NFR Project: 'The Negro Soldier' (1944)

 

NFR Project: “The Negro Soldier”

Dir: Stuart Heisler

Scr: Carlton Moss

Pho: Alan Q, Thompson, Horace Woodard, Paul C. Vogel

Ed: Jack Ogilvie

Premiere: 1944

43 min.

It was in response to the inequity and strife caused by racial segregation in the armed services during World War II (it was condoned until 1948) that this film was created.

This film was made by the War Department specifically for showing to African-American troops; its quality and success led to its being required viewing for all troops. It’s a propaganda film, for sure: the need at the time was dire and the government wanted Black men to enlist. To be proud, to join the fight. Producer (and Oscar-winning director) Frank Capra, known for his Why We Fight documentary series, pitched in and created a remarkable film that turned the tide.

The movie takes place in a Black church. Everyone is dressed well and appropriately. No stereotypes are exhibited. The film’s narrator is a preacher in the pulpit. That man is Carlton Moss, the movie’s screenwriter.

Moss was an up-and-coming writer, actor, and director who nailed the script after others more prestigious such as Marc Connelly and Ben Hecht had unsuccessful cracks at it. For once, a Black writer got to see his work on film, not to mention being preserved in performance to boot. It must have been like a dream come true.

Moss tells us, succinctly, why the Nazis are bad and why we have to fight them. He thinks of boxer Joe Louis and his victory over German Max Schmeling in 1938. He likens the present war as another battle in the ring, though at much larger scale and deadlier consequences. He defines the fascist impulse as “We must exterminate everyone who stands against us”. He cites Hitler’s writings against the Black race. Furthermore, he declares “The liberty of the whole Earth depends on the outcome of this contest.”

The movie transitions into a historical montage, Moss providing voiceover, listing for us the names and the faces of key Black soldiers and heroes in American history. Slavery is not touched upon, however; there is but a whisper of a mention of the Civil War. Hmm. We move on to the achievements of such as Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.

It performs then a parade of exemplary Black individuals from all kinds of occupations and levels of society (not the poor; they do not exist in this movie). The preacher speaks of the tree of Liberty, and that “Men of every faith, color, and tongue have helped to nourish it.” We are reminded of the atrocities of the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Japanese (Dmitri Tiomkin’s score is particularly potent here).

A woman from the congregation stands up and pitches in, She has a letter from her son, who’s just been made an officer. She then reads it to the congregation, and we segue into another sequence featuring the recruitment process and basic training. It is tad odd that Mom serves as the voiceover for this story.

Anyway, life in the armed services isn’t that bad. There are sports, and literature, and women, and Church, and calisthenics. And you get to do cool stuff and kill people.

We are retailed of the various war activities reserved for Black troops. We are shown the Tuskegee airmen, the communications platoon, the quartermaster’s corps. We see a Black anti-aircraft gunner fight stock footage of enemy planes, getting bracketed by machine-gun bullets and wiping out his foe, the burning and crash of whom is enacted on a miniature scale.

Then we are back to the pastor, who declares that “the government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish of the Earth.” And then the choir gets up and everybody sings “Onward Christian Soldiers” (just like in Mrs. Miniver [1942]!) Segue to yet another montage, cued to songs such as “Joshua Fought the Battle” and “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

The filmmakers were bound and determined to do a thorough job of this film, and the results are reasonable and realistic, if rather rosy about the prospect of being in battle. They visited 19 army bases to get footage. The result is a call to arms, couched in friendly and sanctimonious terms. This is a holy struggle.

But something else is achieved. The demystifying of the African-American “other” in mainstream media really begins here. Here Black people are depicted as real, unaffected human beings.

And everybody in the armed forces had to see it. It must have prompted many a breakthrough in education and perception. It is significant that, after this film, Hollywood moved away from most Black stereotypes to roles for “serious” Black actors such as Sidney Poitier and Ossie Davis.

An interesting and eloquent advertisement for joining the army inadvertently became the foundation of a more enlightened decision to integrate the services four years later – and to energize the quest for equal rights.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: ‘Leave Her to Heaven.’