SO PROUDLY WE HAIL

US, 1943, 126 minutes, Black and white.
Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Barbara Britton, George Reeves, Walter Abel, Sonny Tufts, John Litel.
Directed by Mark Sandrich.

So Proudly We Hail, with its lyrics from the American national anthem, is a morale-boosting film of World War Two. It is also a tribute to the women who served as nurses, especially in the Philippines. The film is not so much a war film as a portrait of people in war. The film focuses on a group of women under the leadership of Claudette Colbert who go to Hawaii for service. However, after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, they are transferred to the Philippines where they serve in the intensity of the attack by the Japanese. They have to abandon their post and take refuge on the island of Corregidor in Manila Bay. This is a film about the women returning to the United States and their memories of what they experienced during the war.

Claudette Colbert is very effective in the role of the leader but it was Paulette Goddard who got an Oscar nomination for her role as a nursing lieutenant. Veronica Lake has the chance to do some strong acting rather than just simply being sultry in thrillers. Hollywood and television Superman, George Reeves, also has a strong role.

The film offers a women’s point of view of war, something different from most of the war action films and the tributes. To that extent it is not such a jingoistic film as many of the others of this period.

The film was directed by Mark Sandrich who died not long after the release of the film at the age of forty-five. He had a promising career, especially with his direction of five of the Fred Astaire-Ginger? Rogers musicals of the 1930s. He also directed Holiday Inn which introduced Irving Berlin’s song, ‘White Christmas’.

1. The impact of this film in the forties during the war, the impact now, in retrospect?

2. The particularly American title, its morale, patriotism, propaganda? Did it signify the quality of the plot?

3. How did the film achieve a sense of realism and authenticity for the war? Identifying people, crises? Audience identific ation with the characters and their participation in the war, the patriotic sentiments, the effect of the war on them, human issues?

4. The picture of America in the 1940s, the background to the war, people leading ordinary lives, the detailed attention to this, reaction to the war, enlisting, training etc.? The necessary involvement of a whole nation?

5. How well did the fi1m build up a sense of patriotism, communicate it? Was it jingoistic or balanced? The patriotism as represented in each of the major characters, their coping with it, its clash with their own personal feelIngs?

6. How did the film fill in well the background of the particular women, their ordinary way of life, nursing and careers, their particular emotional involvements, their sense of inadequacy, their pride? How were these aspects tested during the experience of the war?

7. Comment on the reasons that each of the women joined the armed forces?

8. The importance of the training sequences, their detail, the effect on each of the women? As making it credible during the war for people to be trained? The effect of being sent overseas, Hawaii, the South Pacitic, friendships, deaths, disease, inability to help, fear and the bombings?

9. How was this presented in the detalls of active service, hospital work, pressures, hunger, isolation, bombings? The contrast with morale boosters, parcels, visits, friendships, love?

10. Comment on each of the main characters: Janet, her resourcefulness, resilience, falling in love, the marriage and its effect? Jean and her practicality and joking? Olivia and her reticence and fear? The other women? John and his relationship with Janet? Comment on the interaction of all of them, friendships, suffering?

11. How well did the film treat the realities of death in war?

12. The contrast with marriage, death? Emotional response under crisis? The future of the Americans involved in the war after it finished?

13. How good a tribute to people involved in the war was this film?