Documentary About Plymouth Rock Throws In Some World War II To Keep People Interested

NEW YORK—Saying the footage was bound to keep viewers in their seats, filmmakers behind 1620, a new documentary about the early Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, admitted to reporters Thursday that they threw in a few clips from World War II just to ensure people stay interested. “While we primarily focus on William Bradford’s followers after their arrival in New England aboard the Mayflower, we thought we’d make sure people stay hooked with a couple shots of kamikaze pilots in the Pacific and some of FDR’s Infamy speech—that stuff always plays well with documentary audiences,” said executive producer Dana Keough, adding that the production team’s decision to cut from a summary of the religious Separatists movement to several aerial scenes of B-52s dropping large payloads of bombs over Germany had yielded a positive response from viewers in test screenings. “Throughout this project, we aimed to paint a complete and engaging picture of settlers’ life in Plymouth Colony, using a combination of primary source documents, expert analysis, and archival footage of Allied troops storming the beaches at Normandy. The U-boat scene we show during our explanation of the Pilgrims’ first winter in the New World has proven to be particularly popular.” Keough further confirmed that the film’s ending credits would just be eight straight minutes of footage of Hitler’s bunker.