Amerikan Eagle

Sam said, “At least he’s free. You remember what happened with that bobby-soxer Claire. She charged us two dollars, brought her boyfriend over, and Toby got a quick lesson in make-out sessions about five years ahead of schedule.”

“Shhh,” someone in the audience scolded, and then the films began.

There were a couple of previews of coming attractions, and then a Bugs Bunny short, and Sam felt himself unwind as he joined Sarah and the others in laughing at the antics of that wascally wabbit. Then came the familiar trumpet tunes of Movietone, showing the bloody world in its black-and-white glory.

Up on the screen, thick smoke was rising up over a village, and a line of panzer tanks was crossing a field. The narrator said, “As spring continues and summer beckons in the fields of Russia, fresh fighting continues while German and Russian tank divisions grapple once again for supremacy. The third year of fighting in Eastern Europe continues afresh, with most observers predicting another fierce struggle for each side to gain the upper hand. Unless there is a dramatic change in the fortunes for Nazi Germany or Red Russia, experts say to expect another year of bloodshed before the snows come.”

As the narration continued, the familiar newsreel shots of tanks on the move, Stuka aircraft dive-bombing, and German soldiers on the march were repeated, but Sam noticed that now, as opposed to during their blitzkrieg victories in ’40 and ’41, the Krauts looked exhausted, faces dirty and grim.

Trumpet tone, change of view, showing more troops, this time Japanese, swarming across rice paddies. “The Empire of the Rising Sun,” the narrator went on, “continues its expansion west as it fights to secure some sort of stability in Manchuria and China. Forces loyal to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Tse-tung continue their guerrilla warfare, making sure the soldiers of the Japanese emperor battle for every inch of ground lost in China.”

Sarah whispered, “I’m so sick of this foreign news. Let’s see the movie already.” He squeezed her leg as a familiar cherubic face popped up on the screen, to the assortment of scattered boos and a few cheers. A rotund man who was smoking a cigar walked through a hotel lobby through a barrage of camera flashes and questions from a mob of reporters. The man held up two fingers in the shape of a V.

“Former British prime minister Winston Churchill, in New York City this week, continues to meet with supporters of the so-called British government in exile.”

Churchill stopped before a set of radio microphones and said in a tired, lisping tone, “We are fighting to save the whole world from the pestilence of Nazi tyranny and in defense of all that is most sacred to man. This is no war of domination or imperial aggrandizement or material gain; no war to shut any country out of its sunlight and means of progress. It is a war, viewed in its inherent quality to establish, on impregnable rocks, the rights of the individual, and it is a war to establish and revive the stature of man.”

Another trumpet tone, another switch, and even more cheers and a few boos as the President appeared on the screen, shaking hands with a dour-faced man wearing formal clothes.