Frank Sinatra: The House I Live In

Ol’ Blue Eyes in the Academy Award-winning patriotic short The House I Live In, from 1945. The film is named for its title song, written by Lewis Allan and Seattle hero Earl Robinson.

It’s obvious that, although the film was built around the song The House I Live In, its screenplay was not written by the songwriters. While Allan and Robinson were a couple of dyed-in-the-wool leftists who wrote a song to combat prejudice against “all races and religions”, the screenplay felt comfortable using anti-Japanese slurs that undercut the message of the song. Luckily, the virulent anti-Japanese feeling in America during and after World War II was not universal, and faded gradually over time. See another post for an example of a post-war Japanese pioneer into American pop culture.
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~ by lolarusa on February 28, 2008.