User Reviews

. . . this live action short, produced near the onset of WWII, cleverly implies to America's Enemies that the U.S. military is more concerned about the outcome of intramural football games than it is about any threats posed by Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. This 10-minute piece begins with the verse of "Anchors Aweigh" written to commemorate the annual Army-Navy gridiron contest. Though a hodge-podge of naval training exercises are included with band music and a men's chorus singing in the background, these also are fiendishly calibrated to mislead Axis viewers. One shot implies that an American sub is firing four torpedoes at a U.S. battleship. Another snippet suggests that Uncle Sam is in the habit of bunching aircraft carriers together like cattle at a feedlot. But most of the visuals here involve naval musicians performing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Hitler never had HIS Videographer, Leni Riefenstahl, make propaganda pieces about joining the German Navy to play a harp. Who know whether the Third Reich even HAD three bassoons, let alone the six Sousaphones, half dozen trombones, countless clarinets, various violins, and so forth featured here? But look who won the war.