# December 7th (Long Version)

Department of War Department of the Navy Released by National Archives and Records Administration December 7th (Long Version) According to the Amazon.Com description: In 1943 John Ford gave the great cinematographer Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane, The Grapes of Wrath) an opportunity to direct his first film. What was intended to be a short documentary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor grew into a veritable epic, framed by a debate between Walter Huston's Uncle Sam and Harry Davenport's Mr. C on the true nature of the Pacific paradise. Hawaiian history, rah-rah patriotism, and arguments over the loyalty of the Japanese-American population are capped by a stunning re-creation of the battle so convincing that feature films borrowed footage from it for decades. Arch and dated, it's a fascinating slice of history that until a few years ago was never seen by the public. Toland's criticisms of the American Navy caused it to be withheld until Ford could cut the 82-minute feature into a half-hour short, removing the history and analysis and concentrating solely on the battle and the recovery.

- Kind: Educational
- Year: 1943
- By: Department of War
- Genres: Education
- Archive: [Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/gov.ntis.ava18528vnb1)
- Licence or status: [Public domain (Creative Commons dedication)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/) (as the archive states it)
- Who can watch: Teens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

Not offered: its uploader marks it public domain, and the US Copyright Office's records do not settle that it is (a record that may be another film's, a film first published abroad, a year when renewal was automatic, or a country they do not name). Unclear is not offered.