Welcome to Public Domain Theater, your home for the wonderful world of films that have (in the United States, at least) fallen into the public domain, and are free for everyone to see!
We’re now in the holiday season, when thoughts turn to caroling and sugar plums and goodwill to men, so I thought, what could be a more fitting theme for this month than … World War II!
Our feature film is the 1968 Franco-Italian war picture Hell in Normandy, about a group of Allied soldiers in occupied France, working to sabotage a heavily guarded German fortification before D-Day occurs. This flick comes muchlater in the century than most public domain fare, so you’re gonna find a lot more graphic violence here than is typical at Public Domain Theater – the fighting is gritty and bloody, and there aren’t many characters it’s safe getting attached to, but it serves to keep the suspense high and build to one hell of a firework finish.
To offset that, we’re pairing it with short film that takes a more lighthearted look at war, despite being made smack dab in the middle of one. It’s the 1941 Merrie Melodies cartoon “Rookie Revue”, one of those shorts that has no central character, just a bunch of random gags set at a given location – in this case, an Army training camp. Coming out just before Pearl Harbor, I wonder if the short would have drawn quite so many laughs if it had come out after millions of Americans actually started being sent to these boot camps. Then I remember the Private Snafu shorts are a thing, so the answer’s probably yes.
So, whatta ya say? Wanna spend the Yuletide Season training with machine guns and storming the beaches at Normandy?
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We can have eggnog afterwards.
Opening Cartoon:
Feature Presentation:
