This Is the Army is a 1943 American wartime musical comedy film produced by Hal B. Wallis and Jack L. Warner, and directed by Michael Curtiz, adapted from a wartime stage musical with the same name, designed to boost morale in the U.S. during World War II, directed by Ezra Stone. The screenplay by Casey Robinson and Claude Binyon was based on the 1942 Broadway musical by Irving Berlin, who also composed the film s 19 songs and broke screen protocol by singing one of them. The movie features a large ensemble cast, including George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Joan Leslie, Alan Hale Sr. and Rosemary DeCamp, while both the stage play and film included soldiers of the U.S. Army who were actors and performers in civilian life.

Plot

In World War I, song-and-dance man Jerry Jones is drafted into the US Army, where he stages a revue called Yip Yip Yaphank. It is a rousing success, but one night during the show orders are received to leave immediately for France: instead of the finale, the troops march up the aisles through the audience, out the theater s main entrance and into a convoy of waiting trucks. Among the teary, last-minute goodbyes Jones kisses his newlywed bride Ethel farewell.

In the trenches of France, several of the soldiers in the production are killed or wounded by shrapnel from a German artillery barrage. Jones is wounded in the leg and must walk with a cane, ending his career as a dancer. Nevertheless, he is resolved to find something useful to do, especially now that he is the father of a son. Sgt. McGee and Pvt. Eddie Dibble, the troop bugler, also survive.

Twenty-five years later World War II is raging in Europe. Jerry s son Johnny enlists in the Army shortly after Pearl Harbor. He tells his sweetheart Eileen Dibble that they cannot marry until he returns, since he doesn t want to make her a widow.

Johnny reluctantly accepts an order to stage another musical, following in his father s footsteps. The show goes on tour throughout the United States and eventually plays Washington, D.C., in front of President Roosevelt. During the show it is announced that this is the last performance: the soldiers in the production have been ordered back to their combat units.

Eileen, who has joined the Red Cross auxiliary, appears backstage. During a break in the show she brings a minister and persuades Johnny that they should marry now – which they do, in the alley behind the theater, with their fathers acting as witnesses.

Cast

• George Murphy as Jerry Jones
• Joan Leslie as Eileen Dibble
• Ronald Reagan as Johnny Jones (Corporal, later Lieutenant)
• George Tobias as Maxie Twardofsky
• Alan Hale Sr. as Sgt. McGee
• Charles Butterworth as Eddie Dibble
• Dolores Costello as Mrs. Davidson
• Una Merkel as Rose Dibble
• Stanley Ridges as Maj. John B. Davidson
• Rosemary DeCamp as Ethel Jones
• Ruth Donnelly as Mrs. O Brien
• John Princes Mendes as Corporal Mendes (magician)
• Dorothy Peterson as Mrs. Nelson
• Gertrude Niesen as World War I Vocalist
• Jack Young as Franklin D. Roosevelt (uncredited)
• as themselves:
• Irving Berlin
• Frances Langford
• Joe Louis
• Kate Smith
• Ezra Stone

This Is the Army
Movie Soundtrack album (1970s bootleg issue)
Music	Irving Berlin
Lyrics	Irving Berlin and Carmen Miranda
Basis	Irving Berlin s play Yip! Yip! Yaphank
Productions	1942 Broadway 1943-1945 traveling show

Production

The title of the movie is the same as the title of the stage version of the show. The movie features star appearances by Irving Berlin, Kate Smith, Frances Langford and Joe Louis as themselves. Smith s full-length rendition of Berlin s God Bless America is arguably the most famous cinematic rendition of the piece. Louis appears in a revue piece called What the Well-Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear , with James Cross (lead singer and dancer), William Wycoff (dancer in drag), Marion Brown (heavyset dancer), and a chorus of perhaps a dozen, the only spoken/sung scene that includes African-Americans. Louis also appears in two other scenes, one in a boxing match, and the second being the stage door canteen number (he did not speak in either scene).

One of the film s highlights is Irving Berlin himself singing his song Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning , a scene borrowed from Yip! Yip! Yaphank!.

The celebrity impersonation hamburger sequence includes accurate spoofs of Broadway stars Jane Cowl, Lynn Fontanne, Alfred Lunt and Ethel Barrymore, and film stars Charles Boyer and Herbert Marshall.

The revue pieces also include acrobat routines, several comedy pieces, including one with Hale in drag, a magic skit, a minstrel show sketch (often removed from consumer videos and television broadcasts), and tributes to the Navy and the Air Corps.

Although the core of the movie consists of the musical numbers, the movie also contains a veneer of a plot involving the wartime love interests of both the father and the son.

Release

The movie premiered at the Warner s Earle Theater on August 12, 1943.

Box Office

It grossed $9,555,586 (equal to $149,636,802 today), which was donated to Army Emergency Relief.

The film earned rentals of $8,301,000 in the United States and Canada and $2,144,000 overseas for a total of $10,445,000. The film was the highest-grossing musical film of all-time until it was surpassed by White Christmas in 1954. The receipts from This Is the Army place it among the top 40 movies of all time in U.S. box office popularity, which considers both inflation and the size of the population when the movie was released.

By the mid-1970s, the movie itself fell into the public domain, occasionally airing on television to a new generation of viewers. Renewed interest in some of the actors helped those players that might have been considered down-and-out, most notably Stump and Stumpy s Jimmy Cross and Harold Cromer.

George Murphy and Ronald Reagan would run for public office in California. George Murphy served one term (1965–71) in the U.S. Senate. Ronald Reagan served two terms as Governor of California (1967–75) and then President of the United States (1981–89), with both contributing to each other s Republican campaigns. Both men also served as the President of the Screen Actors Guild: Murphy served as the Guild s seventh President, while Reagan would serve as both the ninth and thirteenth President. Reagan would warmly and jokingly refer to Murphy, who preceded him into politics by a couple of years, as my John the Baptist.

Many of the soldiers who had participated in the show held reunions every five years after the end of World War II. Their tenth and final reunion (1992) was held in New York s Theater District.

Musical numbers (movie)

• It s Your Country and My Country
• My Sweetie
• Poor Little Me
• We re On Our Way to France
• Goodbye, France
• God Bless America
• What Does He Look Like
• This Is The Army, Mr. Jones
• I m Getting Tired So I Can Sleep
• Mandy
• Ladies of the Chorus
• That s What the Well Dressed Man in Harlem Will Wear
• How About a Cheer for the Navy
• I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen
• With My Head in the Clouds/American Eagles
• Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning
• This Time

My British Buddy , also sung by Irving Berlin, was cut from the movie version but released on DVD. It was originally added to the British production of the musical.

Awards

The musical score was nominated and won the Oscar for Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) (Ray Heindorf) at the 16th Annual Academy Awards. The film was also nominated in the category Best Sound (Nathan Levinson), but lost to This Land Is Mine.

Year	1943
ReleaseDate	1943-08-14
RuntimeMins	121
RuntimeStr	2h 1min
Plot	A soldier wounded in the War (WWI) becomes a producer and stages a show for the forces.
Awards	Won 1 Oscar, 2 wins & 2 nominations total
Directors	Michael Curtiz
Writers	Casey Robinson, Claude Binyon, Irving Berlin
Stars	George Murphy, Joan Leslie, George Tobias
Produced by	Hal B. Wallis,Jack L. Warner
Cinematography by	Bert Glennon,Sol Polito
Film Editing by	George Amy
Art Direction by	John Hughes,John Koenig
Set Decoration by	George James Hopkins
Costume Design by	Orry-Kelly
Makeup Department	Perc Westmore,Ward Hamilton
Production Management	Al Alleborn
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director	Frank Heath,John Meredyth Lucas,Fred Scheld,Jack Sullivan
Art Department	John Beckman,Herbert Plews
Sound Department	C.A. Riggs
Visual Effects by	Jack Cosgrove
Stunts	John Daheim,Richard Farnsworth,Shep Houghton,Allen Pomeroy
Camera and Electrical Department	Percy D. Burt,Benny Cohan,Owen Crompton,Claude Hutchinson,Fred Morgan,George Gordon Nogle
Costume and Wardrobe Department	Eugene Joseff
Editorial Department	James Leicester,Don Siegel
Music Department	Leo F. Forbstein,Ray Heindorf,Charles David Forrest,Ray Heindorf,Max Steiner
Script and Continuity Department	Gloria Faythe
Additional Crew	Edward A. Blatt,Natalie Kalmus,Frank T. McCabe,Richard Mueller,LeRoy Prinz,Robert Sidney,Stuart Churchill,Hugh Cummings,Cameron Shipp
Genres	Musical
Companies	Warner Bros.
Countries	USA
Languages	English
ContentRating	Approved
ImDbRating	5.8
ImDbRatingVotes	1172
Keywords	u.s. military,military propaganda,claim in title,minstrel show,blackface