Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Josephina Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

grandcyn We remember seeing the original This Is the army many years ago; this was fun to watch both because of the music and dancing and because it captured the patriotic fervor of the time; also there were parts I didn't remember seeing before, e.g. the Stage Door Canteen and Irving Berlin singing ..Hate to Get Up ..though my husband did ( I'm dating myself :-) canteen song the other reviewers described it perfectly and I really don't have anything to add to their comments; except that it was interesting to learn what that reviewer wrote about Yip Yip Yank about which show I knew nothing; I must see if there is a trivia section here; the singers are superb! are they talented servicemen ( the crdits give military rank in front of their names) or Broadway performers who joined or weredrafted into t army?

Jay Raskin For those who love to watch flag waving men in uniform doing musical numbers in drag, this film is your heaven. Add a little minstrel show, black face comedy, and a variety of acts from a magician to star impersonators, to acrobats to Air Force and Navy glee clubs and you have one of the gayest pieces of pro-military pop-corn imaginable. This is a 1943 version of the Ed Sullivan Show on steroids.This movie seems to have A.D.D. It moves from subject to subject in a rather willy-nilly fashion, but it is tied together with waving flags and marching/tap dancing men in uniform, and the fact that Irving Berlin wrote both the two or three classic songs and the fourteen or fifteen duds. One could watch every scene in reverse order and get the same effect. It is a parade celebrating pro patria mori. It is a broken record that just keeps repeating that it is glorious to be a soldier because it is not glorious to be a soldier.Yet, it lacks conviction, which is what makes it such tiresome propaganda. Why is it arguing that World War II is a continuation of World War I? Why does it have twenty minutes of men in drag singing and dancing, but only one minute of men in battle? Why is it advocating that men should get married before they go off to war? Why does it say that war is hell because you have to get up early in the morning, especially when every working man in America had to get up at the same time? There is something chilling about this movie: the way it uses song and dance and vaudeville theater to promote war. What I can not figure out is why I love Michael Curtiz's "Yankee Doodle Dandy" which celebrated George M. Cohan's patriotic song contributions, while I disliked this movie which celebrates the same thing in Irving Berlin? Maybe it is because James Cagney glides across the screen with grace and an open heart, while this movie is just an army trampling everything in its path.

bkoganbing Most of Irving Berlin's shows on Broadway were revues and not book type shows. For that reason they're not frequently revived. All of them contain topical jokes that only history majors like myself would get now. But the extreme topicality of This Is The Army and its World War I predecessor Yip Yap Yaphank guarantee you don't see this one revived too often no matter how many good songs come from it.Even to do This Is The Army we have a threadbare plot of sorts. George Murphy is a song and dance man doing the lead in the Ziegfeld Follies when he gets his draft notice for World War I. Like Irving Berlin in real life, he offers to put his entertainment talents at the army's disposal. Murphy also marries Rosemary DeCamp at the same time he goes in the army. Flash forward to a new World War and Murphy's son Ronald Reagan is going out with Joan Leslie who's the daughter of Charles Butterworth another performer from the Yip Yap Yaphank show back in the day. Reagan gets his draft notice just like dear old dad and he says let's put on a show for the boys. Of course dear old dad volunteers to help as do other veterans of the World War I show.One thing that Warner's was smart about, they didn't give Ronald Reagan any singing or dancing to do. Reagan's talents such as they are were confined to behind the curtain.A lot of Hollywood regulars are mixed with members of the original cast of actual soldiers who put on This Is The Army on Broadway. The score is also a mixed one with Irving Berlin allowing several of his older numbers mixed in with the Broadway score of This Is The Army. Most particularly God Bless America which Kate Smith had introduced in 1939 and sang in the film. It dwarfs all the other numbers in the score by comparison, in fact it's only rival in popularity in this film is Irving Berlin's soldier's lament of Oh How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning. And that originally comes from Yip Yap Yaphank. And of course that other barracks ballad telling what civilians will have to do without, the title song of the show and the film.This Is The Army is dated flag-waving to be sure, but as Irving Berlin said in another song in another show, do you know of a better flag to wave? Both Yip Yap Yaphank and This Is The Army are the product of an immigrant kid who escaped poverty and persecution in the old world of Europe. If Irving Berlin's life isn't the American success story than I don't know a better example. He was grateful to his adopted country and these shows were his way of payback.I doubt if B picture actor Ronald Reagan had the remotest conception that he would be sitting in the White House as a tenant one day and that he would be giving the nation's greeting to Irving Berlin on his 100th birthday. But that's an American success story too.

Neil Doyle What really enhanced my enjoyment of THIS IS THE ARMY last night on TCM is the fact that for once I saw a good, restored print of the wartime Warner Bros. musical and it looked great. The colors were vibrant. JOAN LESLIE never looked so beautiful with her reddish brown hair and the uniformly good cast of contract players headed by RONALD REAGAN, ALAN HALE, STANLEY RIDGES and others mixed well with the assorted real-life soldiers and sailors and marines who made up the bulk of the show. GEORGE MURPHY does a standout job as Reagan's show business father.The Irving Berlin tunes were the film's saving grace. His jaunty "This Is The Army, Mr. Jones," "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," and other sprightly numbers compensate for the very thin plot that has Reagan and Leslie as wartime sweethearts who don't get together until the final reel after quarreling foolishly about whether or not to tie the knot.Some of the comedy skits between soldiers are beyond corny and fall flat for today's audiences, but as hokey as most of it is, it's still an enjoyable show, especially the sight of beefy men in drag doing their thing with Berlin's irresistible songs. ALAN HALE is especially funny as an overweight soldier forced to take a female part in one of the show's big musical numbers.And, of course, the blackface routine may turn some politically correct spectators off the entire film.Trivia note: It's amusing to see Reagan get excited about the presence of the President of the United States in the audience--someone shown only in a distant shot. Reagan himself was about to occupy the White House for two straight terms at a future time. A rare and ironic moment!