nickenchuggets's reviews

During World War II, the major warring countries had many different kinds of naval vessels that depended on each other for true effectiveness in battle. Aircraft carriers can project air power to faraway locations, but are slow, huge lumbering targets for enemy planes and submarines. Destroyers could hunt for submarines with their powerful radars and depth charges, but their main guns were pretty anemic when compared to things like battleships. Submarines could sink even the largest ships with a well aimed torpedo while staying hidden, but if they were detected early, their advantage was lost. One type of vessel that doesn't get discussed enough is the torpedo boat. Essentially a fast attack ship about 70 feet long, they were designed to carry torpedoes into sea conflicts and cripple enemy ships with fast hit and run attacks, using their speed and numbers to destroy even the biggest capital ships. Not having much armor or protection, they weren't made for direct combat and a single shell could mean the end of them. This film from 1944 goes over a group of torpedo boats operated by the Royal Canadian Navy during the war and how they seek out and destroy Schnellboots (fast attack boats) belonging to the German Kriegsmarine. The film starts by telling us that as a dominion of the UK, Canada benefits from being part of the most powerful navy on Earth and operates a wide variety of ships, but none are as dangerous to germany as the torpedo boats. Canadian sailors from all over the country (including Quebec, Toronto, and the open wilderness of Saskatchewan) enlist in order to crew the boats and take on much bigger german ships, fighting in places like the northern part of the Atlantic or the English Channel. Officers such as commanders or lieutenants inspect the ships every day and maintain order among the crew. Occasionally, they let them indulge in rum. Eventually, a mission is carried out: destroy german boats attacking a friendly convoy of ships. At nighttime, the torpedo boats move through and past the convoy, going at 22 knots toward the battle zone. After a steamer is attacked by a schnellboot, the canadian boats move in for the kill. After the german boat is sunk, the canadian crew hoist its swastika flag onboard as a symbol of victory. The film ends by saying that the bravery and determination of the torpedo boat crews reflects canada's wider strategy of achieving total dominance over Hitler's navy. This short was ok. Canada doesn't seem to get discussed a lot in ww2 unless you bring up specific battles and locations, such as the French town of Caen that was solely liberated by them shortly after Normandy. As the film points out, the german torpedo boats were a major threat in the channel due to their speed and powerful armament. Germany's navy during the war often has a bad reputation as their largest ship (Bismarck) was sunk on its very first mission after a torpedo damaged and jammed its rudder. Bismarck's sister ship, Tirpitz, spent most of the war traversing between different Norwegian fjords trying to kill convoys because it was simply too dangerous to roam the open ocean. Eventually, it was destroyed after a british bombing raid struck it with several bombs weighing up to 6 tons, causing massive damage. Outside of these two examples, the kriegsmarine's reputation was actually not bad, since their schnellboots were a serious threat to british ships. Overall, this film is mostly propaganda, but it was needed at the time to motivate people.

In ancient China, General Sun Tzu wrote a book so influential in terms of military strategy that it is still studied around the world today. In it, he said that all warfare is based on deception. Although this concept is thousands of years old, this cartoon from the 1940s shows how it still applies to the then modern day battlefields of World War II. The film begins by explaining that tons of things in nature are camouflaged. If they weren't, it would be very difficult for fragile animals like rabbits and butterflies to survive in an ecosystem full of predators. The narrator then comes across a chameleon, who is sleeping in a hammock. After waking him up, he says that the chameleon probably has the best camouflage out of any animal, as it can change its colors to blend in with any background. The chameleon then begins to lecture a group of US military personnel who just had multiple planes on their airfield blown up by the Japanese air force. The reason is that the americans made no attempt to hide their planes or conceal them, creating easy targets for the enemy. He shows them a film on how to conceal things correctly, and how effective it can be at misleading the enemy when properly set up. For example, a building is shown next to some shrubs and trees. When viewed from above, the things that distinguish the building are its edges in contrast to the surrounding plants. If you cover the edges up and put mud on them, it distorts how it's supposed to look so your brain can't tell what it's looking at. Further, you can put bushes on the ground next to it so the building's shadow isn't on a flat surface. Anything that distorts or breaks up a shadow is critical: the shadow can give away the object's position just as easily as the thing itself. Everyone is familiar with infantrymen and ground troops covering themselves in twigs or ghillie suits to confuse the enemy, but you have to remember that things look totally different from the sky. Absolutely anything metallic that causes the sun to bounce off it will be visible for miles through the air, ask any pilot. Ground crews covering up parked aircraft with bushes and canvas is very effective as long as the shadow is not really visible. When seen from above, you would never think there's a plane under there. After explaining the basics of camouflage, the chameleon tells everyone to get to work concealing the planes on the airfield. Buildings are covered up and painted with patterns meant to confuse and disorient aerial observers. Trails leading to hidden aircraft are covered up with plants. Decoy planes made of wood are deliberately left in the open as bait. When the Japanese return, they bomb the fake buildings and planes, falling into the trap. Once they're convinced they've won, the american pilots hit back and shoot them out of the air. After the fight, one of the pilots is painting a japanese flag emblem on the side of his plane to indicate a successful kill, and tells the chameleon he's getting one too. Trying to decide where it should go, he tells him he should paint it on his rear end (where it belongs). Let me just say that even though it would never be allowed now, the way the animators portray america's enemies in shorts like these is hilarious. I can't explain what I mean on a family friendly site like this, but if you watch it you'll know what I'm talking about. As for the short itself, I think it's pretty good but confusing. I didn't know there were so many ways of concealing things in such clever ways. In many cases, you don't even need to hide the object, just paint it in such a way that no one will realize it's there. Of course this was put into practice over and over again throughout basically every war ever fought, as camouflage is as old as nature itself, but ww2 offered many new creative paths to take with this as things were now being spied on from the sky, too. This short is all about how tricking your enemy can move the whole dynamic of a battle in your favor.

For 1930s movie audiences, James Cagney was one of the most esteemed actors on the big screen, and his gangster image, persona, and philosophy of being aggressive to get the things you want resonated with many. This well made documentary on Cagney (narrated by Michael J Fox), goes over his most important roles and how, despite being a great actor, only saw acting as a way to pursue other ventures. James Cagney was born on July 17th, 1899 in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His dad (an Irish bartender) eventually moved him and his two brothers to Yorkville, a tough neighborhood where, according to Jimmy, you had to be able to take care of yourself with fists. In high school, he wanted to get into an agricultural college, but they rejected him. At the time, being in movies wasn't even on his list. Eventually, Cagney gets involved in vaudeville and meets his future wife, a chorus girl named Frances Vernon (he would be married until his final day). In 1930, Jimmy begins working in Broadway, and goes to Hollywood for the first time later that year. After filling out a questionnaire, he said he started acting simply because he needed a job. To studio bosses, he didn't look like much and only stood 5'6. However, his role in Sinner's Holiday (1930) showed Jack Warner of Warner Brothers that he was anything but ordinary. They offered him a five year contract, making 400 bucks a week: really above curve for Depression era America. After a few more small outings, Cagney was featured in the film that would make him a household name, The Public Enemy (1931). Focusing on Prohibition mobsters, the film was quite shocking and violent for the time, and some of the violence was legitimate; the scene that has a Tommy gun shred a stone wall where Jimmy was standing seconds earlier is actually real. After this, Warner rushed Jimmy through two more movies, then let him take a break. He and Frances went to New York for some time off. By this point, Jimmy noticed something quite frustrating to him, and that was how some stars were getting over 100 grand per movie, while he was only getting 400 a week. Thinking Warner was taking advantage, Jimmy walked out. Smart Money and Blonde Crazy (two films Jimmy made before quitting) were released, and both made a ton of money, prompting Warner to give him his job back. They basically tripled his salary, and now he was making 1400 a week. Offscreen, Jimmy was also involved in politics, and donated money in order to improve working conditions for actors, who were often overworked to the point of not being able to see. Even though Warner kept casting Jimmy as gangsters, his consistency and highly energetic performances never ran out of steam. He also finally got to star in a musical, Footlight Parade (1933), something he always wanted. Although it was a big hit, Warner had no plans of this line of work for him. Instead, he was paired up with Pat O'Brien, another one of Jimmy's broadway friends. Together, they made Here Comes the Navy (1935), and Cagney was later put in an adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream later that year. 20 years after he was rejected from farming school, Jimmy finally bought a 1700s house in Massachusetts that he could use for this purpose. Back in hollywood, Jimmy gets into a heated lawsuit with Warner about breaching his contract and wins the case, leaving the studio. A new company called Grand National offers him 100 grand a movie. Here, Jimmy made another musical, Something to Sing About (1937), but the company was too small to compete with titans like Warner or MGM. Before long, Jimmy's brother Bill Cagney negotiates a deal with Warner, saying his brother will work for him again as long as he gets to choose what movies he wants to do. Cagney agreed, and he made some of his best films in the years ahead, such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), where he plays a mobster who is sentenced to the chair for corrupting some street kids. He also played opposite Humphrey Bogart in The Oklahoma Kid (1939), one of only 3 westerns he was ever featured in, later saying that Bogart was impossible to work with because he hated everybody. In summer 1940, Cagney's career was threatened when some in the business were accusing him of communist ties. Bill set up a meeting between Jimmy and Martin Dies, the leader of the House Un-American Activities Committee. After just a 15 minute talk, Martin completely cleared Jimmy's name. Not wanting this to happen again, Jimmy decided to make by far the most patriotic film of his career, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1941). A musical, it started production the day after Japanese forces struck at Pearl Harbor that December. When it released the following year, it was the biggest success Jimmy had yet, and it earned him his only Oscar. After this, Cagney could finally afford to leave Warner and establish his own company. He sold bonds during World War II, and went overseas to encourage and entertain the US military. Inevitably though, Jimmy gets drawn back to Warner Brothers, this time producing what is in my opinion the culmination of his career: White Heat (1949). In it, he plays a total sociopath devoid of feeling for anyone but his mother, and seeks to get revenge on his wife Virginia Mayo after her secret boyfriend takes control of his gang. White Heat is a masterpiece of a movie, but to Cagney, it just reinforced his tough guy image that he was trying to shake off for nearly 20 years at this point. After White Heat, Cagney's career changed direction and he began working freely for all the studios. In 1955, he made Mister Roberts with an up and coming actor named Jack Lemmon. 6 years later, he did Billy Wilder's comedy One, Two, Three. After 1961, Jimmy's movie career was pretty much over. By 1974, he had been out of the public eye for more than a decade, but was pulled back into it when he was honored at the American Film Institute. After receiving the Life Achievement Award, he gave a speech expressing his gratitude toward his fellow actors, and even to Jack Warner. Although they had a lot of disagreements, Jimmy's career would not exist without him. On Easter Sunday, 1986, Cagney died. To movie audiences everywhere, he was loved, but urban america especially had a fondness for Jimmy. He seemed to embody the energy of new york itself, with his unpredictable and tough exterior, and film audiences never forgot how real he seemed when he was acting. As someone who likes these quaint documentaries about famous actors, this was a real treat. Fox is a good narrator, and it might surprise some to learn that a dying Cagney chose him to play himself if ever there was a movie made about Jimmy's life. Overall, this was a nice overview of Jimmy, but I feel it could have gone on much longer. Of course you have to draw the line somewhere, but it does go over his most important contributions.