"Stage Door Canteen" is one film that you can unashamedly call a once in a lifetime movie without feeling a bit embarrassed by saying it. Simple and modest as well as grand and uplifting this movie probably did more to boost Americas morale during WWII then all the Blood & Guts war movies made during that war put together and did it without a single shot being fired and without anyone on "Theirs" side as well as "Ours" getting killed or wounded in the movie.
The fact that the film "Stage Door Canteen" can be seen today or anytime in the future without being taken back for a second by the off-the-wall, and even hysterical, war propaganda that was in almost all the films made during WWII by Hollywood shows just how good and unique this movie really is.
The movie is about a group of American Servicemen on their way to the European Theater of war and how they spend their last week in New York City before their sent into arms way via the dangerous North Atlantic convoys as well as to the bloody battlefields of North Africa and Europe. Getting to see not just how the man in the street but a galaxy of movie stars, that are just too many to mention in this review, appreciated their efforts in going "Over There" to fight the good fight where they may very well end up at the bottom of the cold U-Boat infested North Atlantic Ocean.
Beautifully filmed in black and white with a number of wonderful songs by the top recording artists of that time with the star-struck GI's Sailors and Marines dancing with beautiful girls and movie stars that they could only dream about about or see on the silver screen and motion picture magazines.
Watching the movie puts you right inside those servicemen heads and how they felt just before they were to face the horrors of war and how the American public felt an cared for them and how they went out of their way to show it. "Stage Door Canteen" didn't try to glorify the fighting in the war, even though it was made during the darkest days of WWII. The movie showed us those who were to fight the war as human beings who only wanted to do what was necessary to win the war so they could come back to their family and friends and the America that they left behind.
Like I said before "Stage Door Canteen" is a once in a lifetime movie that during those most bleakest and uncertain days of the Second World War shines like a beam of light through those dark clouds and gave hope to all those on the battlefield as well as those on the home front.
One of the most moving scenes in the movie was when a home sick GI asked Helen Hayes the first Lady of the Theater who played Queen Victoria on the stage to dance with him. Helen somewhat surprised asks the GI why he would want to dance with her since there are so many young and beautiful movie stars, much more beautiful then her, for him to choose from? The GI tells her, awestruck, that in the future, if he were to survive the war, he wants to tell his grandchildren that he once danced with Queen Victoria.
The fact that the film "Stage Door Canteen" can be seen today or anytime in the future without being taken back for a second by the off-the-wall, and even hysterical, war propaganda that was in almost all the films made during WWII by Hollywood shows just how good and unique this movie really is.
The movie is about a group of American Servicemen on their way to the European Theater of war and how they spend their last week in New York City before their sent into arms way via the dangerous North Atlantic convoys as well as to the bloody battlefields of North Africa and Europe. Getting to see not just how the man in the street but a galaxy of movie stars, that are just too many to mention in this review, appreciated their efforts in going "Over There" to fight the good fight where they may very well end up at the bottom of the cold U-Boat infested North Atlantic Ocean.
Beautifully filmed in black and white with a number of wonderful songs by the top recording artists of that time with the star-struck GI's Sailors and Marines dancing with beautiful girls and movie stars that they could only dream about about or see on the silver screen and motion picture magazines.
Watching the movie puts you right inside those servicemen heads and how they felt just before they were to face the horrors of war and how the American public felt an cared for them and how they went out of their way to show it. "Stage Door Canteen" didn't try to glorify the fighting in the war, even though it was made during the darkest days of WWII. The movie showed us those who were to fight the war as human beings who only wanted to do what was necessary to win the war so they could come back to their family and friends and the America that they left behind.
Like I said before "Stage Door Canteen" is a once in a lifetime movie that during those most bleakest and uncertain days of the Second World War shines like a beam of light through those dark clouds and gave hope to all those on the battlefield as well as those on the home front.
One of the most moving scenes in the movie was when a home sick GI asked Helen Hayes the first Lady of the Theater who played Queen Victoria on the stage to dance with him. Helen somewhat surprised asks the GI why he would want to dance with her since there are so many young and beautiful movie stars, much more beautiful then her, for him to choose from? The GI tells her, awestruck, that in the future, if he were to survive the war, he wants to tell his grandchildren that he once danced with Queen Victoria.