Baptism of Fire

Baptism of Fire is a 1943 American documentary, meant to be an Army training film. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Although clearly intended as a recruitment film, I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s sometimes quite authentic looking scenarios might not have had the young men of their Unites States run for the hills. It uses the character of “Bill” (the familiar face of Elisha Cook Jr.) as a conduit for the process of leaving your sweetheart at home and quite literally ending up in a war zone. There we see artillery and aerial bombardments going on but also a fair degree of up close and personal stuff that quite graphically illustrates the need for that bayonet stuck on the end of their M1 Garands as a kill or be kill mentality brutally imposes itself. It uses a sometimes quite confusing mix of specially shot drama and archive, is heavily over-scored and the standard of the dialogue does it no favours, either, but the narrative does offer a slightly more realistic presentation of not just the perils of war but of the anxieties of those fighting it.