March on, America! (1942) User Reviews

March On, America! was an interesting reenactment of various American historical events

[tavm · 7/10 · 28 June 2015]

This short was one of the extras on the In This Our Life DVD that formed a Warner Night at the Movies link there. It attempts to tell in about 30 minutes the history of America at that point before then trying to stir patriotic sentiment after then showing a Japanese pilot flying toward Pearl Harbor, a dying American soldier using his bloody hands to form a V sign in a Nazi building wall, and various soldiers and tanks forming to go where they're needed. Filmed in Technicolor, this was quite exciting to watch though I couldn't help notice some glossing over some issues like that concerning the Civil War. And seeing that Confederate flag reminded me how unneeded it is today considering what happened at that South Carolina church last week. Still, March On, America! is interesting enough to watch as a historical document.

Now that so-called "White People" are on the verge . . .

[cricket30 · 7/10 · 24 March 2019]

. . . of becoming America's most troublesome minority group, it's a good time to take another look at MARCH ON, AMERICA! This brief documentary emphasizes the fact that the "United States of America" is a hypocritical scam dreamed up by a bunch of lazy Racist slave-flogging malingerers including such villains as "Georgie "Porgy" Washington," "Pat Henry," "Tommy Lee Jefferson," "Jim Madison," "Frank Scotty Key," "Andy Jackson," and "Jimmy Monroe." Too indolent to wage their genocidal campaign to destroy Native American Culture by themselves, these miscreants often imported ships full of chained kidnap victims who were forced upon delivery into performing such ungodly slaughters. In a cutting narration dripping with irony, this provocative piece dares its viewers to repudiate America's Racist roots by wiping out ALL Axis of Evil powers--not just those rampaging on far off foreign shores, but also those lurking South of the Mason-Dixon Line. By picturing waves of tanks rolling across our USA Homeland as swarms of war planes buzz overhead, MARCH ON, AMERICA! urges audiences to take its title literally. As soon as the USA's foreign foes are vanquished, it will be up to our returning War Heroes to refresh, reload, and MARCH ON AMERICA!

It's not hard to sense the current running between the lines . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 19 April 2017]

. . . of Warner Bros.' subtle World War Two Era prescriptive live-action short, MARCH ON, AMER!CA! Nearly every word of this Two-Reeler drips with Irony, as its narrator reminds viewers again and again of the USA's centuries-long Racist Campaigns to stamp out the Livelihoods, Rights, and Very Lives of all Native American and Black Peoples. Savage slave-whipping "masters" including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jackson are mentioned by name, along with slavers Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, and Louis Clark. Every few seconds during the 21 minutes of MARCH ON, AMER!CA! there are on-screen flashes of the decayed parchment showing the Deplorably Racist 1700s so-called U.S. Constitution, reminding BOTH contemporary viewers AND--in another of its trade-marked Prophetic Warner Bros. Warnings for We Americans of Today's (then) Far Future--that the Mordant Scribblings on that Moldy Scroll MUST be Repealed and Replaced by means of a Constitutional Convention. Then a NEW American Leader can declare Martial Law, Deport the vast majority of our 62 million-plus Racist Red-Commie-supporting Benedict Arnold-like Traitors, and permanently eradicate Corrupt Job-Killing Corporate Capitalism as America Marches On!

Not Many Moskowitzes Came Over On The Mayflower

[boblipton · 4/10 · 21 June 2019]

Here's one of the patriotic, propagandistic color shorts that were a long-term feature of Warner Brothers productions, and which reached their peak in the 1940s, with World War Two on. Unfortunately this one doesn't hang together too well, in no small part because in trying to offer more than three hundred years of history in two reels, Carleton Young talks so fast that it turns into a flooding river of "Manifest Destiny" mush with a mention of the Kellys and Moskowitzes in the Massachusetts colony.

there are also technical issues in its editing: because it uses clips from eight earlier Warn Bothers technicolor shorts, there's quite a large variation in the Technicolor prints. Technicolor was a flexible system, by which color values, both of hue and saturation could be minutely controlled. That meant that if different standards were used in different movies -- and they were -- that results here in sharp, distracting changes in tint from one frame to the next.

In the end, this is a cheap effort to monetize old material by reworking it into new form. Its value largely consists of adding a movie to the many in which Sidney Blackmer played Teddy Roosevelt.

Take it for what it is worth

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 21 June 2019]

This uncritical hagiography of our history pieces together a lot of stock footage from other films and was a superpatriotic morale booster for the home front and for the people going into the Armed Services. I doubt it could be shown in any social studies classroom today in an elementary school.

You have to take it for what is worth given this is fresh on the heels of Pearl Harbor. Folks like Frank McGlynn, Sr. and Sidney Blackmer who were known for playing Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are here as many other familiar places.

I'd venture to guess there were not many Moscowitzes, Kellys, and Pulaskis on the Mayflower where this starts. Wouldn't do to have it start at Jamestown where a year before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, the first slaves from Africa were imported. Slavery gets not a mention here.

The makers of this short give a great argument for Manifest Destiny a phrase that came into usage. That is the notion we were destined by the Almighty to expand from ocean to ocean. Doesn't leave much room for those already here.

This short subject is way behind the times.

For short lovers only - and even then......

[elyrest · 4/10 · 25 April 2003]

This film was produced during WWII in a patriotic attempt to tell the history of the U.S. and inspire the country. It fails on both counts. The history although fairly correct is presented in a paternalistic manner and goes on seemingly forever. Hokey costumes and bad acting are no reason to turn off something, but they went a little too far when Abraham Lincoln spoke with an Irish accent. The film does pick up in the patriotic segment at the end - the narrator finally comes to life and has some zip to his delivery. It is too short though and filled with scenes that made me wince. A memorable one is of a Nazi soldier shooting an enemy in front of a wall and as the man dies his hands slide together and form a large bloody V for Victory. Watch this only if you are filled with the desire to watch as many shorts as you can find. Like me.