For God and Country

I am really not sure exactly who the intended audience was for the short "For God and Country". That's because back in 1943, shorts were short--usually 10 to 20 minutes. And B-movies were about an hour. Movies of 43 minutes just weren't made for theaters. So who was the intended audience--was it made for soldiers in the field or basic training? Was it for the public? I just don't know. All I do know is that you can download it (for free) from archive.org--and I know that it is a nice and inspiring tribute to the military's chaplains.

The film starts with the death of a chaplain in combat. As the soldiers discuss what a great guy he was, the film goes back in time--back to when this priest was in his basic training for being a chaplain. The priest roomed with three men--Protestants and a rabbi. It makes sense to have the denominations vary like that, as the film obviously was meant to commemorate all faiths. And the rest of the film are little vignettes from the careers of all four chaplains. And, at the end, the film shows how the priest sacrificed his life to save another man. All in all, it was a tad schmaltzy but also very inspiring and well made. And, incidentally, you get to see Ronald Reagan and Richard Carlson in two of these roles--which is pretty interesting.