tadpole-596-918256 Review of Beyond the Line of Duty

Beyond the Line of Duty (1942)

"I had a date with him once . . . "

[8/10 · 27 February 2014]

. . . says a chick listening to President Franklin Roosevelt himself extolling her high school classmate Hewitt Wheless on the soda counter's radio in this Warners Bros. recruiting short from 1942. "Shorty," as Wheless was aptly nicknamed, plays himself here, taking 22 minutes to "recreate" his career from schoolboy to war hero. Since his one-time date is uncredited, it is impossible to know if she also played herself, or what base he got to. Narrated by Ronald Reagan (back in the days when he was a loyal Democrat and had not defected to the Dark Side), this film is one of Hollywood's few collaborations in which two or more past, present, or future Commanders-in-Chief knowingly participated. (Though FDR's audio is from his April 28, 1942 "Fireside Chat," he gave permission for it to be reused for this Nov. 7 release later that year.) Wheless himself rose to the rank of a three-star general, and is buried in Section 30 of Arlington National Cemetry.