James Stewart: "Winning Your Wings" 1942 US Army Air Forces (USAAF) First Motion Picture Unit

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Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winning_Your_Wings

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Winning Your Wings is a 1942 Allied propaganda film of World War II produced by Warner Bros. Studios for the US Army Air Forces, starring James Stewart. It was aimed at young men who were thinking about joining the Air Force. Members of the production crew would later form the core of the First Motion Picture Unit.

The film opens with a BT trainer landing on a tarmac and a pilot in full flight gear getting out and walking toward the camera. Once he comes near enough the audience realizes that the pilot is Stewart and he begins his narration: "I want to talk to you all today about one of my favorite subjects, the Army Air Forces." "First, are there any questions?" Then begins a series of vignettes in which young men in different social positions ask about being in the air force, such as a college student, a high school student, and a 26-year-old worker with a family. Stewart assures each that they can join the air force and still be able to keep their various educational, occupational and family commitments. Then the film takes the audience through the average mustering in process, about the medical exams, the cadet training and learning how to fly. The short recruitment film appeared in movie theaters nationwide beginning in late May, 1942, and was very successful, resulting in 150,000 new recruits...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Motion_Picture_Unit

The First Motion Picture Unit (FMPU), later 18th Army Air Forces Base Unit, was the primary film production unit of the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II, and was the first military unit made up entirely of professionals from the film industry. It produced more than 400 propaganda and training films... Resisting Enemy Interrogation, Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress and The Last Bomb—all of which were released in theatres. Veteran actors such as Clark Gable, William Holden, Clayton Moore, Ronald Reagan, and DeForest Kelley, and directors such as John Sturges served with the FMPU. The unit also produced training films and trained combat cameramen. FMPU personnel served with distinction during World War II.

First Motion Picture Unit is also the eponymous title of a 1943 self-produced documentary about the unit narrated by radio and television announcer Ken Carpenter...

Background

When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the USAAF was a part of the army, and motion picture production was the responsibility of the Army Signal Corps. USAAF Commanding General "Hap" Arnold believed that the formation of an independent film entity would help lead to the air service gaining its independence. At a meeting in March 1942, General Arnold commissioned Warner Bros. head Jack L. Warner, producer Hal Wallis and scriptwriter Owen Crump to create the unit. Warner was made lieutenant colonel and Crump a captain but Wallis, who was then in production with Casablanca, did not accept the offer... Arnold told Warner he needed 100,000 pilots, and contracted with Warner Bros. to produce and release a recruitment film, which would come to be known as Winning Your Wings.

Winning Your Wings was directed by John Huston and Owen Crump, and featured James Stewart... The film, which was completed in only two weeks, was a great success and according to General Arnold was pivotal in recruiting 100,000 pilots...

The success of Winning Your Wings created a demand for training and recruitment films which proved difficult for Warner Bros. to fulfill. Jack Warner began the process of developing the organizational structure for an independent motion picture unit. The dual mission of the unit was to produce training and morale films, and to train combat cameramen...

On 1 July 1942, the FMPU became an active unit of the USAAF....

Personnel assigned to the FMPU included some of the most well known film professionals of the day, as well as filmmakers who would have great success after the war. Actors such as Clark Gable, William Holden and Alan Ladd, and directors including Richard Bare and John Sturges served with the unit. Future president Ronald Reagan, who transferred from the cavalry reserve, was a captain in the unit. He was the personnel officer and was responsible for maintaining personnel files and orienting new recruits...