The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz (comic book)

 

Schultz in German uniform

(1967-1970)
Written by Will Franz & Sam Blanzman.  Additional illustrations by Wayne Vansant
Wikipedia Page

When I was growing up, the local drugstore carried only four comic book publishers:  DC, Dell, Classics Illustrated, and Charlton.* DC was the biggest and best; Dell was for kids; Classics Illustrated were barely considered comics at all; and Charlton was a joke. No one read Charlton. It was during the late 60s that they produced The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz, unique among all the World War II comics of the  era.

Willy Schultz was an American army captain fighting in North Africa. After a misunderstanding, he was court martialed for shooting his colonel, who Schultz was threatening with a gun, when a German sniper shot the colonel. Schultz was given the death penalty, but a German attack freed him, and he found his ways to German lines, Since he grew up speaking German, he was able to pose as a German soldier and fought with them, avoiding killing any Americans. And thus began his odyssey, as fate caused him to switch sides as he hoped to find a way to clear his name.

This was quite different from the war comics of the time. They were popular, with titles like Sgt. Rock, Our Army at War, G.I. Combat, Blackhawk, Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos, and many others.** They all had soldiers as heroic warriors for a just cause.***

The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz was an antiwar war comic. Schultz often questioned the brutality and even the necessity of the war and how the killing was often senseless. Characters would be introduced and often would be killed in the battle.  It clearly was influenced by the controversy over the Vietnam war.

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*I'm sure you spotted what was missing here. But Marvel Comics had very poor distribution outside of big cities. In my home town, only 80 miles for New York City, no on ever heard of Marvel. I learned about them when someone moved next door to me with his brother's collection, which made me an expert (no one in my school had ever heard of Spider-Man). I often say that Marvel didn't exist, and that was true in my town.

**Schultz was a feature in Fightin' Army.

***The main ambiguous war comic hero was Enemy Ace, set in World War I, starring a German pilot, based on Manfred Richthofen (the Red Baron), who was ambivalent to the fight. Setting it in the first world war avoided issues with Nazism. 

The Pay-Off

 

(1930)
Directed by Lowell Sherman
Written by Jane Murfin, John B. Hymer, Samuel Shipman
Starring Lowell Sherman, Marian Nixon, Hugh Trevor, William Janney
IMDB Entry

Gangsters were the stock in trade for pre-code movies much like superheroes are today. There are many variations on the theme and The Pay-Off leans hard on the Robin Hood model.

The movie starts out with two young lovers, Nancy (Marian Nixon) and Tommy (William Janney) on a park bench. Tommy has raised enough money so they can get married. But a robber had other idea and robs them both.

Next we see the apartments of Gene Fenmore (Lowell Sherman), who is the head of a group of gangsters. But Fenmore is a civilized gangster, only stealing from people who deserve it.* The meeting is interrupted by Nancy and Tommy, who have obtained a gun and want their money back, as Rocky (Hugh Trevor) was the man who robbed them. Rocky doesn't like Fenmore's scruples and wants to take over the gang. He robbed Nancy and Tommy on a whim. Since Fenmore is a gangster with scruples, he makes Rocky give back the money and lets Nancy and Tommy stay with him. Over time, Fenmore becomes enamored of Nancy, which has Rocky concocts a plan to get them into trouble and bring Fenmore down.

Lowell Sherman plays an impossibly moral gangster charmingly, and Hugh Trevor is fine as the sleezy Rocky. However, Marion Nixon and William Janney carry naivety to extremes.  They have no reason to trust Rocky, but believe everything he tells me.

Sherman had an interesting career. He started out as an actor with starring roles on Broadway before heading to the west coast. But he didn't like acting, finding it boring, and began to direct. This was his second film and he worked regularly as an actor-director and eventually  giving up the acting entirely. Most of his films have been forgotten, but in 1932, he directed Mae West in her first starring role, She Done Him Wrong.** The same year, he helmed Morning Glory, the first starring role for Katherine Hepburn.  Alas, Sherman died in 1934 at age 46.

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*He even treats his ex-girlfriends well, setting them up with a new guy before he dumps them.

**Famous for her line, "Why don't you come up and see me sometime?"

Saludos Amigos

 

(1942)
Directed by Norm Ferguson, Wilfred Jackson, Jack Kinney, Ham Luske, Bill Roberts
Written by Homer Brightman, William Cottrell, Richard Huemer, Joe Grant, Harold Reeves, Ted Sears, Webb Smith, Roy Williams, Ralph Wright
Starring (Voices) Pinto Colvig, Clarence Nash, José de Patrocinio Oliveira
IMDB Entry

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in the early 1940s Disney was in a difficult financial situation. And in order to stay afloat, they took part in the governmental Good Neighbor Policy, developed to counteract Nazi influence in South America. Disney took a commission from the State Department to put out a film to improve relations. The result was Saludos Amigos.*

Like most of  Disney's "full length" films of  the 1940s, this was made up of several segments.  The first is live action and shows various Disney animators (including Walt) traveling down to South America to get ideas for the feature. Then we go into several sequences:

• A tour of Lake Titicaca with Donald Duck (voice of Clarence Nash), including some live action sequences
• Pedro. This is a short animated film about an anthropomorphic airplane that flies over the Andes to deliver the mail. This was later released as a stand-alone animated short.
• El Gaucho Goofy. This transports Goofy (voice of Pinto Colvig) to Argentina to work as a gaucho and sees how they live.
• Aquarela do Brasil. The finale takes Donald to Brazil, where he meets José Carioca (José de Patrocinio Oliveira), a parrot who shows up later in The Three Caballeros. Donald learns to dance the Samba in a Brazilian festival, using a combination of live action and animation.

Of note is that José de Patrocinio Oliveira is given a voice credit, the first in Disney's history, and the last for years. In addition, one the songs in the Brazilian segment is known as "Brazil," played during the Terry Gilliam film of the same name.

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* Spanish for "Hello Friends." The intent of the movie is very clear.

Victory Through Air Power

 

(1943)

Directed by H.C. Potter (live action), James Algar, Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney (animated sequences)
Written by: Perce Pearce, T. Hee, Erdman Penner, Bill Conttrell, James Brodero, George Stallings, Jose Rodriguez, based on Victory Through Air Power by Maj. Alexander P. Seversky
Starring  Maj. Alexander P. Seversky
IMDB Entry

Everyone knows that Disney defends their copyrights like a mama bear defending her cubs, so I was a bit surprised that they let one of the animated features fall into the public domain. It is Victory Through Air Power.

This was a passion project by Walt Disney. He read the book Victory Through Air Power by Maj. Alexander P. Seversky, which advocated the use of bombing as a military strategy.  He bought the thesis and decided to make a movie about it.

The film starts with a  animated documentary about the history of aviation before a look at how planes can be used in the military. Seversky (who appears in the film) argues that control of the air is the best way to win the war. We are shown how important airplanes were so far in the war and postulated how it could be used to win future battles against Germany and Japan.

The movie is a precursor to using animation in educational films and Disney jumped into the format, producing films to teach the general public about how things worked on a war footing and as propaganda against Nazism. It also broke Disney's de facto ban on limited animation, since that was used on a few sequences.

It was not a success, with a box office take that barely covered its budget. His usual distributor, RKO, refused to release it, so he went to United Artists to get it into theaters. But it was influential, convincing both Churchill and Roosevelt to put more money into strengthening the air forces.

Why did Disney let the copyright lapse? Most likely because it is not designed for entertainment and is dealing with an issue that, while vital when it was made, has little relevance today except to film and military historians. Disney did recycle the history of aviation sequence in their TV shows, but the rest isn't anything people are worried about today. There's also the portrayal of Japanese and German, which is full "these are our enemy" mode. And finally, it was not the type of fare that fits in with the image of the Mouse.