"Janie" is a nothing of a movie. It's a bit of fluff clearly marketed to the teen crowd of the time.
But it's also an incredibly cynical bit of WWII propaganda, advertising a version of America that's never existed so that soldiers would feel they had something worth fighting for. Everyone's innocent, everyone's happy. Everyone's affluent, except those who aren't and who never appear in movies like this. Everyone who matters is white, and everyone who's not white is just happy to be of service to white folks. The naughtiest things soldiers and their girls get up to is a bit of necking in the woods, because our boys are wholesome and our girls are virginal.
I did enjoy the writers' attempt to make up for the saccharine grossness of this film by planting double entendres all over the place in the script. For example, when a soldier has been trying in vain to get time alone with Janie in her house: "I couldn't get in through the front so let's see if I can get in the back." Or when Janie is throwing a party for a horde of soldiers with hot dogs for everyone, the maid says something about the house being full of boys and weenies. It's like even the writers couldn't take it and had to throw in some real world stuff just to get through making this picture.
"Janie" was nominated for a Best Film Editing at the 1944 Oscars, which has to go down as one of the most random nominations of all time.
Grade: C.
But it's also an incredibly cynical bit of WWII propaganda, advertising a version of America that's never existed so that soldiers would feel they had something worth fighting for. Everyone's innocent, everyone's happy. Everyone's affluent, except those who aren't and who never appear in movies like this. Everyone who matters is white, and everyone who's not white is just happy to be of service to white folks. The naughtiest things soldiers and their girls get up to is a bit of necking in the woods, because our boys are wholesome and our girls are virginal.
I did enjoy the writers' attempt to make up for the saccharine grossness of this film by planting double entendres all over the place in the script. For example, when a soldier has been trying in vain to get time alone with Janie in her house: "I couldn't get in through the front so let's see if I can get in the back." Or when Janie is throwing a party for a horde of soldiers with hot dogs for everyone, the maid says something about the house being full of boys and weenies. It's like even the writers couldn't take it and had to throw in some real world stuff just to get through making this picture.
"Janie" was nominated for a Best Film Editing at the 1944 Oscars, which has to go down as one of the most random nominations of all time.
Grade: C.