The Fighting Generation (1944) User Reviews

They Needed Hitchcock To Shoot This?

[boblipton · 5/10 · 28 October 2023]

Although his name is not credited anywhere, Alfred Hitchcock is acknowledged as the uncredited director of this short film exhorting the audience to take part in the Sixth War Loan series by buying bonds. There's a reality-bending prologue in which Eddie Bracken in the audience watches Eddie Bracken on the screen make the pitch; this strikes me as more in the line of Bracken's occasional director, Preston Sturges, than Hitchcock's sense of humor. In the second part, nurse Jennifer Jones urges us to buy bonds to help make sure that men like her wounded childhood friend lying on the hospital cot there, can win the war.

As remarked, neither seems particularly Hitchcockian, but it's quite possible, given his relationship with Selznick, at whose studio this was shot. It's just that we're so used to Hitchcock as a visual stylist that it seems odd.

More on that short

[mattker · 7/10 · 19 February 2009]

Shot at the David O. Selznick Studios in a single day by Alfred Hitchcock on Monday, 9 October 1944. A production of the Sixth War Loan Trailer starring Jennifer Jones. Hitchcock’s name does not appear on the credits, and it must be said that it is impossible to recognize his style, his particular signature stamp or even his sense of humour in this short film. JJ's monologue was written by Stephen Lonsgstreet: “He’s asleep now. His name is Johnny. Private First Class, badly wounded on Saipan. As a nurse’s aide, I see many cases like this. Most of them are strangers to me. But Johnny, well, we were kids together. Johnny took me to my first (high school) dance, and knowing Johnny, I feel I know all the boys here. You see, they’re my generation, part of my world, my fun, my hopes. Someday all the boys and girls will come back home. No, not all of them. But those that do, you can help bring them back sooner by buying a share of their faith in victory. By buying a War Bond. You know, they used to talk about the lost generation. The forgotten generation. Of generations without hope. But not Johnny’s generation. Please be like Johnny. He didn’t think he’d have to fight so many battles. But he went right on, giving a little extra courage. So let’s all of us do a little something extra too. And buy that Bond beyond the one we’ve planned for. Surely that isn’t too much to do for a fighting generation.”

More information about that short can be found in a recent article(Alfred Hitchcock and The Fighting Generation) from the Australian SensesOfCinema website.