With poor old “Johnny” (Ronald Reagan) reluctant to get married to his a childhood sweetheart “Eileen” (Joan Leslie) with his draft looming, he finds himself with another sort of draft altogether. That one sees him, and a cast of hundreds, involved in putting on the ultimate in wartime entertainment that has just about everything except Bob Hope! Directed by Michael Curtiz, the next couple of hours is spent combining their rather predicable romantic shenanigans with an whole array of rousing musical numbers ranging from toe-tapping drag to large-scale choreographed marching routines - all for the benefit of the President watching from his box. It is quite difficult to comment on this as a film as it isn’t really a movie, more a recording made of some theatrical performances and like any vaudeville or “Good Old Days” style of entertainment there are bits that you laugh at and bits that you cringe at. Just about every form of act is represented here; there are some famous roles doing their best either in character or as themselves, and all of them look like they are putting their heart and soul, willingly, into something that is clearly intended to gee up both the soldiers and the audience alike. There’s not too much that’s stands out - though I did quite enjoy the hamburger routine with a faux Herbert Marshall, and by the end it is easy to see why the camera liked Reagan, even if he isn’t so much an actor as an animated cardboard cut-out. It’s a colourful, vibrant and well orchestrated production that’s packed full of American patriotism and some Irving Berlin at his most flag-waving so whilst it doesn’t really travel so well, I expect it did what it needed to as 1944 loomed large in a nation gearing up for a long war ahead. I am glad the lyricist remembered to not just nobble the bugler, but the man who woke him up, too!
