Gangway for Tomorrow

This movie is a 40's war propaganda movie. Five people re-live their war experiences to explain why they're working in a plane assembly line. What I find suspect is the last person (John Carradine) re-living his experience. He was a vagrant who cared about nothing, not even the war. Being confronted by a town judge, who condemns him for not being active in the war effort. Interesting that a 40's war movie would put war service above constitutional freedoms, sounds like something that might happen in communists Russia but not in the USA, and hopefully never will!

The film begins with a group of employees carpooling to work. It seems that they hardly know each other but they all work at the nearby defense plant. The driver breaks the usual silence by telling them that since they really don't know each other, he's been telling his wife stories about each of them. Now, he needed to confess this because the wife is insisting he invite them all to a party! From this point on, the film is a long series of flashbacks where you get to learn more about each character as well as why they are now working for the airplane factory.

I think that much of the impact of this film is lost today unless you understand the context. The United States was in the middle of WWII and Hollywood felt a strong obligation to aid in the war effort by producing films that encouraged the people at home to do their best to support their country. At the time, a film like this would have been quite popular and few would have second-guessed the producers and writers for making such a sentimental film. So it is in this context that I hope viewers watch this film--after all, it's easy to see the film as hard to believe now, but at the time this was timely and important.

As for the technical merits of the film, the script is rather interesting--with some of the vignettes being excellent and a couple being just okay. The acting is good and it's nice to see a young Robert Ryan in one of his first films as well as the reliable old character actor, John Carradine in one of his more "normal" roles.

The flag-waving toward the end gets a little too intense. Considering the time, though, it makes sense.

People on their way to work reminisce about how they end up at a munitions factory. Margo is very convincing as an emigre French chanteuse. It works really well, all told, and is touching and engrossing.

propaganda portmanteau movie: several persons ,aboard a car ,tell their tales .

The first is an improbable story of French resistance (but there is some excuse,for the screenwriters could not really know what happened across the ocean)with "la Marseillaise " galore .

Highly talented Robert Ryan is wasted in another improbable story of car race and Air Force pilots .

Other segments include "Miss America" and her unfortunate fiancé and a spooky story of death row.

The last episode puts the record straight :it's full of finer feelings and looks like a Frank Capra's finale but ,out of context, it is rather ponderous and doctrinaire :after all ,a tramp is par excellence an outcast,thrown out of the society-in the segment,it's his own will,but it is a very particular case- so why complain if the old man's remarks on the international situation do not concern him?Frank Capra probably would have found a way to make this moral convincing

You might not think of it at first glance, but Gangway to Tomorrow is a very pro-America movie to inspire folks during the height of WWII. It takes place during a morning carpool to work. One man, Charles Arnt (whose character name is Jim Benson - isn't that cute?) has been kind enough to drive his coworkers but knows nothing about them. He confesses that he's made up stories about them to entertain his wife, but those stories turn out to be very far from the truth. As Charles tells each of the passengers what he imagines their life to be like, they nod and smile - then they reveal their backstories to the audience. It's an interesting premise, and you get five stories for the price of one.

Some are better than others, which is to be expected. Margo's is extremely exciting: she was a nightclub singer and member of the French Resistance with a head Gestapo agent on her trail. Robert Ryan's is less-so: he was a racecar driver. The others are James Bell (with a story that will give you chills), John Carradine, and Amelita Ward. The message is simple but meaningful. No matter what your background is, whether or not you're an American, if you're injured and unfit for active duty, if you're atoning for terrible sins, or if you've been given a second chance at life, you can (and should) do everything to help your country in her hour of need. It was a very powerful message in 1943!