John Ford's DECEMBER 7th: THE MOVIE was banned
by the U.S. Government for nearly fifty years. The film is
now available to the general public for the first time ever
in this copyrighted Special 50th Anniversary Edition, fully
restored to its original eighty two minuate length with
subtitles added to the controversial Japanese language
sequences and a descriptive prologue created for the
modern audience. (A completely censored 34-minuate
version of the film was released and earned John Ford his
fourth Academy Award.Ⓡ)
This full-length, unreleased version stars Walter Huston as Uncle Sam and is set in
Honolulu on the day before the Japanese attack. Uncle Sam vacations complacently in
Hawaii,concerned with the on going war in Europe. On Sunday morning, December
7th, air squadrons appear, "swooping down like flights of tiny locusts". The attack on
Pearl Harbor, America's first battle of World War II, is vividly illustrated as only
Hollywood can do.
The film was banned because of its investigatory nature which the government felt
resulted in finger pointing toward its own faults in the episode.It was confiscated as
"damaging to morale"