A GUY NAMED JOE
(M-G-M)
‘THE third guy named Joe is Spencer Tracy, only he isn’t really named Joe, he’s named Pete, but he’s called Joe because, as a small boy
explains, that’s what they call any "right guy" in the U.S. Army Air Corps. After this somewhat incoherent opening, A.G.N.J. settles down to being a. nice, simple, though long-drawn-out excursion into metaphysics on behalf of the Allied Nations and the box-office. After the opening scenes in which Pete and a girl ferry-pilot (Irene Dunne) make prolonged but convincing love to one another, he is killed on a bombing mission and, as much to his own surprise as that of the audience, finds himself in what is presumably the Flyers’ Heaven (Luftwaffe men not admitted) where Lionel Barrymore maintains strict discipline as officer commanding. Pete then learns that his job is to return to earth and teach young pilots to fly and fight. His assignment is a nervous youngster (Van Johnson) who reacts so well to Pete's ghostly sponsorship that he is soon almost as good a flyer as Pete himself was. But Pete did not shed the emotion of jealousy along with his earthly body, as is soon apparent when the girl turns up at the New Guinea airfield and she and Pete’s protégé -fall in love. It takes a sharp reprimand from Barrymore’s ghost, plus a few other
things, to square the metaphysical. triangle. A Guy Named Joe has several uneasy moments and suffers, like so many M-G-M productions, from trying to use up too many feet of film; but Tracy handles his uncanny assignment with wit and discernment, and the film has the decided merit of employing a theme which has been used only once within recent memory: in Here Comes Mr. Jordan,
Permanent link to this item
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19441124.2.43.1.2
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 283, 24 November 1944, Page 25
Word count
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296A GUY NAMED JOE New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 283, 24 November 1944, Page 25
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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