Mark Sandrich’s So Proudly We Hail! (1943) works as typical piece of U.S. propaganda, with one glaring exception. It is not a combat film; instead, the film tells the tale of a group of woman nurses and their experiences throughout the South Pacific.
Propaganda served to keep the morale high for everyone involved in the war effort, and So Proudly We Hail! is intended to show the sacrifices by those not directly fighting in combat. The women are portrayed as tough, taking cover from artillery fire and bombings alongside the soldiers, and handling the pressures just as well. However, the women experience minor hysteria, but it is always brief and is later laughed off as nerves.
Despite intending to show the female participants in the war as just as hardy and important as the men, the film is still littered with Hollywood’s typically sexist portrayal of women. For many of the characters, their husbands, boyfriends, and lovers are the most important thing they are holding on to. They fuss over their hair and outfits in typical “woman” fashion – one of them claims that the thing she longs for most on safe shores is a beauty parlor so she can finally get her hair done. While under fire from the Japanese, another nurse runs from the safety of her escape truck back to their house in order to retrieve a black dress, endangering not only her life, but the rest of her troop’s. However, this dress has added significance, as she wore it the night she first danced with her lover when they were all together and safe (thus, retrieving the dress has double-significance trivializing her as a silly woman).
Despite the sometimes stereotypical treatment of the female characters, they are shown in a positive light and the movie deserves credit for that. Featuring an A-list cast, the acting is believable and sympathetic. The film deserves most of its praise, however, for showing that war is not merely a man’s game, and that people from all walks of life make sacrifices in the name of our country.
cahiersoncinema 