The Why We Fight series, the seven orientation films made by Frank Capra for the United States Government, remain a monument to documentary film. It is generally known that the animation for these films was done at the Walt Disney Studio, but animators themselves have attached little significance to Disney’s role, for no new animation techniques were developed. […]
The Walt Disney Archives has contracts for each of the Why We Fight films, but until I gained access to the letters of Eric Knight, there seemed little way of documenting the actual process of Disney’s work on the Capra-unit films. Then came a piece of wonderful good fortune. Knight’s widow, Jere Knight, let me use the extraordinary file of letters she still has in her possession as part of the research for my book about the American military’s use of film in World War II. […]
