In industry news, Superman debuted in a series of seventeen Superman cartoons. A Senate subcommittee launched an investigation of whether Hollywood was producing films to involve the United States in World War II. It was dissolved shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Approximately 500 animators and artists at the Walt Disney Studios conducted a five-week strike backed by the Screen Cartoonists’ Guild, during the making of Dumbo (1941). The strike seriously changed the atmosphere of the studio and affected the work produced there for years to come. Bette Davis became the first female president of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. The first, generally-acknowledged film noir was released, John Huston’s directorial debut film The Maltese Falcon.
Pearl Harbor under Japanese bombardment
Clearly the defining news item of 1941 for the U.S. was the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Earlier in the year, Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for an unprecedented third term as President. While the America First Committee and spokesman Charles Lindbergh continued to advocate a neutrality pact with Hitler, Lend-Lease, a program under which the U.S. supplied war materiel to the Allies, began. The U.S.O. was created. The first War Bonds went on sale. Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak began. The National Gallery of Art opened in Washington DC.
Nazi troops somewhere in Russia
The Nazis continued marching through Europe with invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece. On June 24, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. Fighting in the Soviet Union would account for 95% of all German casualties through 1944 and 65% of Allied casualties for the entire war. On July 31, under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring ordered S.S. General Reinhard Heydrich to “submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative, material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired Final Solution of the Jewish question.”
Along with the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were simultaneous Japanese attacks on the U.S.-held Philippines and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.
Stills from 1941 Oscar winners set to “The Last Time I Saw Paris” sung by Kate Smith
Stills from 1941 Oscar nominees set to some mildly irritating music – you can always turn down the sound!
