A 32-year-old Ronald Reagan plays a (fictional) Catholic priest army chaplain in this 1943 short film. “Chaplain Michael O’Keefe” is depicted celebrating Mass, working alongside his Protestant and Jewish chaplain friends, visiting a prisoner, and being mourned among the fallen in New Guinea.
The film was made to give army personnel “a better understanding of the chaplain’s place, work, and accomplishments in the army.” It was produced by the U.S. Signal Corps and filmed at MGM Studios. [source]
Contemporary politics make a brief appearance in the dialogue: Vermont is referenced as being a Republican state and Georgia as a Democratic one. (Today, those political alignments are reversed, though Ronald Reagan did win Vermont while losing Georgia in 1980.)
Parishable Items 
November 23, 2015 at 2:28 pm |
Father…..did you get permission from the War Department to show this film? :)