Carry On... #Weaponised Patriotism

The year is 1944.



World War II has been dragging on for years, with no end in sight. 

Allied forces have just landed at Normandy. 

Hollywood has been pumping out rousing war movie after rousing war movie in an effort to maintain popular support for a war that is sending a seemingly unending stream of young men to their deaths.

And then Preston Sturges released Hail the Conquering Hero.


Hail the Conquering Hero tells the story of Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith, a young man from a small town whose father had died a hero in World War I. Raised on stories of family courage and bravery during wartime, Woodrow had joined the Marines in the hopes of emulating his legendary father, only to be disqualified after one month by a slightly embarrassing medical ailment. Ashamed to admit this to his mother, he has written to her that he is being sent into active combat, while he is actually working a civilian job in a San Diego shipyard.


When he encounters a group of genuine Marines on shore leave, they come up with a plan to help him return home to his mother without losing face. And then things really get out of control.


It is impossible to overstate just how revolutionary Hail the Conquering Hero actually is. 

On the surface, this is a prime example of screwball comedy from one of the genre's best practitioners. Like all good screwball comedies, Hail the Conquering Hero proceeds in a series of perfectly logical and plausible steps, with each decision and each plot development making perfect narrative sense, until it all adds up to a story that is 100% bonkers.


But what sets it apart is its attitude towards patriotism and hero worship. 

Hail the Conquering Hero is an extremely cynical film that has a lot to say about the way a community's regard for its war heroes can easily be exploited for political gain. It also deals surprisingly unflinchingly with the effect actual combat can have on soldiers, long before the term PTSD had been coined.

World War II was not like Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Those wars were met with significant and sustained popular resistance, but it was not considered fashionable to criticise the Second World War, especially while it was still underway, and still very much undecided.

Like many of the films in our upcoming season, Hail the Conquering Hero was significantly ahead of its time.

We will be screening Hail the Conquering Hero at 7.30pm on Thursday, the 7th of September at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.

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