Winning Your Wings

Jimmy Stewart appears in one of the many Warner Brothers' short subjects hyping the Army Air Corps. Stewart uses his casual charm and his stage training to hype the Force, and talks about training, and how women love a pilot. It's all done in good humor, and makes it seem like a lot of fun, with no risk mentioned and $400 a month, with room and board!

Stewart had been drafted into the Army as a private in 1940; since he was already a pilot, he was assigned to the Air Corps --after being rejected twice as underweight -- first as an instructor, then on combat missions in Europe. He left the War a Colonel, and as a Reserve officer, retired with the rank of Brigadier General.

Before I checked on IMDb, I had completely forgotten John Huston's contribution here – since no director is listed during the opening titles – though I was well aware of James Stewart's participation (oddly enough, this was their sole collaboration)! Anyway, this is typical – and, in retrospect, pretty efficient – 'recruiting poster' stuff (yet another Oscar-nominated documentary, in a category that had a staggering 25 candidates and emerged with a quartet of winners!), with the star delineating the pros (but, obviously none of the cons!) should American youths join the Air Force. For the record, the attack on Pearl Harbour was a very recent memory – and, watching this, we realize just how far the Government went in order to induct pilots, bombardiers, navigators, etc. to fill the thousands upon thousands of planes of various sizes that would be employed in the war effort! Stewart is the right sort of average guy to make such a notion seem appealing, even "adventurous" – but the jingoism is excusable under the circumstances, as the prospective officers are either credited with their college-bred specialization (which would thus be put at the nation's disposal) or given the opportunity to acquire one for those that had been left lagging behind in education…which suggests that combat duty was very much seen as a level 'playing-field'!

James Stewart is absolutely charming as "Wild Blue Yonder" plays and he taxis up the run-way and hops out of a B17 bomber in uniform complete with wings. He is the sole voice of this 20 minute short from 1942 about why young men should sign up for the Army Air Corps ASAP. He talks to actors portraying college students, high school students, men who didn't finish their college degrees, and an average Joe working at a gas station.

Stewart tells all of these guys that their stations in life - no college, some college, waiting to get out of college - is no bar to getting into the Army Air Corps. But he does mention that business of getting your name pulled out of a fish bowl - aka "drafted" - as a kind of added incentive to join up. One surprising fact - that in this "greatest mass mobilization in history" you could join the Air Corps and finish your degree as a reservist, then become a regular airman.

The short shows much of how America wanted to see itself in 1942 - Stewart shows a dramatization of a young man who just signed up leaving home. He says goodbye to his parents, his aunt, his sister, and "that sweet young thing" next door. Hey, did we just segue into an Andy Hardy film? Nope, the airman to be is too tall to be Mickey Rooney.

Stewart then goes into detail about the jobs that must be done on the ground and in the air to keep 'em flying. On board the plane - radio man, engineer, navigator, bombardier, photographer. He mentions that all get their wings, and all are an important part of a team. This is probably to not get the recruit's hopes up that he will be a pilot.

Stewart was a great salesman for joining up. After all, a tremendously popular actor in 1941, he quit his movie career to join the Army Air Corps himself, having to practically make himself ill eating pound cake and drinking milk so he would meet the minimum weight for enlisting. He retired as a brigadier general in 1968.

This is worth your time to see the tremendous charm of James Stewart and how his love for the Air Corps comes shining through, and as a bit of history on what the Air Corps looked like at the beginning of WWII.

With the US launched into World War II, Hollywood began working with the armed forces to get people to join. An example is John Huston's Academy Award-nominated "Winning Your Wings", featuring Jimmy Stewart talking about the Air Force, the enlistment process, and who all participates in operating the planes.

Obviously the sheer level of propaganda comes across as corny nowadays, especially with the archaic gender relations. My favorite propaganda shorts from the era were the cartoons portraying Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck battling Nazis (not surprisingly, many of them got pulled from circulation after the war).

Anyway, this short works well as a time capsule. Entertaining, if nothing else.

This is a very fascinating curio from WWII starring Jimmy Stewart. This is an Army Air Corps recruitment short in which Stewart, after a year in the service, addresses the public to sell them on joining. The film is briskly paced, interesting to watch and has a lot of great footage of aircraft (particularly interesting to airplane aficionados are the early B-17 A and B versions--pretty rare to see this footage). While I doubt if this film would excite most kids, it is a great film historically. Plus, it is one of the few films Stewart made exploiting his service, as he tended to downplay this and few people actually knew that he eventually retired a Brigadeer General after many years of service.

By the way, one of the young guys in the film that was thrilled about joining up had a girlfriend that looks like Judy Garland. It's not--I checked and it's Juanita Stark. They could have been sisters!