Victory Through Air Power (1943)
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Victory Through Air Power Movie Review
Victory Through Air Power is a 1943 Disney live-action animated documentary film directed by Perce Pearce and Alexander P. de Seversky. It’s a product of its time.
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“Ah, mind your own business“
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The Walt Disney Studio was heavily involved in World War II which is something most people forget nowadays, but that is really how it went. The studio produced short propaganda films during the early forties such as the classic ‘Der Fuehrer’s Face’ as well as package movies like ‘Saludos Amigos’ and ‘Three Caballeros’ which were made to satisfy their Latin American audiences as the US had a very strong relationship with South America back in the day.
Whereas those movies have their own merits and quirks, this one is simply put one giant, unabashed propaganda. I do realize that this was an important movie as after this film, the president was convinced to use air power against Germany and that turned the tides of war significantly in their favor, but still watching a film that promotes heavy artillery and violence, even for a good cause, felt wrong to me and I could never escape that feeling.
That’s because Victory Through Air Power is very aggressive in what it’s trying to say. It’s so aggressive actually that it becomes very unsubtle and on-the-nose. It gets repetitive quickly and although it definitely made an effect on the government, I personally wanted a more audience-friendly film myself.
This is mostly live-action and literally a documentary feature, but it has its animated segments and those are excellent to the point that they really impressed people back in 1943. The war, the weaponry and the attention to detail in recreating them all looked great and the movements are quite polished.
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It’s the type of limited animation that really works leading to a strong animated output regardless of its intentions. The dialogue is aggressive, but the editing is fine and the film succeeds as a documentary intended to wake people up, but as a piece of filmmaking it rarely really works. I am okay with it, but not impressed and it’s one of the weakest Disney live-action/animated outputs.
Victory Through Air Power is impressively animated, well edited and definitely impactful and even important for the time, but it felt overly aggressive in its approach and especially dialogue. It’s one of Disney’s oddest films as it’s literally a WWII propaganda which is effective in that regard, but it’s far from interesting as a piece of filmmaking itself.
