The Tanks Are Coming

Name: The Tanks Are Coming
Released: 1941-10-04T00:00:00.000000Z
Rating: 5.7

1941 • 20 min • ★ 5.7 (10) • Released

Comedy War

Educational short about the status of battle tanks and tank training in the U.S. Army in pre-War 1941, featuring a comical Army trainee from the Bronx.

IMDb ↗

Original title: The Tanks Are Coming
Language: EN
Country: US
Budget: —
Revenue: —

Reviews & Ratings 1

CinemaSerf

Feb 8, 2024 · via TMDB

★ 5.0

George Tobias is quite amusing here as the New York taxi driver "Malowski" who heeds President Roosevelt's stirring call to arms in 1941 and - much to the disbelief of his gal - joins up. He decides to drive his cab all the way to Fort Knox in Kentucky where he enlists and is trained on the rudiments of learning how to drive a tank. I'm not sure this is really about tanks at all, it's more of an educational training film that extols the virtues of the US Army, it's training and equipment - all with a view to tugging at some patriotic heart-strings and increasing recruitment. Some of the commentary is just a little on the over-zealous side and I'm not sure anyone would describe the military infrastructure as a "democracy" - regardless of your caste or creed! Tobias and his yellow "Betsy" try to inject a little humour and humanity into this quite brutal tree-bashing film before a rather rousing denouement that only needed a poster from Lord Kitchener. These films all had their purpose and the war may have turned out quite differently had they not achieved their goals - but the almost fervent tones of narrator Knox Manning did grate after a while. PS: Didn't Benjamin Franklin take an awful long time to write his name?!

User reviews courtesy of TMDB.

Keywords 16

armored truck armored vehicle joining the army maneuver militar tank military training patriotism recruiting tank tanks taxi driver us army volunteer wartime propaganda world war ii yellow cab

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