Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 December 25

= December 25 =

How was it possible to make Casablanca and Citizen Kane during WWII?
It seems like both Casablanca and Citizen Kane were released during WWII - 1941 and 1942, respectively. Didn't the US have a mandatory draft for all men during WWII? How was it possible that the male actors could stay behind in the US and film a movie, while at the same time how was it possible that the films could generate enough of an audience when the entire country was at war? Acceptable (talk) 21:41, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The USA didn't enter WW2 until during December 1941, so it is quite possible that both films were made before the declaration of war and released afterwards. At least in the UK, people were encouraged to visit the cinema during wartime. Cinemas, theatres and pubs thrived during wartime as they provided a communal platform for propaganda and public information, and also they provided a warm place for people to go at nighttime (and save on heating bills!). --TammyMoet (talk) 21:59, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 * According to Casablanca (film), "[p]rincipal photography began on May 25, 1942". For the tedious and overrated Citizen Kane, it was apparently in 1940. --Trovatore (talk) 22:18, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * About as teious and overrated as War and Peace, that is, not at all. Takes patience.170.170.59.138 (talk) 22:54, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It's the single most overrated film in history. --Trovatore (talk) 20:53, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * (ec) It certainly was never all men, not even all men of fighting age. How would you feed them?  According to a table at Selective Service System, approximately 10M men were drafted from November 1940 to October 1946.  At the time I think the US population was around 150M maybe?  Someone else can find more exact numbers.  So it was certainly never even half of the men of fighting age. --Trovatore (talk) 22:05, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The Conscription in the United States article gives these numbers: "In the massive draft of World War II, 50 million men from 18 to 45 were registered, 36 million classified, and 10 million inducted."  FlowerpotmaN &middot;( t ) 23:13, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. So that leaves 40M who were not inducted.  If you assume half of that remnant volunteered, you still have 20M left behind from which to cast your movie.  Seems like it should be enough; I don't see any mystery here. --Trovatore (talk) 23:18, 25 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, on second thought, no mystery about casting the films, but maybe a bit of one as to how you find 50M men age 18–45 out of a population of 132M. I would expect at most 30M.  Of course it's a rolling window so new men are aging into it all the time, but still it seems a bit strange.  Maybe someone should check those refs. --Trovatore (talk) 23:24, 25 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Good point. The reference given for the 50 million number is a 1993 book The Draft, 1940–1973 by George Q. Flynn.  Google Books will only show me snippets of that, but the key passage appears to be on page 85 and reads "During the war the nation had peacefully registered 49 million men, selected 19 million, and inducted 10 million."


 * People who were aged 18–45 at some time from December 1941 to August 1945 would have been 14–45 at the time of the 1940 United States Census. Wikipedia says the total US population according to this census was 132,164,569, but that number does not apepar in this Census Department PDF, which shows the total on page 156 as 131,669,275.  (Perhaps the Wikipedia figure includes Alaska and Hawaii, which were not states in 1940?)  Anyway, the chart on page 57 of the same PDF says that 18.2% of people were aged 15–24 and 30.1% aged 25–44 in the 1940 census, so combining these numbers give almost exactly the correct age range and it indicates 63.8 million people, or presumably about 32 million of man and boys.  I don't know where Flynn's figure of 49 million comes from; there could not have been 17 million immigrants between 1940 and 1945.  If it is correct, all I can think is that a significant number of people registered who were outside of the indicated age range or did not live in the US.   I've changed the number in the article to 49 million and will add a note to its talk page. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 23:50, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As I noted in the article talk page, the problem is probably the restriction to 45 which doesn't seem to make much sense since the age limit seems to have been 64 for most of the period the US was in the war. It sounds like people aged above 45 were never liable for immediate induction but the source simply says registred, not registered and liable. Nil Einne (talk) 10:01, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I've changed the article to better reflect the source. Nil Einne (talk) 10:04, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The website ancestry.com, a pay site, has draft registration records for World Wars I and II. I can think of a number of relatives who were well over 45 who nonetheless turn up in the WWII records. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:05, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Presuming they were 64 or under at some stage from 1942, since they were legally required to, it isn't that surprising. Nil Einne (talk) 07:03, 28 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Even if you were drafted (or enlisted), the powers that be usually kept you working on patriotic movies anyway. If you were a star, you had to kick and scream and hold your breath to be allowed to go in harm's way (e.g. Clark Gable and James Stewart). Also, Bogie was in his 40s, not the prime age for soldering. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:21, 26 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Cagney was a few months older than Bogie, both born in 1899; as you say, not the best candidates for soldiering (or soldering). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:13, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Welles was sent on a good-will tour of Latin America by the FDR administration, and some of his filming during that period showed up in The Lady from Shanghai. Apparently well-connected propagandists were valued as propagandists. μηδείς (talk) 00:43, 26 December 2015 (UTC)


 * As a note, conscription was done gradually in the United States between 1941 and 1944 in order to avoid overcrowding the basic training camps, because overcrowding of the basic training camps in World War One was known to have contributed to the rapidity of the spread of the influenza pandemic of 1918. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:27, 30 December 2015 (UTC)