The Rear Gunner (1943)

My Review

“The Rear Gunner” is a World War II instructional film short about a young U. S. Army Air Corps enlistee who goes into training as a tail gunner. Director Ray Enright and screenwriter Edwin Gilbert put together this engrossing movie which was screened to service men and to general audiences in theaters.

The cast includes Burgess Meredith as the new tail gunner, Ronald Reagan as his superior officer, Dane Clark, Tom Neal, Jonathan Hale, Frank Coghlan Jr. as service men, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt in archive footage. This watchable twenty minute black-and-white film was produced by the U. S. Army Signal Corps Photographic Section and Warner Bros. Pictures.