| From the fall of France in June 1940 to the battle of Midway in June 1942, the Axis forces were winning World War II. Paris occupied, London bombed, Stalingrad under siege, Pearl Harbor sneak attacked... the Allies were losing the War. Hollywood responded with some of the most political, most inspirational, and most dark films ever made. From A-list movies like So Proudly We Hail with Claudette Colbert and an impressively psychotic Veronica Lake, or Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, to B-movies with Lynn Bari and Preston Foster in Secret Agent of Japan, or Tarzan Triumphs even, Hollywood set out to not just win the War, but turn the tide of the War. British films like Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's 49th Parallel and One of Our Aircraft is Missing, or Carol Reed's Night Train to Munich also faced the challenge of making cinema about losing that sought to motivate the viewers into winners. The styles, tricks, themes and other motivational devices in these came films came in many forms. The audience's heads, hearts and groins all were appealed to. Here are ten of the best of the lesser-known "losing the War" films that did in fact do their part (and much more) in winning the War. Wake Island, 1942. Bataan, 1943. Sahara, 1943. Joan of Paris, 1942. Went The Day Well, 1942. Arise, My Love, 1940. Man Hunt, 1941. Saboteur, 1942. Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942. Desperate Journey, 1942. |