My Buddy

Republic, never a company to not try getting ahead of the curve and with writers who could remember the 1930`s social conscience WW I vets-returning-home films, made this in mid-1944 (a full year before the end of WW II) as a don`t-let-it-happen-again sermon. The semi-prologue opening finds Father Jim Donnelly before a post-war planning board in Washington and, as Priests quite often did in 1930 and 1940`s films, tells his point-making story in flashback of how WW I vet Eddie Ballinger, shaken by battle experiences anyway, returns home to a job that is no longer there for him and finds "No Help Wanted" signs standing in his way of making an honest living.