Reagan: “You are thus being temporarily attached to the company performing the Irving Berlin muscial revue “This Is The Army.” Its cross-country tour over, it’s in town for the for the production of the film version over at Warner Brothers, to which you will report immediately…”
This morale-raising cinematic ode to the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II had its origins over twenty years earlier during the First World War. It was then that songwriter Irving Berlin was 30-years-old, drafted into the United States Army and serving in the 152nd Depot Brigade at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York. At the camp he wrote a musical revue about the Army — Yip Yip Yahank — that was performed by the soldiers of the camp before moving to Broadway.
In 1942 after the USA declared war on Japan and Germany, Berlin came up with the idea of utilizing much of Yip Yip Yaphank in a new all-soldier morale-boosting musical revue which would open on Broadway and tour the country. He made a proposal to General George Marshall, who quickly approved the plan. After a hugely successful national tour, the all-solider company came to Warner Brothers in Burbank, California for the production of a film version, which would star George Murphy, Ronald Reagan and Joan Leslie. Episodes 4 and 5 of ON THE TINSEL FRONT revolve around this production.
The story of This Is The Army is a fascinating one I can’t possibly repeat here. If you are interested, read this excellent article by Laurence Bergreen in the National Archives’ Prologue Magazine. Wikipedia provides a shorter, but still thorough overview.
And if you have the time, give the movie a watch. This restored version on YouTube is the best.
A warning that the film is very much a product of its time and has an element that, from a 2024 perspective, is horrifying. This is the musical number Mandy, which is done by white soldiers in blackface. Berlin wanted a blackface number in the stage production, but his young director, Ezra Stone, aware of the growing political incorrectness of this minstrel show element, talked him out of it by insisting that cast members couldn’t possibly get into and out of the blackface makeup quick enough. (That not being an issue during film production, the blackface number found its way back into the movie!)
While unenlightened about blackface, Berlin was admirably progressive in other ways. displaying…
“…real daring in his decision to include black performers in the unit. At the time, the armed forces were segregated, and as a result of Berlin’s insistence, the This Is the Army unit became the only integrated company in uniform. This extraordinary gesture derived not so much from Berlin’s social beliefs as from his show business background and savvy. In the show business milieu, blacks had long been stars, popular with both African-American and white audiences. By integrating the revue, Berlin was simply importing the conventions with which he was familiar into the army.” (Bergreen)
Berlin wrote a song exclusively for the black performers — That’s What The Best Dressed Men In Harlem Will Wear. Fronted by James “Stump Cross and featuring boxer Joe Louis doing a workout on a speed bag, this tap dance number is hands down the best thing in the movie. Note, however, that while the This Is The Army company was integrated, blacks and whites are rarely seen onscreen together. This is because the scenes with the black performer were excised from prints being distributed in the South.
A final note that’s interesting given the current hard-right opposition toward performances by men in drag. This Is The Army is full of them!
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