The Old Army Game (1943)

The Old Army Game Review

The Old Army Game is a 1943 animated short film from the Donald Duck series. It is a very funny cartoon.

Private Donald is caught sneaking out of camp without permission and Sergeant Pete chases after him to teach him a lesson. This is an oddly structured movie that only really kicks in after introducing its main concept and idea in the second half. The first half, thus, felt unimportant in the bigger scope of things. I wished for better pacing and structure.

With that being said, that second half was truly phenomenal. Donald falls into a hole and he thinks he lost his bottom half of the body, which leads to Pete crying and crying in sadness. That scene where he wept was absolutely hysterical. It eventually all ends with them both realizing that Donald is fine, so the chase continues, but in a very slow fashion as they have to respect the driving limit in the area in another very amusing and clever gag.

The Old Army Game doesn’t start off great, but it ended with so many hilarious gags, a great concept and a strong final scene.

My Rating – 4