March On, America!

Here's one of the patriotic, propagandistic color shorts that were a long-term feature of Warner Brothers productions, and which reached their peak in the 1940s, with World War Two on. Unfortunately this one doesn't hang together too well, in no small part because in trying to offer more than three hundred years of history in two reels, Carleton Young talks so fast that it turns into a flooding river of "Manifest Destiny" mush with a mention of the Kellys and Moskowitzes in the Massachusetts colony.

There are also technical issues in its editing: because it uses clips from eight earlier Warner Brothers Technicolor shorts, there's quite a large variation in the Technicolor prints. Technicolor was a flexible system, by which color values, both of hue and saturation could be minutely controlled. That meant that if different standards were used in different movies -- and they were -- that results here in sharp, distracting changes in tint from one frame to the next.

In the end, this is a cheap effort to monetize old material by reworking it into new form. Its value largely consists of adding a movie to the many in which Sidney Blackmer plays Teddy Roosevelt.

This starts at the Statue of Liberty. It's a retelling of America history starting with the Pilgrims. It is the spreading of settlers until they met the Indians. There is a lot of fighting until they agree to go west. Next, it's the War of Independence. Spreading west starts with The Louisiana Purchase and winning the war of 1812. The Monroe Doctrine lays claim to the whole hemisphere. There is no mention of divisive slavery with the Civil War. The Indians come back as the march west continues. Teddy runs up San Juan hill. WWI happens. There is peace and advancement until Pearl Harbor.

This is a patriotic propaganda short during war time. It skips over what can be skipped and explain away those that can't. It is effective for what it is. It is explaining what America stands for and fighting for in twenty minutes. There is no room for complications.

This uncritical hagiography of our history pieces together a lot of stock footage from other films and was a superpatriotic morale booster for the home front and for the people going into the Armed Services. I doubt it could be shown in any social studies classroom today in an elementary school.

You have to take it for what is worth given this is fresh on the heels of Pearl Harbor. Folks like Frank McGlynn, Sr. and Sidney Blackmer who were known for playing Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are here as many other familiar places.

I'd venture to guess there were not many Moscowitzes, Kellys, and Pulaskis on the Mayflower where this starts. Wouldn't do to have it start at Jamestown where a year before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, the first slaves from Africa were imported. Slavery gets not a mention here.

The makers of this short give a great argument for Manifest Destiny a phrase that came into usage. That is the notion we were destined by the Almighty to expand from ocean to ocean. Doesn't leave much room for those already here.

This short subject is way behind the times.

This film was produced during WWII in a patriotic attempt to tell the history of the U.S. and inspire the country. It fails on both counts. The history although fairly correct is presented in a paternalistic manner and goes on seemingly forever. Hokey costumes and bad acting are no reason to turn off something, but they went a little too far when Abraham Lincoln spoke with an Irish accent. The film does pick up in the patriotic segment at the end - the narrator finally comes to life and has some zip to his delivery. It is too short though and filled with scenes that made me wince. A memorable one is of a Nazi soldier shooting an enemy in front of a wall and as the man dies his hands slide together and form a large bloody V for Victory. Watch this only if you are filled with the desire to watch as many shorts as you can find. Like me.

This short was one of the extras on the In This Our Life DVD that formed a Warner Night at the Movies link there. It attempts to tell in about 30 minutes the history of America at that point before then trying to stir patriotic sentiment after then showing a Japanese pilot flying toward Pearl Harbor, a dying American soldier using his bloody hands to form a V sign in a Nazi building wall, and various soldiers and tanks forming to go where they're needed. Filmed in Technicolor, this was quite exciting to watch though I couldn't help notice some glossing over some issues like that concerning the Civil War. And seeing that Confederate flag reminded me how unneeded it is today considering what happened at that South Carolina church last week. Still, March On, America! is interesting enough to watch as a historical document.