Re: The Korean War in Cinema

[Janet Valentine <valent03@bellsouth.net>]

Television certainly was becoming more popular in the fifties, but I
doubt it had all that much to do with the lack of contemporary Korean
War films.  It's my understanding that sets weren't in large numbers of
houses until '52 or '53, plus there were other *very* popular films in
that period.  And no, there weren't any popular war or soldier songs
inspired by the war.  However, I suspect that lack of films and songs
resulted from a lack of popular interest and involvement in the war
rather than the other way around.  Our involvement in Korea never
required the total mobilization that WWII did, which leads us back to
the consideration that folks simply didn't **have** to pay the same sort
of attention - especially since TV news wasn't yet technologically
mature and couldn't get essentially real-time images of the war into
American homes on a nightly basis.  Also, didn't the military control
communication lines between the AOR and Japan and the States so that
while not directly censoring reports they could certainly exert control
on the character and amount of information that made it into print? 
Plus, it wasn't always easy for a reporter to get to Korea.  In _Mauldin
in Korea_ the author remarks on how long it took for the government to
decide he wasn't a subversive and clear him for assignment to Korea. 

ChosinMead@aol.com wrote:
> 
> I have heard another theory as to why there was so little interest in
> the
> Korean War, in addition to not having a quality film, there wasn't any
> decent
> song associated with the war. Lee

-- 
"Well behaved women rarely make history."
                               Laurel Thatcher Ulrich