I watched a lot of old movies on TV when I was a youngster growing up in Los Angeles. This was before the dawn of 24-hour cable television, VHS tapes, DVDs and such. Local independent TV stations were connected to known Hollywood studios and their film libraries. KTLA/Channel 5 was connected to Paramount Pictures and aired plenty of that studio's classics. One was a feature made during World War 2 and had a trio of Paramount's top female stars playing women in war. The movie does not get a lot of talk today, but it should. I watched it in my youth because it's action-packed and I loved its three stars. Today, I watch it because it's one of those rare 1940s Hollywood films that focused on women who served in the war. The movie is 1943's SO PROUDLY WE HAIL! starring Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake.
In many Hollywood films made about our involvement in World War 2, movies made during the 40s, the female characters were the loving sweethearts at home praying for the survival of their men in uniform overseas. In SO PROUDLY WE HAIL!, the three stars play Army nurses. These nurses either have or will have sweethearts. The nurses also have very hard jobs and they are devoted to their work. They face life and death as they tend to the wounded men. Alongside the soldiers, the nurses are in the dirt and they run for cover when bombs strike. They, too, face danger. This entertaining, strong movie also shows the emotional and physical toll the work and the war took on military nurses.
The story follows the nurses during the grueling, bloody campaign in the Pacific. Paulette Goddard received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance. The screenplay is very good at taking the screen personalities moviegoers loved about Colbert, Goddard and Lake in light fare and applied them to a war drama. What moviegoers loved about the three stars, they got in this movie. Veronica Lake was famous for her peek-a-boo glamour girl hairdo -- a hairdo that covered one eye in a most alluring way. As a military nurse, she must wear a sensible hairdo. However, she employs her peek-a-boo do in her final and most dramatic, heroic scene. SO PROUDLY WE HAIL! was directed by Mark Sandrich. Allan Scott got an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay.
This movie with its stars in fine form, and the fact that it highlighted women serving in war, make it worth a look. Here's a preview.
Enjoy your Memorial Day.
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