I Watch Every Disney Movie In Order So You Don’t Have To: Victory Through Air Power
The fifth Disney movie is a hybrid documentary film called, if you’re smart you would know because you read the title, Victory Through Air Power. This movie came out in 1943 and is literally just about air planes during World War I and II. This movie is not on Disney+, I will post a link to the movie at the end of this blog in case you want to watch it.
To start off, the movie begins with the history of planes and how planes were basically created. We all, hopefully, know this story. Once Upon a Time Wilbur and Orville Wright woke up one day and were like “let’s make a plane”. Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly like that, but you have to give them credit for even thinking about the idea of planes because I would NEVER.
The film then goes on to the evolution of planes, how they were originally created as weapons and then, get this, the reason guns were “apparently” put on planes is because one pilot looked at another pilot the wrong way. This could 100% be false, because, you know, it’s still a Disney movie. After the evolution of guns and planes to where we are today, 1939 or whatever, the film goes back and forth between animations and live action.
We have a real person, explaining the air force tactics the United States and the British came up with to invade and defeat Germany. It was pretty interesting to learn what they did and since it was mostly animated it was very pleasant and easy to watch and also understand. Throughout the film, however, I began to realize that this movie is probably a propaganda film trying to persuade people to join the air force, especially since, at the time, it was a new force the American military gained.
Now you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Gab, what in the world makes you think that?” Well, let’s think about this for a minute. This movie came out in 1943, when did World War II end? You got it, 1945. THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO WON THE WAR YET. THEY STILL HAVE 2 YEARS LEFT. Spoil alert, Germany loses, but don’t tell anybody. They aren’t sure who wins this war and what or how, well I would hope they have a plan, to win, so they need more people to join the air force. To be honest, if that was one of the main reasons they made this film, they did a pretty good job of doing so. I personally would still not join the air force, but I could see a lot of boys at that time joining because of the movie. It sort of made you feel like you were part of the war as they were showing all of the plans they had in place and what they did in previous encounters. It made you feel a part of something and I think that is what would make boys in the 40s want to join.
On the other hand, it was just educational. I am not entirely sure why Disney doesn’t have it on their streaming service, but I think they should. It is a part of our history and could teach a lot of people about aviation and could possibly learn from past mistakes. It is more about the planes and air force itself rather than the war.
In the end, if you are interested in watching this movie, I will leave a YouTube link and if you like planes or are a World War II fanatic, I recommend giving this movie a try. It is a normal hour long documentary film and is filmed in color, but for some reason the video on YouTube is in black and white, not that that makes any difference. The lesson I learned from this film: Disney sometimes made propaganda films in the 40s.
