Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip: Movies, Memory and World War II

There are many book about American films made during World War II. What sets this book apart from most of those is that Schickel focuses on the movies he saw at the time of the war as a child, giving us a double perspective: the child watching the film then and the adult watching the films again now.Thus there are some gaps. The young Schickel, unsurprisingly, avoided the Preston Sturges comedies, and so these do not play a big part in the book. However, what we do get is a believable and convincing look at how the public perceived these films (Hangmen Also Die, The Human Comedy, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo) at the time.A nice thing is that Schickel, although he makes it clear he finds some of these movies mendacious, never takes a snide, wise guy attitude but remembers his childish delight in these films, while as an adult he can pick out the flaws.The book is not just a look at films of 1941-5. It is also a memoir, so there is material about growing up and becoming a film critic. I found this interesting, as Schickel is one of my favorite critics. (His book on D. W. Griffith is superb.) However, people only interested in wartime films, and not also in Schickel, might be advised to get it from the library.

Richard Schickel's memoir of life and movies during WWII, is a book that not "only a film scholar could write", but one that only THIS film scholar could write. To those of us of, as they say, a certain age, it offers a fascinating re-evaluation of the films of WWII, as well as a compelling portratit of growing up in America at the time. Indeed, if the book has a flaw for those of us old enough to remember the films in their original release, it is the lack of precise dates of release of many of them. HOWEVER, one does have to ask (and my rating of 4, rather than 5, stars offers my answer), who, besides me, Schickel, and our co-age group, is the book for? While his insights into all the films he cites are meticulous, the vast majority of them are not only obscure to most film goers, but DESERVEDLY so.The writing is, as one would expect, always compelling; the portrait of America, film, and the intertwining of the two to an impressionable public, is flawless. Indeed, the subject not only should have been covered, but needed to be. But, will the average film buff, let alone the average reader, be as enthralled as I was? Alas, I tend to doubt it, but I'm grateful it was done, anyway.