Sometimes you just gotta turn off the news. Everyone is comparing today’s mishigas to a reality show because President Trump starred in one. I disagree. Trump Derangement Syndrome more likely causes the daily teeth gnashing. What you gotta do then is turn on a great movie. Today, while I worked out, I watched “The West Point Story”. Ahh, relief. Let me tell you about it.

“The West Point Story” was set and and filmed at The United States Military Academy at West Point on the Hudson River in New York State. If you have never been, you must go. The scenery is stunning and football weekends are beautiful, patriotic and fun.

So, back to telling you all about this movie. It stars James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Gordon MacRae, Doris Day and, one of my favorite dancers, Gene Nelson. Most of you have never heard of these actors. Plus, the movie plot is way far fetched. Here is the movie plot from the Doris Day website:

The tale concerns Elwin ‘Bix’ Bixby (Cagney), once a successful choreographer and producer on Broadway, now washed up and working in a rundown New York club and playing the horses. His fiancée, Eve Dillon (Mayo) is desperately trying to get him to do something about his situation before it’s too late. Bix has an offer from rival producer Harry Eberhart (Roland Winters) to go to West Point and stage a show which was written by Harry’s nephew, a talented cadet named Tom Fletcher (Gordon MacRae). Assured that the show will be a hit, Eberhart wants Bix to convince Tom to leave West Point and pursue a career on the stage. Tom is dedicated to the Army and has resisted all of his uncle’s efforts to lure him away from the Academy.

In the film, Bix tells the cadets about honor and tradition in the theater. Later, when Bix stays out after accountability, the cadets tell Bix about the honor and tradition at the Academy. The values of the cadets; honor, duty, country, respect and tradition used to be considered American values. Today, those values are considered racist, jingoistic. You know the drill.

Yeah, some of the dialogue is cornball. I am just a cornball kind of girl.

The opening number of the theatrical production the cadets are putting on in the movie is what struck me. The cadets tell the story of the founding of the United States Military Academy. They tell the story of the great generals who graduated from West Point (Grant, Lee, Pershing, Patton and more). The cadets (led by Gordon MacRae) sing of the “Long Gray Line”. “The phrase “The Long Gray Line” in its simplest definition is the continuum of all graduates and cadets of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.”, from the West Point website.

Here is the trailer from “The West Point Story”:

Like I said, sometimes you just gotta turn off the daily count of the word “impeachment” and watch a patriotic, nationalist, old fashioned movie. I recommend “The West Point Story”.