landing of a squadron of unarmed B-17's flying from stateside to Pearl Harbor during the Japenese attack.

 

[BrettB]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035298/



Someone posted this the other day on another board.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Not to mention several films about WW1 were made while the war was going on. Britian actually hired American directors (like Griffith) to make WW1 films so that the American government would jump to their side.