Hollywood: 9-11, The Movie

All elements of a good movie or television show. And all are elements of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks upon the United States.

So, when can we expect the big budget remake of the disaster? If history serves as any indicator, the answer is soon.

Already television news magazine shows have hurried to churn out dramatic re-enactments of the last minutes of doomed flights. The movie-like segments show plane doors closing in slow-motion at the terminal, jets taking off and fingers punching numbers on a cell phone to re-create the many last-minute calls by passengers to loved ones.

Television-show producers must have started work on Sept. 11-based themes almost right away. NBC¹s"Third Watch" centers around emergency personnel and two upcoming episodes take place on Sept. 10 and Sept. 17. Comedies such as"Friends" won¹t attempt to address the dramatic tragedy but will erase the World Trade Center from their opening-shot, New York City skylines.

President Bush pleads with Americans to return to their normal lives. Stockbrokers trade, David Letterman returns to the airwaves and business-class sections on flights fill up as consultants and managers take to the skies to get to their latest meetings.

Getting back to normal for Hollywood means making films and television shows. And no director will find more drama in modern history as the events that unfolded on Black Tuesday.

Until Sept. 11, the biggest war-like act to take place on U.S. soil was the attack on Pearl Harbor that killed 2,403 Americans.

Movies about the Japanese attack surfaced in the movies just a year later. Hundreds of movies about World War II were made during the war years. About one-third of Hollywood¹s output ­ 500 out of 1,700 movies ­ between 1942 and 1945 dealt with World War II. Those movies were used as propaganda and served to rally patriotism on the home front.

Germans and Japanese were the enemies in those films, often portrayed in stereotypes. Japanese worn dark, horn-rimmed glasses and grunted unintelligible sounds. Germans were cultured, enjoyed wine and Wagner, but didn¹t hesitate to shoot someone at a moment¹s notice.

Thirty years after Pearl Harbor, Hollywood came out with"Tora!Tora!Tora!," one of the most popular movies about the tragedy. And thirty years after that,"Pearl Harbor" opened the summer 2001 movie season on the notoriously audience-heavy Memorial Day weekend.

It took just 38 years for Hollywood to make a comedy about Pearl Harbor. Steven Spielberg directed"1941," which imagines an U.S. invasion by the Japanese. The working title was"The Night the Japs Attacked."

Even John F. Kennedy¹s 1963 assassination was used to get some laughs. In the wildly popular"Seinfeld" series, one episode¹s subplot involves Kramer, Keith Hernandez and the"magic loogie," based on the"magic bullet" theory.

The assassination was satirized as early as 1968 in the movie"Greetings." The film focuses on an amateur filmmaker who is a conspiracy nut.

Shock-rocker Marilyn Manson used imagery from the JFK assassination in his music video for his song"Coma White." In the video, Manson (as JFK) rides a convertible and is shot as his then-girlfriend, actress Rose McGowan, portrays Jackie, pink pillbox hat and all.

Hollywood¹s only serious treatment of Kennedy murder was Oliver Stone¹s 1991 epic"JFK." Viewers watch the Zapruder film that shows the last moments of Kennedy¹s life in Dallas.

And the Holocaust, in which more than six million people died, is the subject of countless movies, as is the Vietnam War, which killed 58,000 Americans.

It seems only a matter of time before this latest national tragedy becomes the next theme, and money-making one at that, in America¹s pop culture.

For now, most of Hollywood keeps a low profile, in shock along with the rest of the world. Celebrities host star-studded benefits and even average Americans have a chance to talk to Jack Nicholson and Meg Ryan as they take pledges by phone in a national telethon.

The Emmy Awards, given to television shows and performers, were originally scheduled to be broadcast shortly after the attacks. The awards were postponed for three weeks as producers revamped the show to reflect the somber national mood.

Emmy organizers announced the awards would be simulcast in Los Angeles and New York, allowing East Coast actors the comfort of staying near home without having to board airplanes. Celebrities were told to dress business-like instead of formal.

Celebrities in 1942 attending the Academy Awards were also told to dress conservatively, to reflect the nation¹s mood after the Pearl Harbor attack just a few months earlier. However, many female stars defied orders still showed off their glamour.

Ladies were asked not to wear flowers but instead donate money they would have spent on them to the Red Cross. American flags, rather than flowers, decorated the entrances and flags of the Allies hung in the hall. Oscar statues were made of plaster in war years, with all metal going to the war effort.

The traditional Oscar banquet still was held, except this time it was called a"dinner." Tickets were reduced from $25 to $10. Guests could listen to music but no dancing was allowed.

In 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated four days before the scheduled Oscar ceremony. At least five stars -- Louis Armstrong, Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis, Jr., Diahann Carroll and Rod Steiger -- said they would not appear if the show were held the day of the funeral. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board agreed to postpone the ceremony by two days; it was held one day after the funeral. But the Governors Ball was canceled.

In the early 1970s, it became fashionable to reject Oscar and everything he stood for (except the large salaries as actors continued to accept roles), just as portions of the American population rejected the government and its actions in Vietnam.

Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave used the Academy Awards as their platforms. Marlon Brando refused to accept the Oscar awarded him for his role in"The Godfather." Instead, he sent a representative of the Apache Indian nation to give a speech on his behalf. Through Sacheen Littlefeather, he decried the treatment of Native Americans in film and the treatment of them in light of the recent Wounded Knee episode.

Without doubt the 2002 Oscar ceremony is sure to also be a solemn affair, much like its predecessor 60 years before. And with history as our guide, there¹s also little doubt that something about the Sept. 11 tragedy will hit the big or small screen in one form or another.