As a stage show, this was Berlin all over, and it was wonderful. As a motion picture, much of it is still Berlin, and still wonderful--the rest can be ignored.

There is a plot, if you're the type that insists on formalities--a sort of dishwater affair about a soldier of 1918 vintage, his son, a girl or two, and some other people we didn't happen to notice. But despite the Hollywood additions, "This Is the Army" is still a stage show, a great spectacle with a top-notch array of talent. The soldier cherns makes like Fred Waring only better, and many of the individual stars are superb.

About the only objections to the original sequences is the treatment of the "Stage Door Canteen" number, in which a broken-hearted soldier tries to act lovingly toward his girl-to-be-he-hopes-except-for-the-hostess. Ordinarily we would be the last to complain about a little romance, but when we realize that the girl in question is really another soldier and maybe even the first guy is top sarge, "it looks sort of pointless--or worse.

One more protest, at least, should be registered for the sake of honesty and propriety. The show was marvelous, but without Julie Oshins and Ezra Stone it would have been only good, and if there's one thing the movie needs it's the life that those two would provide. The tumbling and the juggling doesn't quite come off on the screen.