The First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU) was the first unit of the United States Military to be made up entirely of motion picture personnel. It was also the title of a 1943 documentary about the unit.

Organization

In 1940, the US Army public relations office in Washington, D.C., requested Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 Studios in Los Angeles to produce short films for educating the public about the military. Jack Warner

Jack Warner

Jack Leonard "J. L." Warner , born Jacob Warner in London, Ontario, was a Canadian American film executive who was the president and driving force behind the Warner Bros. Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California...

, Gordon Hollingshead

Gordon Hollingshead

Gordon Hollingshead was an American movie producer, associate producer and assistant director....

 (film producer), and Owen Crump (writer) agreed and released 8 two-reel technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

 films in 1941. F.M.P.U. was officially organized in April, 1942, when USAAF General Henry H. Arnold

Henry H. Arnold

Henry Harley "Hap" Arnold was an American general officer holding the grades of General of the Army and later General of the Air Force. Arnold was an aviation pioneer, Chief of the Air Corps , Commanding General of the U.S...

 offered Jack Warner and Owen Crump military commissions. Warner and Crump assembled the unit in Culver City, California at the unused studio facilities of Hal Roach

Hal Roach

Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...

. Personnel included draft-eligible men and civilian contractors working as animators, editors, writers, production assistants and office staff, experienced film technicians and widely-known movie actors. Warner returned to running his company within 6 months.

Films

The first FMPU film, Winning Your Wings

Winning Your Wings

Winning Your Wings is a 1942 Allied propaganda film of World War II produced by the US Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit, starring Jimmy Stewart. It was aimed at young men who were thinking about joining the Air Force....

, was completed in two weeks and General Hap Arnold claimed the film helped recruit 100,000 pilots.

style="vertical-align:top;"|FMPU filmography

Year	Title	Participants (* indicates narrator)
1942	Winning Your Wings Winning Your Wings Winning Your Wings is a 1942 Allied propaganda film of World War II produced by the US Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit, starring Jimmy Stewart. It was aimed at young men who were thinking about joining the Air Force....	Lieutenant Jimmy Stewart James Stewart (actor) James Maitland Stewart was an American film and stage actor, known for his distinctive voice and his everyman persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one in competition and receiving one Lifetime...
1943	Learn and Live
1943	Three Cadets
1943	Ditching: Before and After
1943	Cadet Classification	Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor.... *
1943	Recognition of the Japanese Zero Fighter Recognition of the Japanese Zero Fighter Recognition of the Japanese Zero Fighter was an educational dramatic short produced by the United States Air Force during World War II. Its purpose was to instruct pilots in the Pacific theatre about recognizing hostile planes at long distances and avoid friendly fire incidents.Most of the film is...	Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
1943	Reconnaissance Pilot	William Holden William Holden William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974...
1943	Wings Up Wings Up Wings Up was a propaganda short film produced by the US Air Force during World War II.Narrated by Clark Gable the short informed the youth of America about the Officers Candidate School of the Army Air Forces. It emphasized that while usually these courses would take years, the country was at war...	Gilbert Roland Gilbert Roland Gilbert Roland was a Mexican-born American film actor.He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was... , William Holden William Holden William Holden was an American actor. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 and the Emmy Award for Best Actor in 1974... , Robert Preston Robert Preston (actor) -Early life:Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth L. and Frank Wesley Meservey, a garment worker and billing clerk for American Express. After attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, California, he studied acting at the Pasadena Community... , Clark Gable Clark Gable William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh... *
1943	The First Motion Picture Unit
1944	Land and Live in the Jungle	Van Heflin Van Heflin Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin, Jr. was an American film and theatre actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man...
1944	Resisting Enemy Interrogation (17th Academy Awards 17th Academy Awards The 17th Academy Awards marked the first time this awards ceremony was broadcast nationally on the ABC Radio network.Through the 1940s, the ceremony and academy rules continued to evolve into the form by which we know them today. This is the first year that the Best Picture category was limited to... )	Arthur Kennedy Arthur Kennedy (actor) Arthur Kennedy was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage" especially in the original casts of Arthur Miller plays on Broadway.- Early life and education :Kennedy was born John... , Lloyd Nolan Lloyd Nolan Lloyd Benedict Nolan was an American film and television actor.-Biography:Nolan was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Margaret and James Nolan, who was a shoe manufacturer... , Mel Tormé Mel Tormé Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
1944	Bail Out
1944	Camouflage Camouflage (1944 film) Camouflage is a 1944 American animated short film. It was produced by the First Motion Picture Unit.It was intended to train the United States Military in the use of camouflage....
1944	Combat America Combat America Combat America is a 1943 Allied propaganda film of World War II:Initial footage depicts aircraft flying over American mountains, with Gable narrating that this is what they are fighting for...	Clark Gable Clark Gable William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh... *
1944	Crash Rescue
1944	Ditch and Live
1944	Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress is a 1944 documentary film which ostensibly provides an account of the final mission of the crew of the Memphis Belle, a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. In May 1943 it became the first U.S...	William Wyler William Wyler William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter.Notable works included Ben-Hur , The Best Years of Our Lives , and Mrs. Miniver , all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture...
1944	Target for Today Target for Today Target for Today is a film containing United States Army Air Force combat footage of B-17 and B-24 bombers and named for the phrase used at briefings before air raids. The October 1944 footage was filmed during Eighth Air Force attacks on Nazi Germany industrial targets in Anklam, Marienburg , and...	William Keighley William Keighley William Jackson Keighley was an American stage actor and Hollywood film director....
1944	B-29 Flight Procedure and Combat Crew Functioning
1944	How to Fly the B-26 Airplane
1945	Land and Live in the Desert	Van Heflin Van Heflin Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin, Jr. was an American film and theatre actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man... *
1945	Land and Live in the Ocean
1945	Airborne Lifeboat Airborne lifeboat Airborne lifeboats were powered lifeboats that were made to be dropped by fixed-wing aircraft into water to aid in air-sea rescue operations. An airborne lifeboat was to be carried by a heavy bomber specially modified to handle the external load of the lifeboat...	George Reeves George Reeves George Reeves was an American actor best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.... , Barry Nelson Barry Nelson Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...
1945	The Last Bomb The Last Bomb The Last Bomb was a 1945 propaganda film mainly concerning the conventional phase of the bombing of Japan in 1945. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.... (18th Academy Awards 18th Academy Awards The 18th Academy Awards was the first such ceremony after World War II. As a result, the ceremony featured more glamour than had been present during the war. Plaster statuettes that had been given out during the war years were replaced with bronze statuettes with gold plating... )
1945	Target Tokyo Target Tokyo Target Tokyo is a 22-minute film portraying the travels of an aircraft bomber and its crew from training to the bombing of Japan....	Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor.... *
1945	Time to Kill	George Reeves George Reeves George Reeves was an American actor best known for his role as Superman in the 1950s television program Adventures of Superman.... , Barry Nelson Barry Nelson Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:... , DeForest Kelley DeForest Kelley Jackson DeForest Kelley was an American actor known for his iconic roles in Westerns and as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the USS Enterprise in the television and film series Star Trek.-Early life:...
1945	Wings for This Man Wings for This Man Wings for this Man is a propaganda film produced in 1945 by the U.S. Army Air Forces First Motion Picture Unit about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first unit of African-American pilots in the US military....	Ronald Reagan Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor.... *