Men of the Sky

21st century eyes may see the stereotypes heavy handed (racist "gung-ho" "kill the evil enemy" pep speeches and sexist views of the women back home) and the introductory message to graduating air recruits in the Midwestern nasal twang of real life Army-Air Corps commander "Hap" Arnold quaint, but that accent was familiar to viewers when the film was first released. Give a listen on "archive.org" to famous radio news broadcasters H.V. Kaltenborn or Elmer Davis. The Army Air Corps (the army and navy each had their own air branches before a unified air force was later created) six months into the start of World War II was scrambling to fill its ranks with the best men it could find and Hollywood co-operated with "human interest" short.

Films like this (and full blown plotted programmers) combined promise of adventure, honor and idealized pictures of the nation's self image - what the fighting men felt they were being called upon to defend. Of equal concern - nicely addressed in this lavish Technicolor short - was the morale of those either left behind or working in war support production industries. They needed to be assured they were important too.

The image may seem too well scrubbed and naive at sixty plus years remove, but it was a fairly accurate picture of what most of non-urbanized "middle America" thought of itself in 1942 - and the little touches can be fascinating. A notable part in the latter half of the one reeler deals with domestic military facilities being camouflaged and defended "when they arrive" to attack or bomb them. In mid-1942, the tide of battle had not yet turned in Europe or the Pacific, and this was a real concern for the target audience.

MEN OF THE AIR may not be great film making, but it is a colorful and honest (if idealized) snapshot of middle-America at the start of an earlier crisis - just as it was coming out of the Great Depression and before the depth of rationing and total commitment to the war effort reached a country that thought of itself as safe.

An interesting side note is the subsequent career of the cast. Unless they were featuring pre-war movie stars who had been "called to the colors," these recruiting shorts usually tried to cast unknown "everymen" that the audience could theoretically identify with. When this film was first released as "filler" between the main films you paid to see in the theatre - just the way Turner Classic Movies is showing it un-billed today - the biggest recognizable name to most audiences was General Arnold, but most audiences today will recognize the faces and voices of several of the recruits and their sweethearts (even if you don't know their names immediately) from long careers in films and TV work after the war.

Worth a look - whether or not you feel called upon to set your video recording device.

This early World War 2 flagwaver was a recruiting pitch for the expanding Army Air Corps. A number of familiar faces who had some good post war careers are in this as typical folks who left civilian life after Pearl Harbor.

Note this is the Army Air Corps, the USA did not have a special Air Force until post WW2. Some of those seen here who survied the war might well have been charter members of the USAF,

4 star general Henry H. Arnold appears to give this film an official imprimatur. This propaganda piece holds up well.

It's the Army Air Force. Lt. General H.H. Arnold presents new flyers with their wings during this time of war. As each cadet gets his wings, some of their origin stories are revealed. We see the men studying, training, and flying. Finally, they are sent to Australia.

This is a colored wartime propaganda film. The colors are great. The film looks good but the filmmaking is pretty stiff. I love the old planes but the movie could use more aerial footage. I really hate projecting background for the cockpit sequences. The movie needs to have more cameras in the air. That's the best footage. The director is a veteran from early silent era. I don't think this is particularly good propaganda.

Owen Crump wrote and narrated this two-reel documentary short about the Army Air Corps in beautiful Technicolor. It's all about the boys next door -- ordinary Joes like Tod Andrews, Dom Defore, and Ray Montgomery -- who leave their pretty but ordinary girls next door like Eleanor Parker and Ruth Ford. They leave their ordinary jobs -- contract players for Warner Brothers, but supposedly working at banks and colleges -- to have their wings pinned on by Hap Arnold and sent off to ferry supplies to another ordinary Joe like Doug MacArthur and bomb the tar out of anyone who'd threaten barefoot kids and their Coca-Cola, because nothing can stop the Army Air Corps!

It's a recruiting short for the Air Corps, offered in finest gung ho fashion by director Breezy Eason. The Technicolor is quite lovely on this short. It's a fine document of its time and the nation at war.

In 1942, it was common practice to refer to Japanese as Japs and Germans as Nazis. For a post-Pearl Harbor propaganda film, this isn't as racist as it could have been. Newsreels of that time were often more racist than this.

Watching this, I wondered how many of the men lined up for Gen. "Hap" Arnold to pin their wings on them were real pilots. And out of those men, how many would die in combat. I don't know the statistics, but I would imagine that being part of a flight crew in 1942 wasn't a job with great long-term prospects.

If you're interested in American propaganda from the early part of American involvement, this is a good start. This isn't as good as the Frank Capra produced series "Why We Fight", but definitely worth a look if you are into World War II and American History of the mid-20th Century.