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Parent | Show Film at Trials as Proof of Jap Military Education News Article |
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Date | |
Language | English |
Collection | C.W.J. Phelps Collection |
Box | Box 2 |
Folder | Second Phelps Scrap Book |
Repository | University of Virginia Law Library |
Show Film at Trials as Proof of Jap Military Education
The War Crimes Trials took a turn toward dramatics yesterday with the screening of part of a propaganda film and the showing of a “Paper Play” high-lighting the day’s court session. The movies will continue on Monday.
One reel of “Critical Period in Japan,” produced by the Osaka Mainichi, a newspaper, was shown to the Tribunal after the movie had been referred to by Kimbei Nakai of the Nippon Newsreel Co. as being “an example of many propaganda pictures” made in Japan before the war.
According to Nakai, the Japanese Army and Navy had many films made that definitely encouraged militarism and imperialism. In “Critical Period in Japan”, former Lt. Gen. Sadao Araki appears in what might be called a “supporting role.” In the first reel, he faces the camera and makes a speech warning Japan of her predicament.
The general, now on trial, sat stoicly in the court-room while the film brought the past back to him on the screen.
The defense protested against the showing of the movie under such “short notice” conditions on the “grounds that there would be no time to prepare a cross-examination or to check the translations for accuracy.
Chief Justice William Webb thereupon adjourned the Tribunal until Monday to permit the prosecution and defense to view the film privately in order to check translations and to prepare questions based on the film.