Movies

LOS ANGELES – The U.S. Army, with a hand from Hollywood, has received a long-lost Oscar back into its ranks.

The little statue took a long, and largely unknown, path before being passed from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis to an Army general during a Wednesday night ceremony and screening.

In 1942, a few weeks after Pearl Harbor, filmmaker Frank Capra joined the Army and was assigned to create the film series Why We Fight.

Maj. Capra, who had directed such films as It Happened One Night, Lost Horizon and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, made the documentary Prelude to War.

He showed the finished work to Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall, who insisted that President Roosevelt see the film.

In his 1971 autobiography, The Name Above the Title, Capra wrote of a screening at the White House. Amid the applause at the end, FDR exclaimed: "Every man, woman and child in the world should see this film!"

Prelude to War was at first viewed only by soldiers in Army quarters, but the Army eventually relented, and 250 prints were sent to theaters across the country.

The academy staged a screening of Prelude to War on Wednesday night at the Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood.

"Sixty-five years later, Prelude to War still continues to be one of the greatest documentaries ever made," said Mr. Ganis, the emcee for the screening.

In 1942, Prelude to War won an Oscar for best documentary by the U.S. Army Special Services, but, Mr. Ganis explained, the prize was a plaque rather than an Oscar. All the awards were in plaster during the war because of the metal shortage.

After the war, the Army received an actual Oscar statue, which it stored in the Army Pictorial Center.

When the center closed in 1970, the Oscar disappeared.

Earlier this year, Christie's auction house advertised an Oscar for sale. It was the missing Prelude to War award.

The academy notified the Army, which claimed the prize.

On Wednesday night, Mr. Ganis presented a polished, 8-pound Oscar to Brig. Gen. Jeffrey E. Phillips, deputy chief of public affairs for the Army.

The Associated Press

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