Tanks a Million

This is the first movie in the Sgt Doubleday series, I think seven were made. This movie was made before U.S. involvement in WW II, but after it was becoming obvious we would get involved. This is a fun little bit of fluff with out to much plot.

O.K. Here comes some of the plot, so read on at your own risk! Doubleday (William Tracy) is a drafted and and is enthusiastic about becoming a member of the Army. He remembers every thing he reads, so he get a hold of some military manuals, reads them and "knows" every thing about the army. So in no time he is off to NCO training to become a Sargent. This drives Sgt Ames (Joe Sawyer) crazy. All this takes about the first ten minutes of the movie. The rest of the movie is Sgt Ames trying to catch Sgt Doubleday messing up, and Doubleday coming out smelling like a rose.

One other thing the actor James Gleason is not the actor Jackie Gleason of "The Honey Mooners" fame.

This film essentially begins with a young man by the name of "Dorian 'Dodo' Doubleday" (William Tracy) being drafted by the United States Army and reporting for duty at his basic training site with several other fellow draftees not long afterward. It is then revealed that Private Doubleday has a photographic memory and, as a result, knows the Army regulations better than anyone. This includes the non-commissioned officer named "Sergeant Williams Ames" (Joe Sawyer) who has been tasked to train the new soldiers. Needless to say, this embarrasses Sergeant Ames who immediately decides to put him in his place. Unfortunately for Sergeant Ames, however, the officers appointed over him are quite impressed with Private Doubleday--so much so that they immediately send the young private to a non-commissioned officer course a few buildings away. To everyone's surprise, when he returns a short time later, he is now wearing the rank of First Sergeant. Absolutely enraged by this, Sergeant Ames begins to do everything he can think of to humiliate the young man. The problem, however, is that everything he tries backfires in a spectacular manner. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this film turned out much better than I initially expected due in large part to the unique solutions Dorian Doubleday used to extricate himself from one highly unlikely situation after another. Everything was totally absurd--but quite humorous at the same time. And although this is a rather short comedy, I still found it to be quite enjoyable, and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Typical '40s-era service comedy in the Private Hargrove tradition with WILLIAM TRACY starring as a naive information specialist who drives his Army pals crazy with his inability to perceive when his fund of information is unwanted. JOE SAWYER is the gruff and tough Sgt. Ames that he drives up a wall in some amusing incidents as Ames tries to discipline the troops and Tracy is made Sgt. Dodo Doubleday on the basis of his total recall of army regulations.

Quite a few recognizable names in the supporting cast. NOAH BEERY, JR. and FRANK FAYLEN are amusing as army recruits (draftees) and DOUGLAS FOWLEY can be seen as an irate officer inspecting the troops.

JAMES GLEASON is the new post commander, but he doesn't arrive until the last twenty minutes of the film. Before that, it's Sawyer, Tracy and Fowler who get most of the laughs.

Summing up: Trivial bit of service humor, but strictly a B-film programmer of the low-budget kind.

This cute little pre-war comedy is typical fare for the era. Some nice performances make it a nice little catch for fans of immediate pre-war and wartime comedies. I found it by seeing it on James Gleason's filmography. The fine old character actor turns in one of his better performances as Col. "Spitfire" Barkley. Gleason would later gain notoriety for playing William Bendix's father-in-law in the movie version of Life of Riley and for supporting roles in films such as The Night of the Hunter.

I wasn't familiar with William Tracy, but he impressed me as the lead, "Dodo" Doubleday, a railroad information specialist, turned solider, with a photographic memory and a naïve inability to discern when his knowledge isn't wanted. Joe Sawyer is also amusing as the befuddled Sergeant Ames.

Tanks A Million was surprisingly nominated for an Oscar – for best musical score. I wouldn't have expected it to be nominated for any – although Gleason conceivably could have been in the running for best supporting actor in a comedy. Still, for clean, good old-fashioned fun, this is still a nice little movie.

Tanks a Million (1941)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Hal Roach comedy has William Tracy playing a new Army recruit with a photogenic memory, which drives everyone around him crazy. It really drives Sgt. Ames (Joe Sawyer) crazy because Tracy is soon bumped up to Sgt., which took Ames twenty years to reach. This is a pretty far fetched but mildly entertaining product piece of WW2. There are several laughs throughout but nothing big enough to make me go back and watch the film. Sawyer steals the show as the jealous Sgt. and Tracy manages a few laughs as the dorky brain. The film runs fifty-minutes and that's short enough for what's going on. Any longer would have made the film a real drag. This film received an Oscar nomination for Best Scoring of a Dramatic (!?!?!) Film.