Service With the Colors

I only have one movie on my DVR that I've watched and not blogged about, and that's scheduled for Monday. So I looked at some of my old Warner Archive discs for a short to watch. Unfortunately, I got a dud copy of White Heat as the sound doesn't seem to work, constantly dropping out. So I put in City for Conquest, and watched the short Service With the Colors.

This is a 1940 Technicolor short about four guys who decide to join the Army, including a young William Lundigan, as well as William Orr as the soldier who didn't want to join (and yet, he wasn't drafted). Robert Armstrong plays the sergeant with a heart of gold who wouldn't exist in real life, but who helps Orr become a soldier. That's Lundigan sitting and Orr standing.

This stuff is strictly propaganda, made to try to gin up support for the military when average people didn't want to join the war but there was a segment of society that was convinced war was going to come so we better be prepared (remember, Hollywood was hauled before Congress in 1941 for producing several movies actively trying to get the US to join the war effort against the Nazis).

As a story, there's nothing particularly noteworthy here, but the color cinematography is quite nice. The sergeant mentions the Golden Gate and we see the bridge a few years after it was constructed: