Ode to Victory (1943) User Reviews

Portrait of America in Music

[boblipton · 5/10 · 28 May 2019]

Ray Teal conducts an orchestra in a quodlibet. That's an orchestral piece that quotes from other compositions, in this case traditional American tunes or patriotic ones. Mr. Teal is in an army uniform with sergeants' stripes. This being a movie, of course, we get images, first of the founding of America, then the Civil War, then the growth of America until the Lusitania is sunk and we get involved in the First World War.

People my age remember Ray Teal as the sheriff on the long-running TV western show, BONANZA, speaking in a deep, drawled voice, Here, listening to him, his voice is completely different. Here he's unrecognizable in a voice half an octave higher and a body that hadn't packed on the pounds yet.

the music is pretty good.

While the American People's Movie Studio . . .

[oscaralbert · 5/10 · 28 May 2019]

. . . (that is, of course, Warner Bros.) was churning out soul-stirring fare such as YANKEE DOODLE DANDY, Tinsel Town's insidious House of the Groaning Fat Cat continued to foist off counter-productive "mixed messages" mislabeled "morale boosters" throughout the USA's World War Two Era. Blatantly Pro-Axis during the run-up to the Pearl Harbor Sneak Attack, this Pachyderm Party Propaganda Arm tried to ward off Public repudiation by becoming slightly more subtle following the Day of Infamy fruitlessly warned of by the always eponymous Warner Bros. Take ODE TO VICTORY, for instance. This musical short nefariously melds the Union's beloved "Battle Hymn of the Republic" with the Treasonous Racist Traitors' vile "Dixie" campaign yelp during a brief montage about The War to Free Enslaved Black People. This is tantamount to blending "America, the Beautiful" with one of Der Fuhrer's Nuremberg Rally chants! Then, in its final chorus bit, the GONE WITH THE WIND Fat Cat losers force a Black Man to close ODE TO VICTORY with lyrics akin to "K. Smith's" recently discovered racist ditties. Taken as a whole, ODE TO VICTORY is a shameful and sneaky attempt by the Racist Pachyderm Studio to prolong "Jim Crow" values under the guise of "Patriotism."

Great WWII musical propaganda short film, NOT old-fashioned and quaint

[iamjasonwu · 8/10 · 2 January 2019]

Great musical propaganda short film with soliders and an army captain playing patriotic music to the public that USA is for freedom and opportunity. It consists of 4 sequences, Birth of Freedom, The Land Divided, Coming of Age, and Land of the Free. It consists of four time periods, The Revolutionary War, 1820S-1850S railroad expansion, 1860s Civil War, and WWI-Present era. This short film is terrific. It shows how people from different class were united, had social norms, and were not trash dressing unlike today. It shows how USA was great back then, unlike today filled with hatred, mentally ill people, baby boomers/silent generation, etc... This short film shows a sense of nostalgia of America that will never happen again because of the counterculture, baby boomers/silent generation, and JFK/LBJ in 1960-1968 for imposing great society, immigration act of 1965 which led a big wave of immigrants from third world countries like Mexico, Honduras, Cuba, Puerto Rico coming here. And guess what happened? The late 60s-present vandalism increased, drug use increased, crime rate increased. etc...

This played really well in 1943...but it seems very old fashioned and quaint today.

[planktonrules · 19 April 2018]

"Ode to Victory" is a musical propaganda film made during WWII in order to convince the folks at home that the USA was terrific...and hence, the war with the Axis was moral and good.

There's no narration to the film. Just four segments with music and singing in the final one. They consist of: 1) Birth of Freedom; 2) The Land Divided; 3) Coming of Age: 4) Land of the Free.

Overall, this film probably went over well during the war, as the spirit of patriotism was strong. Today, however, due to changing values and times, it all comes off as very trite and dull.

Patriotic Film

[Michael_Elliott · 28 May 2012]

Ode to Victory (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This is a decent short from MGM that uses patriotic songs like Battle Hymn of the Republic, Taps, The Star Spangled Banner and Yankee Doodle to show the history of America. This includes stuff with George Washington, the Constitution, Abe Lincoln's work, the victory in WWI, Pearl Harbor and the events of WWII. I'm certainly not going to sit here and bash this film because it was clearly being patriotic to the men and women overseas fighting during WWII and you can't take anything away from it them. I will say that I'm sure many people watched this back in 1943 and thought that the final tune, the title track, was a sign of things to come as America would be a free land for everyone. The song talks about how free everyone would be after the war but looking at this short today you can clearly see that this wasn't the case at all. With that said, there's no question that the film's heart is in the right place but I think it's also a reminder that things were no where near a good spot after the war.