Production:

• USA 1944 Color, 154 mins.
• Produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and 20th Century Fox
• Directed by Henry King
• Written by Lamar Trotti (won Oscar)
• Cinematography by Leon Shamroy (won Oscar)
• Music by Alfred Newman
• Production Design by Wiard Ihnen, Thomas Little (won Oscar)
• Costume Design by Rene Hubert
• Film Editing by Barbara McLean (won Oscar)
• Sound Recording by E.H. Hansen (won Oscar)
• Technical Advisor: Ray Stannard Baker, whose 8-volume biography Woodrow Wilson, Life and Letters, won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize

Cast:

• Alexander Knox as President Woodrow Wilson
• Ruth Nelson as Ellen Wilson, 1st wife 1889-1914
• Ruth Ford as Margaret Wilson, the oldest daughter born 1886
• Madeleine Forbes as Jessie Wilson, the 2nd daughter born 1887
• Mary Anderson as Eleanor Wilson, the 3rd daughter born 1889
• Geraldine Fitzgerald as Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, 2nd wife 1915-1924
• Thomas Mitchell as Joseph Tumulty, Wilson's secretary
• Charles Coburn as Professor Henry Holmes, a composite fictional character
• Vincent Price as William Gibbs McAdoo, Secretary of Treasury and son-in-law
• Cedric Hardwicke as Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee
• Charles Halton as Colonel House, Wilson's Texas friend and adviser
• Thurston Hall as. Senator E. H. ("Big Ed") Jones, as real NJ boss James E. Smith
• Stanley Logan as Robert Lansing, Secretary of State
• Sidney Blackmer as Josephus Daniels, Secretary of Navy
• Marcel Dalio as. Clemenceau, the French Premier
• Clifford Brooke as Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister
• Tonio Selwart as Von Bernstorff, the German ambassador
• William Eythe as George Felton, a composite fictional character
• Stanley Ridges as Dr. Cary Grayson, Wilson's physician
• Eddie Foy Jr. as Eddie Foy, vaudeville performer

Notes:

• Jan. 1942 - Darryl Zanuck became a "Hollywood Colonel" in the U.S. Army Signal Corps: "If you have some-thing worthwhile to say, dress it in the glittering robes of entertainment and you will find a ready market. Without entertainment, no propaganda film is worth a dime."
• November 1942 - North Africa invasion begins, and Lamar Trotti begins writing screenplay
• April 1943 - Willkie's One World published, and Zanuck returns to Hollywood to make a film that would promote the internationalist theme of Willkie's book
• November 1943 - 4-Power Declaration approved to create a post-war organization to keep peace, and Zanuck finishes writing shooting script
• March 1944 - the 90-day shooting schedule is completed. 126 sets were constructed to represent the White House, Versailles' Hall of Mirrors, and other localities (everything was filmed in Los Angeles and Hollywood). The enormous 1912 convention scene was filmed in the LA Shrine Auditorium, requiring 1500 extras amd 34 trucks of props and gear. The Auditorium was also used to recreate the joint session of Congress in 1917 when Wilson gave his war speech.
• June 1944 - Allies invade Europe, and Zanuck begins $1m. advertising campaign for his film, including 3280 radio announcements, 32,000 billboards coast to coast, and full-page magazine illustrations.
• August 1944 - United Nations created at Dumbarton Oaks, and Zanuck releases his $5.2m. film to the public at the Aug. 1 premier at the Roxy in New York. Costing $1m more than the 1939 Gone With the Wind, it was the most expensive film ever made at that time. If it is successful, he will make film from the book One World with Spencer Tracy as Willkie; if it is not successful, "I'll never again make a picture without Betty Grable."
• June 26, 1945 - The San Francisco Conference approved the U.N. Charter for a General Assembly and Security Council. Although an estimated 10m people saw Zanuck's film, it lost $2m & the Oscar (to Bing Crosby's Going My Way): "Why should you expect people to pay 75¢ to see a movie about Wilson when they wouldn't give 10¢ to see him alive?" Zanuck is told by his hometown doctor in Wahoo, Nebraska, when the film only attracted 75 people to the local theater. When Zanuck accepted a best picture Oscar in 1947 for Gentlemen's Agreement, he said bitterly to the audience, "Many thanks, but I should have won it for Wilson."
• Yet the film did have influence. Public Opinion Quarterly reported that the support for an international peace-keeping organization grew from 38% in 1941 to 72% in 1944. Scribner's published a new edition of Ray Stannard Baker's biography of Wilson that sold nearly as many copies in one year what the original edition sold in ten years.

Resources:

• Review, New York Times, Aug. 2, 1944, p. 18.
• Review, Newsweek, Aug. 14, 1944, p. 72.
• Review, Time, Aug. 7, 1944, p. 84.
• "Wilson," Life, Aug. 7, 1944, pp.53-56.
• Baker, Ray Stannard. Woodrow Wilson: Life and Letters. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1927-1939. 8 vols.
• Gussow, Mel. Don't Say Yes Until I Finish Talking: A Biography of Darryl F. Zanuck. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.
• Knock, Thomas J. "History with Lightning: The Forgotten Film Wilson (1944)," in Rollins, Peter C., ed. Hollywood as Historian: American Film in a Cultural Context. Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1983. pp. 88-108.

Cast and production information from The Internet Movie Database