America in the ‘40s

"We really believed in America deeply," recalls Paul Moore in the opening volume of this 3-tape set on the 1940s, appropriately subtitled "A Sentimental Journey." From Ginger Rogers' page boy haircuts to Spike Jones' wacky musical parodies to women doing the household vacuuming wearing gas masks, the early ‘40s were a strange time in America, as the country began to reap the economic fruits of foreign war-related exports and simultaneously found itself entering the global fray. An unabashedly schmaltzy cue-card reading Charles Durning lathers on the sentiment (even Doris Day would gag) in between segments which focus on fashion, the popular arts, and the war effort (sometimes disconcertingly mixing music and war footage). Charming interviews and good archival clips (Sinatra, Orchestra Wives, Churchill, Benny Goodman, Pearl Harbor, etc.) make America in the ‘40s never less than engaging. Unfortunately, this Reader's Digest production plays more like a kind of ‘40s MTV than a serious look at a tumultuous decade in American history. Optional. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)