The United States Army Air Force Band

Vitaphone was cutting down on the musical shorts by this time, but with the Second World War on, there was no hesitation in producing musical shorts for the branches of the armed forces. Although the Air Force was still part of the Army at this point, it seems to have had its own band, and of course the short begins with "Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder."

Director Jean Negulescu had revived the musical short at Warner Brothers, with camera angles, moving compositions, and lots of cuts. Earlier, Warners had stuck largely to the simple design of a still camera shooting the band, with occasional chorines coming out onto the stage. Here, Negulescu has Ted McCord shoot the band around the monuments of Washington D. C. It's lively and entertaining.

United States Army Air Force Band, The (1942)

*** (out of 4)

Pretty much as the title says, the U.S. Army Air Force band plays several songs while we get to see some footage, which includes landsmarks in Washington D.C., as well as paratroopers doing their job and various other sequence dealing with what these men do as part of their training. I've seen a couple of these films but anyone familiar with Turner Classic Movies will know that countless WW2 films were being produced during this time and we also get countless shorts dealing with various subjects. I always found these musical shorts to be quite interesting because we got to see something other than fighting. Seeing the troops taking a break from the action was a nice thing to take it and you can't help but think some of the folks we see here ended up dying months later. "The Army Air Corps Song", "Polly Wolly Doodle" and "I Am an American" are the songs performed and they are done very well.