UW grad's "Military Intelligence and You!" a salute to old reels

"As a writer in films and television, I've been pegged as someone to create cop procedurals and thrillers," says Dale Kutzera, whose feature debut, the farcical "Military Intelligence and You!" has its Seattle premiere this weekend.

"But I was always interested in satire and comedy. Writing for the UW Daily was good for that."

Kutzera, a University of Washington graduate who contributed to the school's student newspaper, the Daily, and was its arts editor for a semester, has spent most of the past two decades building inroads in Hollywood. His writing credits include several episodes of the television drama "Without a Trace."

Interviewed during a return visit to Seattle, Kutzera says that when he was ready for a measured step toward directing features earlier this decade, he began looking at his options. An aficionado of America's Golden Age of Cinema, he decided to explore the creative possibilities with a little-known chapter of studio-production history, rather than throw his weight behind a top-to-bottom original screenplay.

"I needed to make [a film] I could actually do, with limited resources," says Kutzera. "I had known about the First Motion Picture Unit and its military-training films made during World War II, which were not just documentaries but dramas with Hollywood pros. There were hundreds of these movies, and they're all in the public domain."

He found the inspiration for "Military Intelligence and You!," which concerns tortuous but worthwhile efforts to gather accurate data about the whereabouts of German warplanes during World War II. Kutzera draws parallels to the current administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, saying the president sold the invasion to the American public using flawed intelligence and overly optimistic predictions of a quick victory.

It occurred to Kutzera that if he re-cut footage from some of those training films and shot new scenes that connected everything into an indirect satire of the Iraq war's origins, he could make a highly unusual — and funny — first feature.

"I didn't like being manipulated on Iraq in a crass way," says Kutzera. "I turned the tables and manipulated government footage to say that blind, rah-rah patriotism is detrimental to careful consideration of our actions."

The First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU) was actually the 18th Air Force Base Unit of the United States Army Air Forces. America's entrance into World War II required many pilots, and the FMPU's task was to encourage men to enlist and psychologically prepare for their jobs.

"A film called 'Winning Your Wings,' with Jimmy Stewart, was highly successful," Kutzera says. "Lots of recruits came in with that one. Many more training films were made after that. [The FMPU] had a studio in Culver City known as Fort Roach," named after legendary producer Hal Roach.

Even before Kutzera wrote his script for "Military Intelligence," he was experimenting with intercutting scenes from different training films.

"I went to the Library of Congress and watched a lot of them," he says. "I listed scenes I liked and reshuffled some, trying out jokes. I took material from 'Reconnaissance Pilot,' starring William Holden as a pilot who wants to be a fighter but discovers the importance of flying reconnaissance, and cut it together with scenes from 'Photo Analysis for Bombardment,' starring Alan Ladd as an analyst studying the kind of photos Holden's character was shooting."

Kutzera also drew from films featuring the likes of Ronald Reagan, Arthur Kennedy and Elisha Cook Jr.

Pulling all these strands into a coherent new film is Kutzera's original tale about the hunt for a so-called Ghost Squadron of German warplanes. Contemporary actors Patrick Muldoon, Elizabeth Bennett and Mackenzie Astin play Army Air Force officers trying to locate the Nazis' hidden air base with scant intelligence.

The director, who has been making short films since childhood, shot the new sequences with an eye toward Hollywood classicism.

"I wanted to emulate studio styles from the 1940s," Kutzera says, "with old-style lighting, long takes, and graceful, elegant camera moves. No handheld cameras."

Born in Tacoma, Kutzera graduated from University Place High School, where he was engaged by art classes. He made films on his own and graduated from the UW in 1987. Introducing himself to author David Thomson at an Orson Welles retrospective in 1986, Kutzera ultimately researched Thomson's book about Welles ("Rosebud") — one of the director's influences.

Up next is the hoped-for sale of a new script Kutzera wrote with David Mickel.

"Now that the writers' strike is over," he says, "I'm looking for work with my agent and using 'Military Intelligence' as a calling card to direct again."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com