# WW2 B Movie: Uh...don't know much about it... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 10, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847 "2010-08-10T17:53:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/1 "2010-08-10T17:53:09Z")
Does anybody here know this movie: I can’t remember too much about it. It takes place either during, or pre WW2. IIRC, it is either about new recruits, or college students who are going to become new recruits. The star is some dorky tallish guy, and the bad guys are the Japs. Somewhere in there there is a line that a Japanese student, shows a picture to a crowd of the students, and says something like “These fortunate soldiers got to give their lives for…” for somebody. Emperor? Their country? Later, the hero explains to some group, in a Joe Friday fashion, that the dirty bird is laying down some Imperial propaganda. At any rate, either at the end, or close to the end, the hero dive bombs a plane into some battleship, and, IIRC again, final scene is him dying on the deck. Maybe. So, can anybody help? Thanks, hh ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/2 "2010-08-10T17:55:32Z")
Color or B/W? Recent, contemporaneous, or something inbetween? ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/3 "2010-08-10T18:13:02Z")
> [@ArchiveGuy](#): > > Color or B/W? Recent, contemporaneous, or something inbetween? I’m gonna say BandW since I watched it in the 60s, and we only had a B&W tv. Now, I think it was a 40s production. It had that kind of feel to it. Maybe early 50s. The star, IIRC, kinda looked like Ronald Reagan, but, it wasn’t him. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/4 "2010-08-10T18:25:40Z")
The film you are thinking of is called “[We’ve Never Been Licked](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We've_Never_Been_Licked)”, and the characters were Army cadets at Texas A&M University. The main character is friends with two Japanese students who turn out to be Japanese spies, is accused of being an accomplice and expelled, and ends up joining their spy network to try and sabotage it. He ends up as a Tokyo Rose sort of propagandist for the Japanese, before somehow ending up in the co-pilot seat of a Japanese fighter plane during the Battle of Midway (the movie makes as much sense plot-wise as many wartime propaganda films did, I think). He proceeds to wrest control of the plane at a key moment and plows into the flight deck of the Japanese flagship, preventing her from launching planes to intercept an incoming American attack. For what it’s worth, when I saw it, I thought it starred Jimmy Stewart, and now that I look it up, it appears that he had nothing to do with it (indeed, when the film was made, Jimmy Stewart was serving as an instructor pilot in the Army Air Forces) ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/5 "2010-08-10T18:31:27Z")
Heh. Despite that “WTF” of a plot summary, the movie got 6 out of 10 stars on IMDB, **Ragu**. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/6 "2010-08-10T18:52:21Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > The film you are thinking of is called “[We’ve Never Been Licked](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We've_Never_Been_Licked)”, and the characters were Army cadets at Texas A&M University. > > The main character is friends with two Japanese students who turn out to be Japanese spies, is accused of being an accomplice and expelled, and ends up joining their spy network to try and sabotage it. He ends up as a Tokyo Rose sort of propagandist for the Japanese, before somehow ending up in the co-pilot seat of a Japanese fighter plane during the Battle of Midway (the movie makes as much sense plot-wise as many wartime propaganda films did, I think). He proceeds to wrest control of the plane at a key moment and plows into the flight deck of the Japanese flagship, preventing her from launching planes to intercept an incoming American attack. > > For what it’s worth, when I saw it, I thought it starred Jimmy Stewart, and now that I look it up, it appears that he had nothing to do with it (indeed, when the film was made, Jimmy Stewart was serving as an instructor pilot in the Army Air Forces) Ha! Thatthere is some fancy research, **Ragu**! I am very grateful. I thought that the guy turned rat, and started working for the enemy, but I only saw it once, so I didn’t want to bring that kind of thing up on the board, since I was unclear. Most excellent! thanks, hh ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/7 "2010-08-10T19:08:53Z")
Yeah, I had to watch it along with all of the other freshman cadets at Texas A&M University whenever we were doing our first week of the semester (basically the week before class starts is “fish Week”, spent teaching all the freshman how things work in the Corps of Cadets, issuing them their gear, showing them around campus, and evidently, making them watch WWII propaganda films for some reason nobody could clearly explain). Sadly, I was one of one or two guys out of my entire squadron’s group of freshman who actually understood what was going on in the movie. Evidently everybody else went to sleep. That said, who knows how well I understood the movie, I managed to mistake the star of the film for Jimmy Stewart. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/8 "2010-08-11T14:15:41Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > somehow ending up in the co-pilot seat of a Japanese fighter plane during the Battle of Midway (the movie makes as much sense plot-wise as many wartime propaganda films did, I think). Not too many carrier-based fighter planes had a co-pilot’s seat. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/9 "2010-08-11T14:47:00Z")
I’m amused by the idea that William Frawley (Fred Mertz from I Love Lucy) played one of the Japanese students/spies. I take it that there weren’t very many Asians available to perform in WWII propaganda films in Texas. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/10 "2010-08-11T16:30:34Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > > [@Raguleader](#): > > > > somehow ending up in the co-pilot seat of a Japanese fighter plane during the Battle of Midway (the movie makes as much sense plot-wise as many wartime propaganda films did, I think). > > Not too many carrier-based fighter planes had a co-pilot’s seat. 😛 Could have been a torpedo bomber, and _of course_ you want to give duplicate flight controls to the bomber & gunner. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/11 "2010-08-11T17:23:32Z")
The TMB Avenger had three crew and the Japanese Kate I believe had three as well. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/12 "2010-08-11T19:40:15Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I’m amused by the idea that William Frawley (Fred Mertz from I Love Lucy) played one of the Japanese students/spies. I take it that there weren’t very many Asians available to perform in WWII propaganda films in Texas. Not after we shipped them off to the camps. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/13 "2010-08-12T01:13:05Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > The TMB Avenger had three crew and the Japanese Kate I believe had three as well. Worth noting that one of the three crew sat in a gun turret in the back, and the other guy’s station was in a little tunnel under the tail (he worked the radios and had a machine gun that pointed out the butt end of the plane). IIRC, this was one of those movies where Japanese zeros bore an uncanny resemblance to American Wildcats with red circles painted on them, so who knows what kind of Navy plane they might have been cruising around in. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ww2-b-movie-uh-dont-know-much-about-it/549847/14 "2010-08-12T01:34:49Z")
I think you’ll find they used [Texans](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-6_Texan) as Zeroes. Not the human kind, the advanced trainer aircraft kind.