NOW — THE PEACE is a film produced and directed in 1945 by Stuart Legg for the National Film Board of Canada series The World in Action, with unaccredited narration by Lorne Greene. Over its nearly 21-minute running time, circumstances during the immediate postwar period following the Second World War, leading to the formation of the United Nations are discussed.
The film contains imagery of the end of WWII, with refugees, Jewish survivors in liberated concentration camps, decimated Germany, etc. and some of the atrocities of the war. It also shows the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference.
After the First World War, the League of Nations was created, but despite the efforts of leaders such as Woodrow Wilson, the organization failed to ensure world peace. The concept of collective security against attack was thought to be the means to stop wars. The constant conflicts of the 1930s with Japanese aggression in China, Italian invasion of Ethiopia and the beginning of the Spanish Civil War showed how ineffective the League had become.
During the Second World War, in an attempt to reinvigorate efforts directed to prevent future wars, the “five great powers” met in August and September 1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.. The deliberations led to the creation of a new international organization devoted to world peace, the United Nations. One of the aspects of the blueprint that is proposed is for nations to share their abundance of resources for mutual benefit. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) is created as an international relief agency to help nations in need during the immediate postwar era.
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p H
