Poor Billy (Billy Lee): He's too young to join the army and fight in
World War II while his father (Addison Richards), a World War I
hero, has skince turned out to be a shellshock victim and an alcoholic. So
juvenile court judge Davis (Bradley Page) and welfare lady Joan (Kay
Linaker) suggest that Billy has his dog Pal (Ace the Wonder Dog) trained
to be an army patrol dog, so at least one member of the family can join
the US of A in their fight ... and Billy couldn't be more happy.
When Billy's dad sees how happy Billy is that his dog joined the army
he gives up drinking and gets in shape to one day soon join the army too
... and he almost succeeds until he hears a gunshot that makes him to
break into a panic on the spot and turns him right into an old drunk again
... and right on the day he would have been accepted back into the army
again.
With the army out of reach, judge Davis gets Billy's dad a job with an
arms factory, and he makes Pal that factory's patrol dog ... when opne day
a bunch of fifth columnists (George N.Neise, Donald Curtis, Tom London)
want to blow up the factory ... and while Pal tracks down and captures the
baddies, Billy's dad finally overcomes his shellshock and gets the bomb
out of the factory just in time - even if he pays wkith his own life.
Young Billy couldn't be happier, his dog's a hero, hid dad died a
hero's death, and now he is adopted by judge Davis and welfare lady Joan,
who decide to marry ...
A very naive and blunt propaganda film about a motherless boy who seems
to want nothing more than having his dad killed in the war - and in the
end he gets his wish. But actually the film is little more than an
overlong advertisement for the Dogs for Defense programas it
depicts the whole dog training process in great detail and stresses the
importance of canine volunteers for the army even in the credits. This
makes War Dogs a little hard to swallow if taken as a film - but as
a document of its time, it's quite interesting, actually ...
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