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This Is the Army

Warner Bros Restored - Best Version Available

DVD
The lively screen adaptation of Irving Berlin's 1942 patriotic Broadway hit musical that shines with abiding love for country.

This Is the Army

From immigrant lad to All-American success story, Irving Berlin showed his abiding love for his adopted country with, among other cultural accomplishments, decades of Broadway hits, the unofficial national anthem God Bless America and the World War II spirit-lifter This Is the Army.

On stage it featured 350 real-life GIs, giving their singing-and- dancing all to raise nearly $2 million (then an astronomical sum) for Army Emergency Relief.

This lively screen adaptation features the same GI's plus George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Joan Leslie and guest stars Joe Louis, Kate Smith, Berlin himself and others in a tale of a father and son who put on one heckuva show before the son marches off to war.

Customer review...

Held together by a flimsy plot, this is 2 hours of sheer enjoyment, with a variety of entertainment, from show-stopping tap dance numbers, comedy skits, an acrobatic number, and even magic tricks, and the film also includes of course, two actors that were to become political figures, our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, and U.S. Senator from California (1965-71) George Murphy.

Reagan looks fantastic in this film where he plays stage manager Johnny Jones. His presence and stature, lean and broad-shouldered, is amazing, as is his warmth and charm. This, as well as "Kings Row", are my two favorite Reagan films that I've seen so far. Lt. Reagan only made his military pay for this film ($ 250.00 a month) while Murphy earned $ 28,000.00...and Irving Berlin, whose terrific score earned him an Oscar, donated his proceeds to the Army Emergency Relief Fund.

Expertly directed by Michel Curtiz, Irving Berlin's music is a delight (we get to hear him sing "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning"), and the choreography by LeRoy Prinz and Robert Sidney is outstanding.

The film, which has the feel of a revue, starts out with Berlin's WWI show, "Yip ! Yip ! Yaphank", and segues into the WWII section, with the next generation performing the show (Reagan plays Murphy's son). Based on the Broadway show that toured the nation and the world as a morale booster for the military, "This is the Army" is an unpretentious and jolly gem, and though some of the numbers are "politically incorrect" for this day and age, those same numbers are also the best in the show, like "Mandy", which is done in blackface, "That's What the Well-Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear" (brilliantly danced by an man who is uncredited, and also featuring boxing champ Joe Louis), and a choice sequence, the humorous "Stage Door Canteen", with the burliest of the men in drag, and marvelous impersonations of actors, the best being "Herbert Marshall" speaking on the qualities of a hamburger.

WWII Propaganda Films...

The dictionary defines propaganda as a derogatory term for information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. While the term has acquired a strongly negative connotation by association with its most extreme examples, such as Nazi propaganda used to justify the Holocaust, propaganda in its original sense was neutral, and could refer to uses that were generally positive, such as public health recommendations, signs encouraging citizens to participate in a census or election, or messages encouraging persons to report crimes to law enforcement, among others.

Propaganda can be classified as either white, gray or black. White propaganda openly discloses its source. Gray propaganda is ambiguous or non-disclosed. Black propaganda purports to be published by the enemy or someone besides its actual origins. All three were employed during World War II and can be rather easily identified. In Spanish and Portuguese languages, the word propaganda simply refers to the most common form of persuasion and manipulation -- advertising -- which carries no particular connotation per se.

Related Scanning WWII dates...

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    28 Mar 35: Leni Riefenstahl's award-winning film chronicling the Sep 5-10, 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg
  • Ohm Krüger (Germany)
    04 Apr 41: Anti-British feature film shedding bad light on British imperialism toward Afrikaans-speaking Boers
  • No Greater Sin (USA)
    28 Aug 41: Military instructional film warning young soldiers about the dangers of prostitutes and the spread of syphilis
  • Why We Fight (USA)
    27 May 42: A series of seven Frank Capra-produced documentary films to show the the dire necessity of combating the Axis Powers
  • Mission to Moscow (USA)
    22 May 43: Feature film made to garner more sympathy and support for the Soviet Union
  • This Is the Army (USA)
    12 Aug 43: Irving Berlin's wartime musical designed to boost American morale and patriotism
  • The Negro Soldier (USA)
    10 Apr 44: Frank Capra-produced docudrama made to promote African-American military enlistment
  • Memphis Belle (USA)
    13 Apr 44: William Wyler documentary of the first crew of the 8th Air Force to complete 25 missions
  • Nazi Concentration Camps (USA)
    29 Nov 45: Films of concentration camp atrocities are shown at the Nuremberg trials

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  • This is the Army
    Warner Bros Restored - Best Version Available

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