Unless you have a personal connection to this movie, you will probably just consider it a good movie. In my case, my grandfather was involved in its production so I rated it higher. My grandfather was too old and had too many kids to serve during WWII so instead, he moved the family as needed to do his part. For most of the war, he was the final inspector for the bombers at Davis-Monthan AFB in Tucson, Arizona. Some of the scenes with the bombers were filmed nearby. He received a certificate of thanks for his participation but it has been lost over the years. It meant a lot to my Dad and his siblings to be able to see this movie again.

William Wyler was to have directed this adaptation of Moss Hart's hit Broadway play with music/ recruiting poster-vivant, but his own military commitments intervened and it went to a most unlikely helmsman: George Cukor. The "women's director" has a sure touch on the many documentary-like sequences of Air Corps training, and he invests it with more unhackneyed humanity than the genre generally allowed, particularly in wartime. Sure, the gee-whiz (and entirely white, save for one unbilled Chinese-American recruit) bunch of newbies are nicer and more wholesome than in real life, and the speechifying about home and Mom and the wife and kid gets pretty thick, but it's efficient propaganda and undeniably stirring. Notable, too, for the all-military male cast, several of whom didn't reemerge for years: Lon McAllister, Edmond O'Brien, Martin Ritt, Red Buttons (in drag, as an Andrews Sister), Peter Lind Hayes, Karl Malden, Kevin McCarthy, Gary Merrill, Lee J. Cobb, and Don Taylor. Also for a very early glimpse of Judy Holliday, who doesn't show up till an hour and a half into the picture but has some good little sequences as O'Brien's worried-sick Brooklyn spouse. Too bad its rights are in a tangle and the only print anyone knows of is 16mm; evidently, after Twentieth Century Fox released it (to considerable success), the rights reverted to the Army, and if there's a good 35mm print out there, it probably lies somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon. It's disingenuous and corny in spots, but it also captures the rigors of military training and the terrors of war vividly, and it deserves to be more widely seen.

As has been noted, this is one wartime film that got it right. Apart from the accurate depiction of army flight training, WV probably remains the only movie featuring the Consolidated B-24. A flight instructor who helped with the film reports that most of the cast got along well with the supporting officers and men, the exception being Edmund O'Brien. While filming an engine-start sequence he noted the usual "fire guard" with the extinguisher and became exceedingly nervous. Finally he "abandoned ship" and refused to proceed with the shot. Considering that his performance was witnessed by genuine airmen, let alone some combat veterans, EO's stock plummeted on base.

I saw this film as a 10 year old in Wash. D.C. during the war. I was very impressed with it to the point that I wanted to go and sign up for the Army Air Corps right then. I have yet to see it since. The film was a stepping stone for some future Hollywood stars such as Lee. J. Cobb, Red Buttons, Don Taylor, Jeanne Crain & Edmond O'Brien. I hope whatever legal hassle is holding up the release of the video will be settled before I die. This is a great film for today's youth especially in this present time of war.