Women in War (1940)

Republic’s 1940 feature Women in War is rare enough that you won’t ever happen upon it on television, and are unlikely to see it at all short of a concentrated effort to do so. It tallies a mere 15 votes on IMDb, alongside three user reviews, two of which are by fellow completist Arne Anderson — one of which reports that the film is utterly unavailable, the second written after he managed to track it down — as I recently did. After years of wistfully staring at this title on my to-see lists, I was awfully disappointed by it when I finally got the chance.

Set in Britain in the heady early days of the conflict, Women in War tells the story of Pamela Starr (Wendy Barrie), a party girl charged with manslaughter after shoving a drunken RAF pilot over a balcony. Pamela’s long-lost mother, Matron O’Neil (familiar-face Elsie Janis), now in charge of the nurses’ corps, secretly engineers a deal with the courts in the hope that by taking her tough-cookie daughter into the war effort, she can provide the affection and discipline needed to allow her to turn the corner. But the chip on Pamela’s shoulder just grows larger after the other new nurses, who remember only the newspaper gossip from her trial, spurn her. Pamela copes by striking up a casual romance with another flier, Larry (Patric Knowles), which only makes things even worse for her in the barracks — he’s already engaged to Gail (Mae Clarke), one of her fellow nurses. Isolated and bitter, Pamela’s refuses to stop seeing Larry, and their relationship grows to the point that he decides to leave Gail, who retaliates by trying to kill Pamela during a midnight trip to the front lines. Huddled underneath an intense artillery barrage (the filming of which earned an Academy Award nomination for Special Effects), the two women retreat to the cellar of a church, while O’Neil searches frantically for them amidst the cascading shells…

Women in War is emblematic of the naïvely casual and overly romanticized outlook the movie-going public had in those months of 1939 and early 1940 that historians now refer to as the “phony war,” before Dunkirk, when the situation changed dramatically. During the very same week that this film was released to theatres, global newspaper headlines told the horrific story of the British Expeditionary Force’s chaotic evacuation from France, which forced the public to reformulate its attitude and its commitment to the total war effort. It’s unlikely that a film such as this, which employs a wartime milieu without the gravity it demanded, would have even been made had it been scheduled for production just a few months later. The spate of nursing pictures — even the overtly romantic ones — that would soon issue from the studios went out of their way to not only demonstrate the value of nurses, but also the incredible risk and toil required to be one.

The film does lip service to realities of war, as early on O’Neil tells her recruits: 

“I hope none of you have come here with the beautiful notion that war is noble and romantic. Some of you dewy-eyed creatures may be under the impression that it will be your function to soothe the fevered brows of handsome young men when on duty, and to philander with the convalescents when you’re off. Unfortunately, war isn’t like that.”

Yet that seems to be precisely the notion that all of the nurses have, and the film does nothing to dispel them. There are no wounded soldiers to tend to, no tragedies along the way, and no sour news from other fronts. The war seems terribly far away, if it’s even happening at all. All our nurses have time to do is chase fliers, and all they have to be concerned with are the most immature aspects of their schoolgirl romances. The film’s finale is its most damning sequence: When the nurses are ordered to drive desperately needed medical supplies to the front, Gail — our ‘woman scorned’ — childishly forsakes her duty in order to exact revenge on Pamela. She diverts their vehicle into an evacuated French village that is under heavy bombardment, hoping to get them both killed. When O’Neil realizes what has happened, she too drives her truck into the village — showing audiences that as far as these nurses are concerned, the needs of the wounded on the front lines finish a distant second to their own personal drama. And when the shells really start dropping, too many of the nurses lapse into hysterics.

In June 1940 the Battle of Britain was in the offing, and the terrifying nights of the Blitz would then follow. It was a time when English and Canadians — and soon Americans — of all ages and from all walks of life were asked to make extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of their nations and one another. Women in War is a shallow film that fails to measure up to the requirements of its time. Its women are shallow, silly, and incompetent rather than confident, devoted, and strong. When inspiration was needed, it stooped merely to entertain. 

Women in War (1940)

Directed by John Auer

Starring Wendy Barrie, Mae Clarke, and Elsie Janis

Released by Republic Pictures

Running time: 71 minutes

Availability: very rare

Grade: D

When Worlds Collide (1951)

Run for your lives! Oh wait, that won't work. In the 1951 sci-fi classic When Worlds Collide, a vicious one-two punch in the form of Bellus and Zyra, a rogue star and orbiting planet are hurtling through space directly for the planet earth. Our hero, research scientist Dr. Hendron (Larry Keating) confirms the inevitability of the collision with a year to spare, but is mocked by the newly formed United Nations General Assembly and tossed out on his ear. By the time the rest of the world finally comes to grips with the truth of the situation, it's too late to do anything about it — too late, that is, for everyone except Dr. Hendron and his circle, who have endeavored to build a futuristic Noah's Ark in the form of a gigantic sleek silver rocket. Their plan is to launch at just the last second, and hopefully land and begin civilization anew on Zyra, the small, earth-like (hopefully) planet. A scant forty-four people can be saved, and much of the film's drama concerns preparation for the cataclysm and the selection of the lucky few.

Despite a short running time, there's plenty to hold our attention (it's actually too bad this couldn't have gone on for another twenty minutes or so — there are plenty of threads that could have been woven into a more detailed fabric.) There's a love triangle involving 50s honey Barbara Rush, the ship's M.D., and her reluctant pilot; as well as a great deal of moral and ethical tension generated by the wheelchair-bound gajillionaire who's paying for the whole thing — in exchange for one of the coveted seats.

One of the cleverest plot twists has Zyra passing close enough to the Earth to disrupt the tides and flood all coastal cities nineteen days in advance of the fiery collision with Bellus. It adds a moment of real suspense and worthwhile special effects to the middle of the film, and as an added bonus it solves the problem of pissed-off, gun-toting mob of rejects making a run on the rocket during the eleventh hour — the launch site is on a mountain top, and Zyra has flooded all low-lying territories. The effects are pretty darn good, all the more so because this was shot in very vivid technicolor — good enough to nab the effects Academy Award (not to mention a color cinematography nomination). Most of the tricks are done with miniatures, but they are impressive to say the least and will have you wondering if it isn't the real thing in a few of the cuts. There's an interesting flood sequence that anticipates the likewise Oscar-winning effects in The Rains of Ranchipur. There might be a few seconds of stock footage here and there, but who cares? This is great stuff.

Unfortunately this is 1950s America — no black folks allowed. Asians? Sorry. The script does vaguely reference similar rockets being built in other countries, but the notion contradicts the earlier idea that the initially sceptical would be unable to complete a ship in time. The new civilization on Zyra will be young, white, and good looking — and with cute puppies. The film makes a meager overture to civil unrest amongst the hundred of rocket-builders who don't get a space on the flight, but it takes a nod and a wink on the part of viewers to think the rocket would have ever gotten off the ground. Yet it does, and miraculously manages to set down on the surface of Zyra. The hatch opens to "the sweetest breath" one traveler ever took, and a cartoonish world of green fields, pink trees, snow, and a few rather Egyptian looking pyramids. It's a strange teaser for the film to end this way — if this was a contemporary picture we'd all shout, "Sequel!" The Zyran landscape obviously contains buildings, but we are left to wonder whether or not they contain living beings, friendly or otherwise. The idea of competing rocket projects, particularly those from other countries and other governments, makes the idea of a sequel very intriguing. Apparently George Pal wanted to do a follow-up along those lines, but it just never panned out. Nevertheless, this is a fun fifties sci-fi gem, with enough polish to please all viewers. Plus, it sports one honey of a poster.

When Worlds Collide (1951)

Directed by Rudolph Maté

Starring Barbara Rush, Richard Derr, Peter Hansen, Larry Keating, and John Hoyt

Released by Paramount Pictures

Running time: 82 minutes
Availability: Widely on DVD.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

I've been bamboozled, but I don't mind. I went into my viewing of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo thinking I was getting a Spencer Tracy film, but that wasn't the case. Tracy’s role amounts to probably less than five minutes of the 138-minute running time. He plays light colonel James Doolittle, the man who orchestrated an extraordinary carrier-based bombing assault on Japan in the wake of Pearl Harbor. Tracy pops up throughout the film, looking stern, giving the occasional order or making a speech. One is left with the impression that his role is bigger, but the movie actually belongs to Van Johnson. Johnson plays Ted Lawson, one of the many B-25 pilots who volunteers for the raid. (Another is played by a young Robert Mitchum)

The film offers a fairly broad survey of the events surrounding the raid, with a focus on Lawson and his fellow crew members — their feelings about the war and their personal lives. The film follows them through training and on to the raid itself, which is vividly realized (Oscar-winning effects) and surprisingly takes place just after the midpoint of the picture. Most of the second half lingers on events that follow, when the bomber crews were obliged to ditch their ships in Chinese territory overrun by Japanese troops. Dalton Trumbo's screenplay takes on a forgivably mild propagandistic tone as everyone aboard Lawson's B-25 is injured and needs to be cared for by Chinese civilians. Most other films of this type would show the crew struggling to escape from behind enemy lines using their nothing more than their wits, and probably nursing minor injuries. Not so here as almost everyone is incapacitated as a result of the forced landing and has to rely solely on the courage of the Chinese citizenry to make it to health and safety.

While the drama plays out half a world away, Johnson's all-American sweetheart of a wife (Phyllis Thaxter) is worried about her man. She is newly pregnant and frightened that Ted might not come back — though like any good war wife she keeps her chin always up and never lets her fears show. She and Johnson are both standouts, and exhibit that sort of “oh gosh!” purity that occasionally comes across as corn, but seems to strike the right chord in a film actually made during the war. I’m a fairly cynical viewer, but Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo evolves gradually into something of a tear jerker, and I was surprised by how the final scene tugged at me. Thaxter and Johnson play it pretty darn good.

Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

Grade: B

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Starring Van Johnson, Phyllis Thaxter, Robert Mitchum, Robert Walker and Spencer Tracy
Released by MGM
Running time: 138 minutes.
Availability: DVD