Victory Through Air Power is a Disney movie made in 1943 to support the War effort. By support the war effort, I don't mean monetarily (as far as I know, anyway) but to like get people excited about the war. The film is based on a book by Alexander P. de Seversky, a Russian war hero who immigrated to the US after WWI, became a naturalized citizen and a leader in our military. Seversky also appears extensively in the film. (As someone who grew up during the cold war, watching a Russian explain our best plan for warring with our enemies was really, really weird.)
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(That is Bundle's comment on the film.) I am just going to cut to the chase here - I honestly found this whole movie fairly revolting. Don't get me wrong, the animation was very well done. (By the way, this is my animated film for the film critic badge, which will be complete as soon as I finish writing this review.) It was really just the whole idea of war propaganda that was particularly disgusting to me. And it wasn't subtle at all. (I have to say that if this is the caliber of war propaganda from someone like the Disney corporation, I would hate to see what lesser folks created. Yikes!) I know that I am not watching the film in its proper context. I also know that dropping the bombs on Japan (which, of course, had not happened at the time of this film nor could the film makers have predicted something of that magnitude) shortened the war considerably and saved thousands of American lives. But other people died. And the movie wants me to want that. It wants me to cheer at the deaths of other humans. And that just feels wrong. I am not judging the folks alive in WWII or the choices that our leaders made - it was a hard place to be in and I cannot say what choices I would have made in their shoes. What I am trying to say is that the movie hasn't really aged well. (Also, the fact that it was in Black and White is REALLY weird to me. This was after the premiere of Snow White, which was in color. So why isn't this?)
This, apparently, was the start of educational films. I love watching old educational films and did enjoy that aspect of it. (The first ten minutes or so of the film is an animated history of aviation and was pretty fun.) So I do appreciate that aspect of the film. Overall, though, I would only recommend this to WWII buffs and Disney completists. (This is the 27th animated feature film released by the company.)
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