The Tanks Are Coming

This movie short was filmed in June 1941 when the United States was starting to begin the anticipated military build for the upcoming war. The film focuses on the new recruit (George Tobias) as he leaves his civilian job with a New York City Cab company for a 1 year hitch with the United States Army Tank Corps. Filmed on location in a pristine Fort Knox, it shows Tobias going through his standard "dumb best friend" acting method all while learning the ins and outs of the new U.S.Army tank. It is a fun movie to watch as you see a very naive America move towards the mobilization needed eventually for WWII. One other note of interest was the use of the then "secret" blitz buggy. This machine is better known by its other nickname, the Jeep.

The considerable talents of George Tobias who played many of the kinds of roles here in feature films, usually in support of the leads. He's an amiable sort of lunkhead who can't bear to be parted with his taxi cab Bessie. He's a hack driver in civilian life and sees no reason he can't take his reliable vehicle into the army with him. So he drives her from New York all the way to Fort Knox, Kentucky where he reports and learns all about the driving, care, and maintenance of a tank.

Through all the propaganda and the attempts at wartime humor which don't really hold up well today, we learn a lot about tanks and their use in wartime. This was in fact the great advance in weaponry from World War I and the Nazis learned the lessons better than the Allied powers did.

Gig Young, Richard Travis, and John Litel are also in the short which did get nominated for Best Short Subject in 1941. Today The Tanks Are Coming is a a slightly amusing bit of history.

...Actually, that is very short footage of an earlier short "Declaration of Independence" in which Litel is Thomas Jefferson, NOT John Hancock, but it is hard to tell from the intro. This was made before the US entered WWII, but after everybody knew we were going to have to get in, it was just a matter of time. So little shorts like these were made to encourage men to enlist, to encourage patriotism, etc., so that when the war did come the army would not be swarming with newbies. It's actually pretty interesting from a historical perspective as to how tank training was done in 1941.

However, the comical turn the film takes is just a little corny now, and probably insulting if you are a cabbie from New York City. George Tobias plays a cabbie from NYC who comes to Fort Knox to join the army and drive tanks. He speaks in an exaggerated Queens accent as though he is an escapee from a Bowery Boys movie, and he thinks he can...drive the taxi up to the front door and leave it on the base? When he is told to ditch the car by a commanding officer, he leaves his taxi to a terrible and unintentional fate. Honestly, if this were the caliber of recruits in 1941 the US could forget winning any kind of war, much less a two front one!

Worth it for the history of it all.

This starts with an FDR address and a call to arms. New York cabbie Malowski (George Tobias) is determined to join the Army. He drives his yellow taxi to Fort Knox, Kentucky. He joins the tank core and trained on some light tanks. Malowski's tank accidentally runs over his taxi cab.

It's an Oscar nominated education short. Warner Bros. Is waving the flag. It's pre-Pearl Harbor. It's a recruitment film. It's promoting the idea that America is ready to take on its enemies. It is propaganda. I would like better tanks. I guess the Sherman wasn't ready yet. The broad comedy is fine for what it is.

George Tobias is quite amusing here as the New York taxi driver "Malowski" who heeds President Roosevelt's stirring call to arms in 1941 and - much to the disbelief of his gal - joins up. He decides to drive his cab all the way to Fort Knox in Kentucky where he enlists and is trained on the rudiments of learning how to drive a tank. I'm not sure this is really about tanks at all, it's more of an educational training film that extols the virtues of the US Army, it's training and equipment - all with a view to tugging at some patriotic heart-strings and increasing recruitment. Some of the commentary is just a little on the over-zealous side and I'm not sure anyone would describe the military infrastructure as a "democracy" - regardless of your caste or creed! Tobias and his yellow "Betsy" try to inject a little humour and humanity into this quite brutal tree-bashing film before a rather rousing denouement that only needed a poster from Lord Kitchener. These films all had their purpose and the war may have turned out quite differently had they not achieved their goals - but the almost fervent tones of narrator Knox Manning did grate after a while. PS: Didn't Benjamin Franklin take an awful long time to write his name?!