In the Aleutians (1945)

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The acting in this movie is really good.

. . . for about a year during World War Two, so THE ALEUTIANS--ISLES OF ENCHANTMENT (OH BROTHER!)--the actual on-screen title of this animated short--is as much Family History for me as it is a Travelogue. The sneaky Japanese had killed many Americans while invading the most Western islands of this thousand-mile-long chain separating Sarah Palin's porch on the Alaskan mainland from Russia (she must have REALLY great eyes!). Though most of the Nipponese invaders had been killed or withdrawn in the face of our American Counter-Attack before Grandpops was stationed on Attu, abandoned stragglers still carried out suicidal sniper attacks from time to time during his Tour up there. ISLES OF ENCHANTMENT only spends a few seconds at the beginning alluding to the Battle for Attu. The rest of this piece deals with the Aleutians' harsh and capricious climate, including the Williwaw storms Gore Vidal used as the title and subject of his first novel. However, this brief cartoon deals with the challenges presented by one of the many WWII battle fronts in a manner that's more frank and refreshing than most of Pvt. Snafu's other outings.

This is a short in the Private Snafu series of training film commissioned by the US Army during World War II under a contract with Warner Brothers studio. There will be mild spoilers ahead:Though most of the training films in the Snafu series are intended to teach soldiers the wisdom of following proper procedures by showing what happens to Private Snafu (the worst soldier in the army) when he doesn't follow procedures, this short is different. One, it's not a training film in the typical sense. Rather, it's a humorous look at the conditions found on the Aleutian Islands, a chain of islands near Alaska which are strategically important, which the short makes clear early on. Two, Private Snafu barely appears in the short, with two brief shots of him lasting a few seconds each.The weather there, as should be obvious given their proximity to Alaska, is cold and often unpleasantly inclement. This is told tongue in cheek and the short is funny. There's a caricature of Jimmy Durante which is particularly good.That's pretty much the extent of this short. It's enjoyable but slight, more a curio than anything else. This short is available on various DVDs and online. It's worth watching at least once.

The Private Snafu films were clearly made to be seen by soldiers and not by the general public. The dirty jokes, sexual innuendos and language is relatively tame today but never would have been allowed in the regular theaters due to the Production Code. But, such off-color remarks went over very well with the enlisted men and helped to illustrate important information in a humorous and memorable fashion.While IMDb lists this as one of these Snafu films, this really a misnomer. First, it's more of a humorous film about the awful duty in the Aleutians. Second, Snafu only appears for a few seconds in the film. While it it funny and worth seeing, it's not all that great and it's quite short---less than three minutes long.

This is one of the best of the wartime 'Private Snafu' films made by Termite Terrace, usually written by Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss). Because they were intended only for soldiers, they were usually far more open and frank than movies intended for civilian showings and concerned themselves with humorously designed warnings about how to behave. In this case, the movie is about being stationed in the Aleutians and their strategic importance in the war. It's a fine, light curtain raiser. If you're looking at a deep-dish world War two movie -- or perhaps as a treat before seeing John Ford's masterpiece, SEX HYGIENE (both available on Youtube).