It Can’t Last

Year Published: 1943

Complete Record: A narrative film that begins in a 1940s American suburb. A man is chats with a young newspaper boy, whose brother is a bomber pilot in World War II, about the war. The film shifts to the newspaper boy’s brother, who is on a mission with his fellow pilots. The aviators of the fighter planes (possibly Douglas A-20 Invaders) chat over their radios about life back in America while waiting for commands. When they are given the command to bomb an enemy ship, they begin shooting at dropping bombs on the ship. While the ship is successfully destroyed, our hero’s plane is hit, and begins to descend. The next day, he and his fellow pilot sit in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, waiting to be rescued. They reminisce about life back home, and our hero talks about a fellow female colleague in the air force whom he was in love with. During this flashback, we see footage of the pilot training by flying over an island and landing his plane on a carrier ship. We flash back to the two pilots begin to realize that they may not be found and rescued, and discuss how the people back in the US are part of the same war as they are. The film flashes back to the man in the suburbs, who says that the war can’t last much longer. The final shot of the narrative is of a newspaper that says that all the bombers came back except for one. The film shifts to the Chief of Chaplains, who speaks to the audience and reminds them that while WWII might be almost over, they must still keep thinking about the war. While it may be hard to keep thinking about the war (perhaps harder than it was to think about it when it first started), they must because the war is almost over.