RKO RADIO PICTURES "THE RAMPARTS WE WATCH" UNITED STATES 1914-1918 WORLD WAR I REEL 1 30294

This is a 1940’s era, black and white movie made by RKO Radio Pictures entitled "The Ramparts We Watch". It features a script by Robert L. Richards and Cedric R. Worth and was produced and directed by Louis de Rochemont. The film (made just before the entry of the USA into WWII) draws parallels between the First World War and the Second. The story told in this film is that of America during the years 1914-18, as reflected in the lives of various people in a small American city. In 1914, it is a peaceful land, where people go to the picnic grove in open-air street cars, little boys ride on ice wagons and gay blades dance the Hesitation. Then war breaks out in Europe, America slowly begins to feel it. A foreign laborer leaves the small town for his homeland, people talk. Through old newsreel sequences, the course of world events is woven in with developments in the town. The Lusitania is sunk; America is outraged. Opinions clash; there are peace parades and advocates for preparedness. Wilson is re-elected. Training camps are started. There is sabotage in American munitions factories, armed neutrality, then war -- all reflected in the emotions of the townsfolk. The movie opens with squadrons of planes flying overhead, a suggestion of the coming conflict of WWII. But the movie flashes back to 1914 as Americans prepare to enter the first World War at 2:00. The American community is presented in peace, 2:30. Children order sweets, 2:45. Images of daily life are shown, 3:10. Scenes from American industry, 3:30. Woodrow Wilson greets well-wishers, 4:28. The Panama canal construction, 4:37. Teddy Roosevelt, 4:50. The U.S. army numbers at 100,000 men, 5:05. One of the first airplanes is shown flying, 5:20. The Hesitation Canter Waltz, an outgrowth of the Turkey Trot, 5:31. Students attend university, 6:00. Young people sit at a soda counter, 6:20. June 9, 1914 a newspaper train arrives with bad news, 6:54, the Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated in Austria, newspaper headline shows, 7:18. Newspaper headlines are shown from around the world, 7:40. Postman delivers letter to immigrant family in U.S., 8:23. Immigrant family goes to the theatre to see the news from the war, 10:07 where Kaiser Wilhelm visits the naval base at Kiel. Kitchener’s army is reviewed by King George V, 11:04. Prince of Wales is surrounded by admirers, 11:13. Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, 11:26. Czar Nicholas II reviews the fleet, 11:37. Immigrants discuss papers they received from their home countries to join the war effort, 12:17. Men leaving their families at the Austrian consulate to return to war, 13:09. The invasion of neutral Belgium, 13:49. Taxi cab army rushes in from Paris, 14:00. Britain’s “contemptibles” defend the Flanders front. American newspaper headlines urge neutrality, 15:08. American students argue the war at home, 16:00. A German immigrant family discusses the war, 17:15. The imperial armies of Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm rally at their posts, 17:36.