Eyes of the Navy

MGM produces this 20 min educational industrial film for the United States Navy. It's a call for service to America's young men. It's a year before Pearl Harbor and this is not a dire war cry. It touts the training in Pensacola, Florida although there are probably footage from the west coasts. It was nominated for an Academy Award. There are lots of planes and a very crowded aircraft carrier. It's a bit primitive as some of the training still takes place with biplanes. There is some good action as they practice dive bombing. Without a shooting war, this doesn't have the urgency. That is to come later.

I agree with most of what has been said in the previous reviews. But one review stated that dive bombing was carried out at 500 mph. This is just a bit off, as the SBD Dautless had a top speed of 255 mph and the SB2C Helldiver's velocity not to exceed (Vne) was 295 mph. And these were the top of the line fleet aircraft used during the war. The lines about "open and airy barracks" and "lots of time off" may have been thought of as necessary to snag young men, but all that was really needed was the footage of aircraft in action to attract any young male into the Navy. It was interesting to see the 1940 footage of Pensacola, Miramar and North Island as I operated at all of those Air Stations during my career.

Retired Naval Aviator.

Eyes of the Navy (1940)

*** (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated short from MGM takes a look at how men are trained once they enter the Navy. The film kicks off with a message from MGM stating that they made this movie because of how important it is to be prepared in case our country ever comes under attack. It goes without saying but Pearl Harbor would be attacked a year later, which gives this film even more meaning. The film is pretty simple as it shows a young man joining the Navy and then we see him go through basic training and so on. The movie does a very good job with its 20-minutes and actually manages to put quite a lot of information in. We also get to hear about our "possible enemies" yet none of them are ever mentioned by name nor are they hinted at. It's also worth noting that there's a familiar line here that would later be used in Kubrick's The Shining, which is the "dull boy" line, which is also referring to a character named Jack here.

This was a very timely short produced by MGM to inspire the home front about preparing for what looked like America's certain entrance into WWII a year before Pearl Harbor.

Ensuring the future of America by training its young men for war is the theme of the short. Peace, Security and Progress are mentioned by the narration. The film opens at the Pensacola Air Station where the U.S. Navy and Marines trained airmen for future assignments in the air.

Scenes of formation flying, men trained in mockup planes, and shooting weapons on the firing range are shown, among battle plans drilled in classrooms and actual landings on carriers as well as dive bombing at speeds of 500 miles per hour. In twenty minutes, the short covers a lot of ground in the kind of training involved.

Obviously the film was used to promote enlistment in the armed services as America entered the WWII phase and it does a good job of doing exactly that.

With the war already firmly established in Europe (to which this film doesn't really refer), this is one of the earliest examples I've seen of the American nation starting to realise that it, too, might be facing a threat and so it had better start preparing. The purpose of this rather dry feature is to attract flyers. A young farmer is watching the planes overhead with his dad (Charles Middleton at his less merciless!) when he decides that he has the wits to pass the exams and take to the skies. The training regime is set out before us - a combination of theory, exams, air hours and pretty claustrophobic looking simulators. Once they secure their wings, they must learn more on the job with air-to-air combat practice and most important, that of landing on a tossing and turning aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean. The narration is a bit flatly descriptive and there is something of the factory production line to the presentation. I always thought these worked better if we had a character to focus on - an actor or a real kid, and we have neither here. Still, it was bound to strike a chord with many a young American man with little to hope for on the ground, and is perfectly watchable as a recruitment film. Did Walt Disney direct it? The version I saw looked like it had had it's "directed by" slide at the start removed!