So proudly we hail! (1943) or one of the best movies I've seen this year

And I really mean it. I had to wait months and months to finally see it because I couldn't find Spanish subtitles before (yeah, I need subtitles for a total comprehension). And my gosh, it was excellent. There are so many great things about the movie that I feel I have to make a list:

The story: Basically the movie is about the work and vicissitudes of a group of (cool) nurses resisting in Philippines after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The way the story is told: Surviving nurses tell their experiences to a doctor, who's trying to figure out why one of the girls (Claudette Colbert) is kind of catatonic after leaving the Philippines. Catchy resource, uh? That way, the whole film is based in raccontos, and you really are waiting to see what happened to poor Claudette. But not only that, each memory has so many attractive moments, so much well-managed tension, so many effective special effects that you really feel that there's a war going on and a bomb can be dropped any minute and if you blink you will miss a really important part.

The very human point of view: This is a film filled with little special moments. I think that director Mark Sandrich (haven't heard of him before) and writer Allan Scott ("Roberta", "Top Hat", "Carefree", "Follow the fleet", etc) were successful in presenting this war story from a very human, warm point. Being successful in that aspect makes the viewer more aware about how horrible war is. For example, at the beginning the mom of one of the younger nurses entrusts her daughter to Lt. Claudette Colbert, so then you really suffer when you think that this particular girl is in danger. The movie deals with human deepest emotions, desire of revenge and self-sacrifice but it also shows details about the daily discomfort that the bunch of girls had to face during the war, little things like using men clothes too big for them or having discussions between them. 

Obviously this is a film with a political message, but Japaneses are not really shown (in fact you never get to see one of them very clearly). By doing that, Sandrich and Scott make the enemy invisible, therefore this a very universal view of war. There's also place for self criticism, like when Claudette says:

It's our own fault (...) Because we believed we were the world. That the United States of America was the whole world. Those outlandish places: Bataan, Corregidor, and Mindanao Those aren't American names No, they're just American graveyards.

According to the writer, his first draft of the script was banned by the US Army, because it was very critic with the way this operation was managed. Also, he was able to talk to some of real nurses after they arrived from Corregidor (the rest was in shock) and heard from themselves all the terrible situations they had to live. And that shows. 

The cast: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake are terrific. Colbert plays one of the more experienced nurses and you believe her. You believe her because she was an actress —"a professional" according to Allan Scott who called him late at night to try to solve some difficulty with her role— that made it simple, never overreacted and was always attached to what her character was feeling at the moment without forgetting her principles. Sorry, I can't explain it better. 

Paulette plays, of course, the sassy nurse. She is always such a refreshing presence, with terrific timing and this fact is very well used in the movie, giving her most of the comic relief so needed in a war film.

And finally, Veronica. I think she nailed it here. Once I wrote about her: "I like the kind of presence she projects, is like she's there but in an ethereal, dreamy way. And that produces that her characters had a kind of cold distance, even when they joked or laugh or whatever they were unreachable". Well, here she plays an unfriendly nurse with a trauma that is rescued from an attacked base. So, her "cold distance" is very appropriate. But, unlike other movies, I finally see her open up in this film, because the script asked her to do it, and I think it's because of this that the scene in which she finally reveals her sad story is so memorable:

Also kudos for Mary Servoss, who plays Capt. 'Ma' McGregor, the oldest woman in charge. She was capable of show her character's duality: she had to be strict, but at the same time she was conscious of all the worries of the girls. Great lines after her son dies:

What can you say? What can I say? I bore a son and he's dead.I bore a son, a healthy, muscular child who was a good son. It used to break my heart just to look at him, he was so beautiful. The handsomest son in the world and now I have|no heart to break.

Finally, the guys: George Reeves (just noticed that he was the troubled actor of Superman) and Sonny Tufs are just dreamy. Reeves plays the most solid kind of soldier, a man who doesn't want a nurse to give him a bath but ends accepting it and liking it. His relationship with Claudette is very well developed: she has doubts about it because of her work and her need of be focused. That's why the scenes in which she breaks the rules are so appealing (I think).

And Sonny aka "Kansas" is a very caring Marine, always preoccupied for Paulette, with whom he has a very fun relationship which strengthens both: he feels more secure about himself (without losing his cute clumsiness) and she finally seems really in love.

 So what are you waiting for?