Reaching Out to the Black Community
The Negro Soldier (1944)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Mildly entertaining documentary from the War Department, which was made to try and get more black people to join the military. Many of these WWII documentaries were directed by people like Frank Capra and John Huston but this one here comes from Stuant Heslier who got the job at William Wyler quit the project thinking that the documentary was too fake for its own good.
If you recently viewed this film on Turner Classic Movies then you probably saw the introduction with author Mark Harris. If not, his book "Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War" has some information about this film. From Harris, the War Department feared that black people weren't going to join the Army because there were reports out there that their lives might be better if the United States lost the war. When viewing this film it's obvious the see that the "truth" was being left out and especially since this film tries to make it seem like black people were "free" during 1944.
Of course, we know that a lot of hard times laid ahead but, as Harris states, it's important to remember that this film was made during wartime and the War Department needed people to join. The documentary features Joe Louis as someone doing it "right" and there's a lot of footage from the Olympics that were held in Germany where Jesse Owens shined. The film also talks about Hitler wanting to destroy black people and their freedom. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on here and the film is certainly entertaining but there's just too much missing or covered up for it to be a complete entertainment.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Mildly entertaining documentary from the War Department, which was made to try and get more black people to join the military. Many of these WWII documentaries were directed by people like Frank Capra and John Huston but this one here comes from Stuant Heslier who got the job at William Wyler quit the project thinking that the documentary was too fake for its own good.
If you recently viewed this film on Turner Classic Movies then you probably saw the introduction with author Mark Harris. If not, his book "Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War" has some information about this film. From Harris, the War Department feared that black people weren't going to join the Army because there were reports out there that their lives might be better if the United States lost the war. When viewing this film it's obvious the see that the "truth" was being left out and especially since this film tries to make it seem like black people were "free" during 1944.
Of course, we know that a lot of hard times laid ahead but, as Harris states, it's important to remember that this film was made during wartime and the War Department needed people to join. The documentary features Joe Louis as someone doing it "right" and there's a lot of footage from the Olympics that were held in Germany where Jesse Owens shined. The film also talks about Hitler wanting to destroy black people and their freedom. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on here and the film is certainly entertaining but there's just too much missing or covered up for it to be a complete entertainment.
- Michael_Elliott
- Sep 9, 2015