If a single WW2 Hollywood war epic can sum up the complexity of homefront morale-building, this one is it. Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake enlist as Army nurses and are plunged into the disastrous opening onslaught in the Philippines. Adroit screenwriting and direction use the clichés of Hollywood glamour to give mom & dad back home a dramatic idea of what it might be like for a company of nurses in a failing war zone. Great studio effects show the rough retreats and casualties, while George Reeves and Sonny Tufts serve as reassuring sentimental diversions. And a squad of ‘unglamorous’ actresses get to play strong, patriotic roles. It’s an entertaining winner.

So Proudly We Hail
Blu-ray
KL Studio Classics
1943 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 126 min. / Street Date September 13, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, George Reeves, Barbara Britton, Walter Abel, Sonny Tufts, Mary Servoss, Mary Treen, Kitty Kelly, Helen Lynd, Lorna Gray, Ann Doran, Dorothy Adams, Jean Willes, John Litel, James Bell, Amparo Antenercruz, Richard Crane, Yvonne De Carlo, Keith Richards, Hank Worden, Byron Foulger .
Cinematography: Charles Lang
Special Photographic Effects: Gordon Jennings
Art Directors: Hans Dreier, Earl Hedrick
Film Editor: Ellsworth Hoagland
Original Music: Miklos Rozsa
Written by Allan Scott
Executive producer Buddy G. DeSylva
Produced and Directed by Mark Sandrich

With the majority of Hollywood’s able-bodied actors volunteering for war duty, leading men were suddenly in short supply. Opportunity struck for Bowen Charlton ‘Sonny’ Tufts, a 4F with a football knee, who simply introduced himself to a casting director and said he wanted to be in the movies. One screen test later, he was given a major role in Paramount’s war movie about Army nurses at Bataan, a romantic role opposite Paulette Goddard. The casting director summed up the situation for his clients thusly:

“I’ve got a great prospect for you, a young guy with a double hernia.”
        — paraphrased from Don’t You Know There’s a War On?”  by Richard Lingemann.

1943 was the year in which WW2 finally looked winnable for the Allies. The Office of War Information continued to influence what subject matter could be made, and how it was treated. Defeatism was of course unacceptable. Producers were still making escapist films — daring commandos and war correspondents easily outwitted Nazi spies, exaggerating allied success in the cause of feel-good morale. Thus Howard Hawks’ Air Force (released February 1943) was practically split in two. The first 90 minutes is desperate realism and the defeat of Pearl Harbor, and the last 30 minutes a preposterous fantasy in which a few planes appear to sink an entire Japanese naval task force.

Filmmakers that wanted to be frank and truthful were in a bind. Putting authentic war horror on screen was a no-go — mothers and wives would panic to see what really happened to soldiers. Since everybody knew soldiers that weren’t coming home, sugar-coating battle action wouldn’t fly either. Anti-Japanese hatred was sometimes encouraged. John Ford’s 1945 They Were Expendable played down the racist venom, but the average 1943 combat thriller was out for blood. Ray Enright’s Gung Ho! sees a series of Marine volunteers, including Robert Mitchum, enthusiastically declare that they can’t wait to exterminate yellow vermin: “I want to kill Japs.”

Film subjects promoted by the OWI lauded the efforts of individual Allied countries, and cheered the crucial role of homefront defense production. The role of women workers was practically deified, to encourage more housewives to aid war industry. When it came time to honor our women in the military, Hollywood came up with several shows about U.S. Army nurses. Two major productions followed nurses during the initial defeat in the Philippines.

War took the Army nurses by surprise, just like the soldiers, sailors and airmen that had joined up in peacetime. A number were captured during the mass surrender when Bataan and Corregidor fell. Few at home knew their fate; Americans could only hope they weren’t being mistreated even as rumors circulated about mass executions on Wake Island. Many weren’t liberated for two full years.

The two major productions honoring the nurses-in-peril had to be respectful of the real hardships of serving in a combat zone. They couldn’t show Hollywood starlets in high fashion, having a swell time in between Japanese bombings. MGM’s Cry ‘Havoc’ was derived from a stage play. It came through with some excellent content despite having a bit too much studio polish.

Released almost at the same time, Paramount’s  So Proudly We Hail threads the needle better, balancing glamour with realism and patriotic propaganda with ordinary human values. Glamorous actresses take the three leading parts, but the rest of the female cast is agreeably Max Factor Challenged. So Proudly was partly guided by a real Army nurse evacuee from Corregidor, First Lieutenant Eunice C. Hatchitt. →   She later returned to service in Europe.

Director Mark Sandrich and writer Allan Scott were best-known for their musicals and romantic comedies. Scott’s screenplay makes use of audience expectations — a dozen educated, frisky young nurse-officers try to keep everything light and positive, even amid a growing disaster situation. There’s a real friction between ‘how glamour girls behave’ and how real women take responsibiity when things go wrong.

A full synopsis is not needed. Told in flashback, some evacuated nurses on a homeward ship tell their experience to a doctor (John Litel). Their unit was steaming to Pearl Harbor when war was declared, and then diverted directly to the Philippines. They reinforce and relieve the over-burdened hospital staff at Bataan. As the defense fails they move to improvised facilities on the road, and finally to the fortified tunnels of ‘The Rock,’ the fortress at Corregidor. When defeat becomes certain the nurses are ordered to leave their patients behind and to try to escape.

For the actresses, So Proudly must have seemed a solid, serious alternative to insubstantial starlet walk-ons. None of the roles are merely decorative — the ‘girls’ haven’t brought designer bathing suits with them, for time-off dips in beautiful swimming holes. Claudette Colbert’s Lt. is in direct charge of the nurse unit. At first she must referee some squabbling between Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake. Frisky Ms. Goddard likes to keep multiple beaus at her beck and call; she’s the only one to sleep in a lace nightgown, for ‘morale.’ ↑   At one point she adapts it to serve as an evening dress for a shipboard Christmas Party. Goddard received a Best Supporting Academy nomination for this show..

At age 20, Veronica Lake was possibly the Baby of the cast. Rescued from another transport sunk by the Japanese, Lake’s initial hostility to her sister nurses is revealed to be a symptom of her rabid hatred for the enemy — her fiancé was killed at Pearl Harbor. This was already Lake’s 14th feature; publicity about her peek-a-boo long hair was used for morale messaging, when she was publicly asked to change her hairstyle for the war effort. →

Artful screenwriting makes the nurse corps both credible and entertaining, even as 90% of what we see are exhausted women in men’s military overalls — with no regular laundry nurses’ uniforms are impractical. The comedy associated with the indignities of primitive camp life doesn’t get out of hand, and Paulette Goddard’s addiction to glamorous touches isn’t over-sold. If one can overlook a few instances where they’re called ‘girls,’ the nurses are never patronized, never presumed to be delicate. That was not the norm in Hollywood pictures, and it made an indelible impression on America’s young women.

Yes, two of the ‘star’ nurses are given romances that perhaps stretch credibility — although nobody would doubt that some form of improvised hookups had to have occurred, even during the retreat. Colbert falls in love with a officer played by none other than George Reeves, future TV Superman. ←   Reeves was 11 years younger than Colbert; he looks so young and performs so well that we almost shed a tear for his mostly non-starring career. The screenwriters manage to give Reeves’ and Colbert’s characters opportunities to be together, without making it seem as if the war takes time-outs on their behalf.

↓  Paulette Goddard’s beau is “Kansas,” the 4F Sonny Tufts mentioned up top. He’s a roughneck Marine and a former college football star, with a good heart and an ‘aw shucks’ approach. When I was growing up Sonny Tufts was held up as kind of a joke, the prime example of a big lunk made a movie star ‘for the duration only.’  Tufts is terrific, even if the more-experienced Goddard is giving him extra help and encouragement. The excellent writing steers their relationship in a committed, moving direction.

A bit more cultural irony rises when Goddard tells some Philipino children a ‘Superman’ story. She answers the question ‘Why isn’t Superman fighting here?’ by saying that Sonny Tuft’s Marine Kansas IS Superman. Goddard also becomes mother hen to a ward of wounded soldiers, that will almost certainly be captured by the Japanese. Her understated farewell acknowledges the shared knowledge that she’ll no longer be their morale girlfriend.

The vindictive character played by Veronica Lake gets the ‘hate Japs’ angle out of the way: Lake’s Lt. nurse can’t make herself murder the first hospital’s Japanese POW patients. Lake’s exit from the movie was as big a talking point as her altered hairstyle. Instead of milking the scene for bathos, director Sandrich plays the violence straight, almost cold — another wrinkle introduced by wartime filmmaking. Complacent America was feeling the effects of ruthlessness, and the Production Code had to allow the movies to reflect it.

The actresses playing nurses are of course meant to represent the best of America. Younger starlets share supporting duties with seasoned character actresses that typically played ‘plain’ or comic types. Gorgeous Barbara Britton (Champagne for Caesar) is 22; she’s given a farewell from her mama and must grow up quick under the enemy bombardment. Mary Treen we know from It’s a Wonderful Life and other roles that often demean her supposed ‘plainness.’ Here she gets plenty of attention, instead of her usual 3 cutaways laughing or rolling her eyes.

The wonderful Dorothy Adams  (The Best Years of Our Lives) has hard-worn features that got her roles as sickly women and overworked housewives. Here she’s tough and dependable. I didn’t catch the other nurses getting too many close-ups — I didn’t identify the worried nurse whispering about Japanese sex crimes in Nanking. Kitty Kelly has a fainting spell at one point. Ann Doran is in every third movie ever made, and here stays within the ensemble.
Unless I’ve got their faces wrong, Helen Lynd, Lynn Walker, and Lorna Gray are beauties made up to remove most traces of glamour. I thought I had missed favorite Jean Willes (Invasion of the Body Snatchers), until she finally got a dialogue line, and flashed her memorable smile.

This writer loves actresses of this era — they remind me of my mother and her friends, and even some of the teachers I had: fresh-faced, honest, open-hearted. The hairstyles alone generate a good feeling. Each of them deserved a dreamboat suitor like George Reeves, with his million-dollar smile. Perhaps Donna Reed’s Army nurse in They Were Expendable is more faithful to reality. She works long hours under grueling conditions, and her big romance is just a couple of half-hour talks with a Naval officer. In Ford’s movie there’s just duty and sacrifice. Nobody rescues anybody … the too-casual sweethearts just lose contact with each other.

Yes, the script does stop perhaps four times for someone to make an ‘author’s statement’ about war or sacrifice, or the freedoms back home. PC types offended by Army officers being called ‘girls’ may declare the film invalid because it also uses the word ‘Japs’ frequently. We think these films need to be seen as proof that those attitudes existed.

We never see a Japanese soldier. No mention is made of the Bataan Death March, which for purposes of morale was not officially made public until months after the release of So Proudly. When that news broke, official Government public service announcements and posters read like lynch-mob propaganda.  →

Although So Proudly retains an aspect of polished, glamorous entertainment, it still depicts two solid hours of numbing defeat. If anything, the special effects department exaggerates the enemy onslaught during the bombings. Neither is the personal jeopardy soft-pedaled. Nurses are shot and blown up, and a bomb levels a M*A*S*H-like operating room right during surgery. Again, the romantic angle is kept up for the two leading ladies, even though Ms. Colbert’s hands are badly burned. During the panic evacuations, each is able to ‘rescue’ the man of their dreams.

The filmmakers must also include some hopeful preaching about the righteous struggle for victory. We become alarmed when a letter from George Reeves signs over to Colbert the deed to a farm he’s inherited. It’s the “someday I’ll buy that farm” cliché that still shows up in war pictures.

Three more familiar names: the dependable Walter Abel is a great battlefield chaplain, who performs a quickie marriage ceremony under fire so a nurse and an officer can have a one-night honeymoon in a foxhole. That scene must have been meaningful for young couples about to be separated by duty. Ted Hecht has a great little role as a surgeon who talks philosophy when he operates. He charms his nurse Barbara Britton. Her close-ups feature the forehead scar she’s received during an air raid. James Bell is the medical unit’s Commanding Officer. Always looking exhausted, Bell seemingly specialized in listless, impotent authority figures such as his demoralized doctor in I Walked with a Zombie. He practically personifies Defeat, and thus is ideal casting here.

Paulette Goddard and Claudette Colbert are so good playing ‘ordinary’ that we forget their exalted, highly-paid positions at the top of the Hollywood pyramid. Goddard is spirit personified; she’s a take-charge woman in every respect. Ms. Colbert would next glorify the average American housewife (with a mansion, diamonds and a maid) who must cope with homefront problems in David O. Selznick’s Since You Went Away. She’s a ‘painted eyebrows’ actress, yet is acceptable as ‘one of us.’

We still find So Proudly We Hail to be a stirring, honest account that makes us wonder about the strength of these young women, some barely in their twenties, caught in the worst place to be when war broke out. It’s telling that America has to look back a full 80 years to find a conflict that’s non-divisive: our TV news constantly celebrates ‘WWII hero veterans’ even when they have to scour rest homes to find surviving servicemen. It always affected me to see the 30-something teachers and airmen and policemen of the 1950s, so many of whom endured uncertain times, and then helped make life so happy and secure for lucky little squabs like myself.

Recommended: Laura Grieve’s coverage of So Proudly We Hail at Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings.

KL Studio Classics’ Blu-ray finds Paramount’s wartime hit  So Proudly We Hail in fine condition; somebody took great care of its elements. Maybe one reel might have an occasional hairline scratch. This is the first time I’ve seen the show intact; I have a sneaking suspicion that old-time TV stations must have trimmed whole scenes to fit it into shorter time slots.

Adding considerably to the show is Miklos Rozsa’s film score. Patriotic themes sneak through, but nobody generates ’40s suspense like Rozsa. Even the ‘pretty’ themes generate an uneasy feeling, reminding us of his scores for Double Indemnity and The Killers.

Film writer Julie Kirgo carries a solo commentary for this extended feature, nicely threading the needle to interpret the 1940s attitudes and wartime furor for millennial audiences. It might be a tough sell to audiences that don’t have an immediate connection to vintage stars like George Reeves: I was never impressed by his bit part in Gone With the Wind but he’s definite star material here. The thoughtful, smartly-written screenplay makes everyone look good.

The trailer appended for So Proudly is a reissue item, that appears to cut off before the finish. Did the original trailer conclude on a more anti-Japanese, vindictive note?  Maybe not, but what remains of the trailer definitely lacks a finale.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

So Proudly We Hail
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Audio commentary by Julie Kirgo, trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: September 7, 2022
(6791hail)

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