What can be said about this movie that? It's highly formulaic yet lovable due to the charismatic lead performance by its star, one of the great ones Wallace Beery. He plays a role he had a played a thousand times before, that of the lovable doofus who always screws up but seems to make things right by the end. It is a popular hollywood archetype. The plot is about tanks replacing horses in the cavalry and Beery's resistance to it. Laughs are obviously got out of this situation but in the last reel it becomes an effective thriller/action movie with the last five minutes become the absolution pretty intense. Formulaic MGM stuff from the forties but a good introduction to Beery for first-timers.
6 Reviews
Wasn't even fresh in its day
train46424 January 2004
A highly predictable, but pleasant enough trick story line. The idea was done to death in films both before and after, but can be forgiven because this was a patriotic push prior to our entering WWII. Not really a must for Wallace Berry fans, it's still nice to see a good character acter carry a movie.
An enjoyable antique.
sjcogan8 April 2017
Saw this a while back on the usual TV channel, and enjoyed it very much. In terms of quality, it's maybe a 2.5, but it rates a 5, at least, for historical interest. From the tommygun scabbard on Beery's horse, to the officer(?) telling the recruits that the 37mm popgun will take out any tank in the world, to the fact that the villainous spy/saboteurs have risible "German" accents but are never identified ass such, this is a perfect "Preparedness Era" (between September, 1939 and December 7, 1941) movie. Watch it for what it is; don't criticize it for what it never could have been.
The applause bursts...and not for the leading man
mark.waltz13 November 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Wallace Beery is just fine in this military comedy/drama, released ironically right after Pearl Harbor, and the timing couldn't have been better. The issue with Beery is that he's playing the same character once again for the umpteenth time, pleasantly, but nonetheless the same. He's an army first sergeant responsible for training horses, reassigned to training men, learning himself how to drive a tank. He's a one man battering ram tearing down a forest filled with trees, the tank looking like a giant elephant running through the woods. Of course poor judgment gets him into all sorts of trouble and threatens his long term romance with hotel owner Marjorie Main who puts up with a lot of his shenanigans until he goes too far.
It's Main who walks off with the film, a performance filled with many layers. She's loud and brassy at first, but with a sparkle that reveals the fun loving side of her disciplinary character, soft spoken and nearly in tears when worried about the trouble he's in, and then shutting her heart off to him when he tries to get back into her good graces after he's exposed. Of course he's going to make good, taking on a group of saboteurs led by the sinister looking Roman Bohnen.
Beery and Main have a good supporting cast including Donna Reed and William Lundigan as the young lovers, Henry O'Neill and Lewis Stone as his commanding officers, and George Bancroft and Chill Wills as well. Ernest Whitman gets a few good scenes as Main's black chef, speaking far more intelligently than most other black characters of the time.
This gets much better as it goes on as the saboteur plot is revealed, so the lighter opening is replaced by something more dramatic, ultimately topping off with a typical flag waving patriotism finale, already started through the opening booming voiced narration of MGM's publicity agent Frank Whitbeck.
It's Main who walks off with the film, a performance filled with many layers. She's loud and brassy at first, but with a sparkle that reveals the fun loving side of her disciplinary character, soft spoken and nearly in tears when worried about the trouble he's in, and then shutting her heart off to him when he tries to get back into her good graces after he's exposed. Of course he's going to make good, taking on a group of saboteurs led by the sinister looking Roman Bohnen.
Beery and Main have a good supporting cast including Donna Reed and William Lundigan as the young lovers, Henry O'Neill and Lewis Stone as his commanding officers, and George Bancroft and Chill Wills as well. Ernest Whitman gets a few good scenes as Main's black chef, speaking far more intelligently than most other black characters of the time.
This gets much better as it goes on as the saboteur plot is revealed, so the lighter opening is replaced by something more dramatic, ultimately topping off with a typical flag waving patriotism finale, already started through the opening booming voiced narration of MGM's publicity agent Frank Whitbeck.
Sound Retreat
bkoganbing6 May 2010
In real life Wallace Beery was far from the lovable oaf he was normally cast as. In fact he could be one downright nasty person. But such was his public image and MGM made a lot of money off that image. In the case of The Bugle Sounds however, the image was strained beyond belief in a film that could never be made other than for propaganda purposes during World War II.
Beery like George S. Patton in real life is an old horse cavalry soldier who is not crazy about the fact that cavalry is a thing of the past. Of course if he was any kind of observant during World War I where it is said he served as well as in the Pancho Villa campaign, he would have seen just how useless horses are in the trench warfare that was World War I in France. Patton sure adapted to mechanized warfare, but Beery just can't get it.
Nevertheless when Colonel Lewis Stone orders him to whip some of those new draftees into shape for the new mechanized army he does what he's told. But when one of the tanks goes awry and kills his favorite old campaign horse, Beery goes bonkers.
There's also some nasty sabotage afoot here led by cashiered soldier George Bancroft and Jerome Cowan in a laughable Teutonic accent. It all gets pretty silly before the film is over.
Marjorie Main was opposite Beery as she was in many films, but even their on screen chemistry couldn't do much here. And believe me the chemistry was strictly on screen. I don't know how much good The Bugle Sounds did for young Donna Reed as the earnest young wife of William Lundigan, one of Beery's recruits. Beery works for Main at her greasy spoon restaurant.
Even the presence of such scene stealing players as Eddie Acuff, Guinn Williams, and Chill Wills all playing sergeants and Beery's peers in terms of military service don't elevate this film.
The Bugle Sounds is a textbook case of the military propaganda film rendered laughable by time. And a great example of what MGM gave Wallace Beery to sell before the American movie-going public.
Beery like George S. Patton in real life is an old horse cavalry soldier who is not crazy about the fact that cavalry is a thing of the past. Of course if he was any kind of observant during World War I where it is said he served as well as in the Pancho Villa campaign, he would have seen just how useless horses are in the trench warfare that was World War I in France. Patton sure adapted to mechanized warfare, but Beery just can't get it.
Nevertheless when Colonel Lewis Stone orders him to whip some of those new draftees into shape for the new mechanized army he does what he's told. But when one of the tanks goes awry and kills his favorite old campaign horse, Beery goes bonkers.
There's also some nasty sabotage afoot here led by cashiered soldier George Bancroft and Jerome Cowan in a laughable Teutonic accent. It all gets pretty silly before the film is over.
Marjorie Main was opposite Beery as she was in many films, but even their on screen chemistry couldn't do much here. And believe me the chemistry was strictly on screen. I don't know how much good The Bugle Sounds did for young Donna Reed as the earnest young wife of William Lundigan, one of Beery's recruits. Beery works for Main at her greasy spoon restaurant.
Even the presence of such scene stealing players as Eddie Acuff, Guinn Williams, and Chill Wills all playing sergeants and Beery's peers in terms of military service don't elevate this film.
The Bugle Sounds is a textbook case of the military propaganda film rendered laughable by time. And a great example of what MGM gave Wallace Beery to sell before the American movie-going public.
A geezer war flick...and not a particularly good one.
planktonrules21 August 2022
I never understood MGM insisting on putting the very rotund and almost elderly Wallace Beery in WWII era war films. While not as ridiculous as Laurel & Hardy in "Great Guns", the films do make it look like the USA was scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel to fill the ranks of the army!! In "The Bugle Sounds", it's not only a 57 year-old Beery, but his commanding officers 63 year-old Lewis Stone and 51 year-old Henry O'Neill! As a result, this seems like a geezer war film!
The film finds Sergeant 'Hap' Doan serving with pride in the US Cavalry....an anachronism considering how modern WWII was. Using horses in combat was akin to using bows & arrows against the Luftwaffe! Still, despite the complete ineffectiveness of the horse in modern combat, Hap is angry that the horses are being replaced by tanks...and he wants to quit....but there's a war on and apparently they needed even the help of hapless Hap...who spends an awful lot of time complaining. In fact, during much of the story, Hap just complains and complains about how he hates tanks and how wonderful horses are. Where does all this go?
This film is very formulaic and I found myself telling my wife how the whole thing would end about halfway through the movie...and I was, sadly, 100% right. And, if you've seen a lot of old movies, it clearly IS predictable. If you haven't, the film might work better for you. It also is very schmaltzy and is seemed dated even by the time the movie was released. Overall, you could easily do better with most of Beery's other films.
The film finds Sergeant 'Hap' Doan serving with pride in the US Cavalry....an anachronism considering how modern WWII was. Using horses in combat was akin to using bows & arrows against the Luftwaffe! Still, despite the complete ineffectiveness of the horse in modern combat, Hap is angry that the horses are being replaced by tanks...and he wants to quit....but there's a war on and apparently they needed even the help of hapless Hap...who spends an awful lot of time complaining. In fact, during much of the story, Hap just complains and complains about how he hates tanks and how wonderful horses are. Where does all this go?
This film is very formulaic and I found myself telling my wife how the whole thing would end about halfway through the movie...and I was, sadly, 100% right. And, if you've seen a lot of old movies, it clearly IS predictable. If you haven't, the film might work better for you. It also is very schmaltzy and is seemed dated even by the time the movie was released. Overall, you could easily do better with most of Beery's other films.
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