''Warclouds in the Pacific'' is a 20-minute 1941 Canadian

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

, part of the ''

Canada Carries On ''Canada Carries On'' (French: ''En avant Canada'') was a series of short films by the National Film Board of Canada which ran from 1940 to 1959. The series was initially created as morale-boosting propaganda films during the Second World War. Wit ...

'' series of

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

s by the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

.Ohayon, Albert
"Propaganda cinema at the NFB."
''National Film Board of Canada (NFB.ca)'', July 13, 2009. Retrieved: January 9, 2016. The film was produced, written and directed by Stuart Legg and narrated by

Lorne Greene Lorne Hyman Greene (born Lyon Himan Green; 12 February 1915 – 11 September 1987) was a Canadian actor, musician, singer and radio personality. His notable television roles include Ben Cartwright on the Western ''Bonanza'' and Commander Ad ...

. ''Warclouds in the Pacific'', which warned of an imminent Japanese attack, was released just one week before the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...

Synopsis

In 1941, tensions in the Pacific were accentuated by Imperial Japan engaging in the Sino-Japanese War, as well as threatening to go to war with the other great powers in the region:

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It i ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. Throughout the 1900s, global trade had allowed for great advances in industry and technology, but the militaristic government of Japan in the late 1930s, chose to align itself with

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, further sending danger signals abroad. In leaving behind its feudal history, Japan became an economic and military superpower but its rise to prominence had repercussions for

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Westerners who observed the frenzied activity in Japanese naval yards, began to leave the country, while Japanese-Canadians who had adopted their new homeland, were fearful for what might come. Western nations, including Canada, ramped up their military preparations, knowing that combatant nations already at war might soon be entangled in a Pacific conflict.

Production

''Warclouds in the Pacific'' was the fifth of the ''Canada Carries On'' series, produced with financial backing from the Wartime Information Board, served as a portent of a future Pacific war. The documentary was created as a morale-boosting

propaganda film A propaganda film is a film that involves some form of propaganda. Propaganda films spread and promote certain ideas that are usually religious, political, or cultural in nature. A propaganda film is made with the intent that the viewer will ad ...

during the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

.Morris, Peter
"Film Reference Library: Canada Carries On."
''Canadian Film Encyclopedia''. Retrieved: January 9, 2016. Location footage in Vancouver and Victoria was supplemented by stock footage of

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

.Rist 2001, p. 37. The narrator of ''Warclouds in the Pacific'' was

, known for his work on both radio broadcasts as a news announcer at '' CBC'' as well as narrating many of the ''Canada Carries On'' series. His sonorous recitation led to his nickname, "the Voice of Canada", and to some observers, the "Voice-of-God". When reading grim battle statistics or, as in ''Warclouds in the Pacific'', narrating a particularly serious topic such as Canada going to war, he was "the Voice of Doom".

Release

The film was released in Canada in November 1941. John Grierson sold the film to

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stud ...

for distribution in the United States following its entrance in World War II. An injunction was sought by ''

The March of Time ''The March of Time'' is an American newsreel series sponsored by Time Inc. and shown in movie theaters from 1935 to 1951. It was based on a radio news series broadcast from 1931 to 1945. The "voice" of both series was Westbrook Van Voorhis. ...

'' due to the film using footage from it, but allowed its release after Grierson contacted other newsreels in order to replace ''The March of Time''.

Reception

As part of the ''Canada Carries On'' series, ''Warclouds in the Pacific'' was produced in 35 mm for the theatrical market. Each film was shown over a six-month period as part of the shorts or newsreel segments in approximately 800 theatres across Canada. Along with others in the series, ''Warclouds in the Pacific'' received widespread circulation and, in particular, "greatly helped to draw attention to Canada's film board." The NFB had an arrangement with Famous Players theatres to ensure that Canadians from coast to coast could see the documentary series, with further distribution by

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...

.Ellis and McLane 2005, p. 122. After the six-month theatrical tour ended, individual films were made available on 16 mm to schools, libraries, churches and factories, extending the life of these films for another year or two. They were also made available to film libraries operated by university and provincial authorities.

Honours

Along with '' Churchill's Island'', another NFB production directed by Stuart Legg, ''Warclouds in the Pacific'' was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject), albeit losing to ''Churchill's Island''."The 14th Academy Awards (1942); nominees and winners."
''oscars.org''. Retrieved: January 9, 2016."War Clouds in the Pacific.'
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Retrieved: January 9, 2016. Clips from ''Warclouds in the Pacific'' were used in John Kramer's documentary, ''Has Anybody Here Seen Canada? A History of Canadian Movies 1939-1953'' (1979) and later, incorporated into Colin Browne’s 1986 documentary, ''The Image Before Us'' "... where the images of fear and war were contrasted with the reality of Canada’s wartime treatment of Japanese-Canadians."Killas, Harry
"The Image Before Us: A History Of Film In British Columbia - Take 2 » Warclouds In The Pacific."
''The Cinematheque'', January 2016. Retrieved: January 9, 2016.

References

Works cited

Bibliography

* Bennett, Linda Greene. ''My Father's Voice: The Biography of Lorne Greene''. Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse, Inc., 2004. . * Ellis, Jack C. and Betsy A. McLane. "Theatrical Series". ''New History of Documentary Film''. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005. . * Rist, Peter. ''Guide to the Cinema(s) of Canada''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. .

External links

*
Watch ''Warclouds in the Pacific'' at NFB.ca
{{DEFAULTSORT:Warclouds In The Pacific 1941 films 1941 short films 1941 documentary films Black-and-white documentary films Canadian black-and-white films Canadian short documentary films Canadian World War II propaganda films English-language Canadian films Films directed by Stuart Legg Films produced by Stuart Legg National Film Board of Canada documentaries Canada Carries On 1940s Canadian films