Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Pee Wee Williams joins the US Army Air Corps and eventually gets selected to train as an air gunner. We see his training and then how he handles the real thing - aerial combat.Made in the middle of WW2, so you already know it's a propaganda film. Is reasonably interesting though, despite its marketing-orientation and military inaccuracies. Also has a folksy charm.Cast includes Burgess Meredith as Pee Wee Williams and Ronald Reagan as the pilot of his B-24.

. . . while the other was sentenced to eight years in the White House shooting gallery. That's the story of THE REAR GUNNER, where Burgess Meredith is blasting away at the Enemy, and Ronald Reagan is just his pilot, along for the ride. It is men like Meredith's R.E.L.A. "Peewee" Williams who are presented as the REAL war heroes, "the budding Galahads of Gunnery." Though some of these "Freedom Fighters" seem to be in it primarily to improve their odds of winning carnival midway shooting gallery Kewpie doll prizes (like PeeWee's classmate, "Benny"), most of these "flexible gunners" were too small to make their high school football teams, making them the perfect fit for the cramped quarters of the B-24 bomber gunnery positions. PeeWee wins a Distinguished Service Medal for his success in launching sneak attacks from the rear position. He's shown here bringing down several Japanese Zero fighter planes, thanks to his boyhood pursuit of gunning down "black killer" crows in Kansas. (The latter were decimating the duck population.) One might sum up by saying that PeeWee won one (or two, or three) for the Gipper.

Following Pearl Harbor, Hollywood rushed to turn out films that would help to win the war. They produced more than features. There were countless cartoons and short subjects that were intended to inform the public, boost morale, encourage support of the Red Cross and other organizations that were helping at home and over seas or recruit men into the service. There were also films that were shown only to members of the armed forces. These films either trained them or entertained them."Rear Gunner" is one of the best examples of how Hollywood pitched in and worked to boost morale and also recruit men into the service. It has a mission and it does it with pride and a very solid conviction. This film is a real time machine of its era showing the American attitude towards the war. It is also interesting to get a glimpse of just what a rear gunner did and how he learned to do it.Burgess Meredith was one of the finest and most versatile film actors of the 20th century. Unfortunately most people today know him only for his appearance in the "Grumpy Old Men" films. In "Rear Gunner" he takes a part that is about as standard as they come. There's very little in the words to indicate anything about Pee-Wee's personality. But Meredith takes this shallow part and makes Pee-Wee a real guy. He's quiet and smart without a hint of arrogance, exactly the kind of guy Americans at least claimed to admire then. And Pee-Wee's gentle stutter works well because Meredith soft pedals it thus making it seem real."Rear Gunner" allows us to reach through the screen and touch the American mind from WWII. It also happens to be entertaining.

"A short film bout a B-17 gunner starring Burgess Meredith and Ronald Reagan. Approximately 20 minutes - B & W."I guess, back in 1943, you were supposed to join the armed forces after seeing this short film. It's pretty much a recruitment film. Meredith plays a stuttering soldier who finds his place as a rear gunner aboard a B-17. Ronald Reagan plays the part of the pilot.I found this film on a DVD of WWII films that I bought at Wal-Mart for about five dollars.It's a great film to make fun of with your friends. Just imagine all the lines from Rocky and Grumpy Old Men that you can quote while watching Meredith shoot down Japanese fighters over the Pacific.