The US Air Force has had a significant presence in Hollywood since at least WW2. In this episode I look at the film Winning Your Wings, a 1942 recruitment film that inspired tens of thousands of men to sign up for the Army’s Air Forces. I explain how this led to the creation of the First Motion Picture Unit, which produced training films for the new soldiers and ‘inspirational’ movies which were put on general release. We then fast forward to the recent past and the age of the Entertainment Liaison Office, looking in particular at the first Transformers movie as an example of modern Air Force Hollywood productions. I round off by looking at documents from the Air Force’s Entertainment Liaison Offices, including the details of the collaboration with the 2006 9/11 film United 93.
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The First Motion Picture Unit (1943)