Regimento Heróico

Recent American moviegoers who saw Martin Scorsese's great film, The Gangs of New York would probably think that the Civil War Draft Riots represented the unanimous Irish opinion on the American Civil War. Far from it and the regiment known as the 69th New York won honor and glory for itself in the Civil War.

The Spanish American War was over before it saw any action, but that was certainly made up for in World War I. The Fighting 69th as this film was called did the stuff legends are made of and a few personal legends came out of that conflict.

In the years 1938-1941 Hollywood turned out a whole load of patriotic type films. Either about past American wars or about military preparedness for the war to come, these flicks weren't deep or subtle. But they were great entertainment.

The Fighting 69th is based on two real American heroes, William J. Donovan and Father Francis P. Duffy, played by George Brent and Pat O'Brien and a fictional one named Jerry Plunkett played by James Cagney.

William J. Donovan (Will Bill as he was known)among other awards won the Congressional Medal of Honor. He had a distinguished career in the Harding-Coolidge Justice Department and also ran for Governor of New York in 1932, a bad year for Republicans which Donovan was. After this film was made, FDR appointed Donovan to head the Office of Strategic Services, our American intelligence service in World War II and the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. His biography would be a great film, maybe someone will do it one day.

When Father Francis P. Duffy died in 1932, he was one of New York's beloved figures by all faiths. He was the chaplain of the regiment, having been so since the Spanish American War. During World War II, he never stayed behind the lines, he traveled with a combat medical unit and went where the fighting was the thickest. The closest person we've had to him recently was Father Mychal Judge of the NYC Fire Department who accompanied the firemen into the burning World Trade Center on 9/11/01. A couple of Catholic priests who walked the walk were Duffy and Judge.

After the war Duffy became pastor of the "Actor's church" on West 42nd Street in Hell's Kitchen, but near the theater district. When he passed on, a statue of him still there today was put in the triangle opposite Times Square. And that triangle was renamed Duffy Square.

Both Donovan and Duffy figure prominently in Cagney's story in The Fighting 69th. For the first half Cagney is his usual streetwise, cocky urban self. The second half of the film as he's brought to the realities of war reveal a different Plunkett. It's also a great test of what a fabulous player James Cagney was, to show the change in Plunkett's character. The main story line is what happens to Cagney in the film and he's brilliant.

If anyone is looking for a film about the causes of and how America got into World War I, this ain't the film. Some in current audiences will find it flag waving and super-patriotic and it sure is. But it's well acted flag waving.

One of these days someone may do a film that concentrates solely on the careers of either Donovan or Duffy. Hopefully soon.

Hollywood released quite a few films with the Pat O'Brien, Jimmy Cagney pairing with the same general theme, one which I think is unfairly dismissed here as 'cliched'.

In each of these films, Cagney's character was an Irish ghetto hood, full of street values (toughness at all costs... taking, lying, and using ... physical aggressiveness ... resistance to authority or discipline ... contempt for 'chump' 'soft' moral values). He saw Pat O'Brien's character as 'soft' because he was a 'sucker' with all his 'morality' talk.

The redemption came when Cagney's character contrasted Father Duffy's steady courage under fire with his own terror. His street values taught him to respect courage. But he saw that his street values can teach him defiance but not serenity. Serenity comes from moral character and the street cannot teach you that. He saw that there is, as the song goes, more to being a man than just being macho. And there is a courage that has nothing to do with your fists.

That is a very, very important point.

'The Fighting 69th' gets a lot of mileage out of every cliche you've ever seen in a war film. It's hokey corn from start to end--and yet, despite the fact that you've seen it all before--it's an enjoyable enough experience because of its stellar cast of Warner stock players.

James Cagney is the mug from Brooklyn who is nasty to one and all, described by one character as "the man they'd rather riddle with bullets than the Germans." Pat O'Brien is the true-life character of Father Duffy who has a major job on his hands trying to reform Cagney in time for the fadeout. Sensitive Jeffrey Lynn is Joyce Kilmer, the poet. Gruff Alan Hale is a tough sergeant. And just about every male contract player from William Lundigan to Frank McHugh to Dennis Morgan is present to depict the stereotyped characters that fill the screen.

As hokey as it is, it does a graphic job of showing what war is like under combat fire. The combat scenes are skillfully done, with shells and grenades and bombs making trenches hell and buildings collapse, all in very realistic fashion.

Cagney is his usual pugnacious self and his reform at the end is a little too abruptly handled. But the film is a brisk 80 minutes, as shown on TCM, and fairly entertaining if you can forgive the corn. Surprisingly, it is directed by William Keighley, whose sluggish work on "The Adventures of Robin Hood" caused him to be replaced by Michael Curtiz to give the film more punch. And yet, "The Fighting 69th" is anything but sluggish. A brisk, entertaining little war film.

When I first viewed "The Fighting 69th", I was probably 8 years old, around 1948 I'd say. It literally scared me out into the lobby more than once. At that age you're not ready for trench warfare that up close and personal. Being Irish, Catholic and a kinship with people named O'Brien, I have always liked this movie on many levels for a variety of reasons. I have watched this film many times over the years, including a "colorized" version, when they were in vogue. Now comes the definitive DVD copy of the film. I watched it again in all it's 42 inch LCD, near "Hi-Def", glory again recently. I was affected by it again but in an entirely different way. Basically the story is about bright, mostly full of pluck and good humor, young men who want to get this war over with and get home again. Now it could be viewed an "anti-war" movie in some ways. It also very much is like the young men,today, shedding blood in hell holes named Iraq and Afganistan. Quite a comparison. It hit home. I'm an older man and I cried and sniffled through the entire film, and I know the film! I didn't have any lobby to run out into. Bobsluckycat, in all his reviews, has tried to give you some out of the box appreciation for whatever film he reviews and this is no exception. Yes, the stars are all fine, but look to the mostly young supporting cast, many of whom would go off to WWII and come back having served proudly and heroically, and you'll see the meat of this film. William Lundigan, George Reeves, and many many others with a line or two here and there just outstanding and would go on to long acting careers post war. Gwinn "Big Boy" Williams, Frank McHugh, Dick Foran, Sammy Cohen among many of the "pros" doing superior work. Not one casting note rings false throughout. World War I does not play well in color, with the exception of John Fords' "What Price Glory" also starring Cagney, maybe. It's meant to be in black and white. Today, it's not the "rah,rah" picture it was made to be, but a stark reminder that war kills our youngest and brightest before they mature to fullness, just as today. In that light, It's one of the best war movies EVER made, period.

On the one hand, it's James Cagney's street tough in olive drab. He even gets the death sentence but, for propaganda purposes, he's allowed a "hero's death" instead of a coward's.

Which brings me to my main point ("on the other hand"): with World War II raging overseas and the lurking possibility of the U.S. getting caught up in it, Hollywood produced a bumper crop of neo-patriotic propaganda pics in 1939-1940. The enemies differed from pic to pic but the message in all of them was "1) WE are all on the AMERICAN (or, at least, the Anglo-Saxon) side, & 2) the AMERICAN (Anglo-Saxon) side is the side of GOOD."

For example: Another Cagney pic, "Captains of the Clouds," Spencer Tracy in "Northwest Frontier," Cary Grant in "Gunga Din" or Henry Fonda in "Drums Along the Mohawk." Many of them were portrayed as "Boys' Tales of Adventure" but, given the context of the times, the subtext in all of them are unmistakeable ... ... yet, 60 years later, they're still fun.