Don't Be a Sucker

WE HAVE ONLY recently became aware of this relic from the 1940's & bit of World War II American propaganda. As with so many other titles, we sort of accidentally bumped into it on Youtube.com. Being that the running time was listed at 17 minutes and change, we immediately watched it.

IN MUCH THE same manner as so many other films produced by the United States War effort, it is of surprisingly good, high quality production value, acting and effectiveness. This short manages to reach the subject and bring it in a highly effective manner to us, the viewing audience. And that message is one that is as pertinent to today's America and the whole, cockeyed World.

THE VERY FABRIC is the fact that we, as a people have a more than a casual and abrupt with the sort of discriminations. Although we may be aware and therefore, more or less immune from being taken over by such prejudices. But there is still danger of transferring at least some of these irrational dislike to the area of judging people not by race, creed, color or nationality; but by socio-economic status, income or occupation.

WHILE IT SURELY may be true that at least some of us have managed to recognize and avoid such discriminating when it comes to nationality, ethnicity and race-the same person may be inundated with petty peeves concerning anything that is found in the brotherhood of man.

THE VERY STRAIGHT forward story gets right to the point. There are indeed those who are less than honest with us. They may be sneak thieves, stick-up men or grifters. They are not by any means apt to be looking out for their fellow man, unless of course they can scam him.

THE LITTLE FILM manages to assemble the greatest little cast of players that one could imagine. Our cast includes: Paul Lukas, Chick Chandler, George Chandler, George E. Stone, Richard Lane (hey, it's Inspector Faraday!)and a number of actors that might be familiar to you by their names, but not by name.

ALTHOUGH IT APPEARS that many of our colleagues have panned this little movie, we must register our complaint to take the opposite position. The atrocities that plagued the World, and especially Europe, did not come about over night. It all started small and grew, unchecked.

AS A REMEDY for such happenings, may we suggest application of just a couple of old adages:

Do Unto Others As you Would Have Them Do Unto You.

Judge Not Lest You Will Be Judged.

Somewhat confusing Hollywood made propaganda film-with the help of the US Defense Department-about the danger and horrors of an United States takeover by an un-named fascist group using patriotism as its way to split the population apart and against each other in order to achieve its ignoble gains. We get to see this loud mouth giving a speech on a soapbox about how foreigners and minorities are taking over the country and turning it into, even though he doesn't mention it, a third world backwater 12th century economy.

There's Mike-young healthy and with a job-swallowing every word that this big mouth utters until this wise old professor or recent Hungarian immigrant enlighten him about what's really going on behind the scenes. Being a Freemason-Like most if not all of the Founding Fathers including George Washington- Mike who at first thought he was an all American realizes that he himself,in being a Freemason,is also on the chopping block if big mouth-played by Richard Lane-ends up getting his way. We get to see in a number of flashbacks in how the Nazis took over Germany some 15 years ago using the same tactics that this fire brand speaker is using now. The way the film plays out you don't quite know if this takes place-it was made in 1943 and re-released with new scenes added in 1947-since you can't figure out if WWII was over or still in progress.

Using a number of outtakes of old WWII movies the wise old professor makes his point to the very confused and not really with it, in not having any sense of modern history, Mike what the speaker is all about. And in the end he finally sees the light in tearing up a what looked like literature about how great it would be if we, the American people, would follow the line of BS what the speaker tells us to do.

Released during or right after the end of WWII this 20 some minute so-called educational short made it look as if the US population were asleep or unconscious in what happened over the last four years when the USA was in a life and death struggle with Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan Germany's allies in the war were never mentioned once, that cost the lives of over 400,000 US servicemen. And even worse it had the professor who just became a naturalized American citizen as the only person in the film who had any idea of what Nazi Germany and the jerk, who you would have expected to be chased off the stage and forced to run for his life, giving the speech really stood for.

This spells it out, the case against racism and xenophobia. This short film is an excellent reminder, in clear language, about how we are all minorities. America is a melting pot, and we need reminded about that sometimes. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of old films, but this one drew me in with its clear message of tolerance. If we want others to be tolerant of us, we must be tolerant of them. I don't think the message is condescending, but it IS simple. It is so simple that some might feel a little put off by the message at the end. Yes, we are all minorities, even us white western European mutts that are lots and lots of generations Americans.

Lloyd Nolan narrates this short film and a few famous Hollywood actors (Paul Lukas and Felix Bressart) appeared in it. It was made for the war department and is a film anticipating the sort of racist crap that the Nazis were peddling being spread in America after the war.

The film consists of some ordinary boob listening to a speech by a Neo- Nazi type and agreeing with almost all of it. However, when the hate- filled diatribe also attacks him, indirectly, he's not so sure of the America first/non-whites suck message. Then an immigrant observing the speech (Lukas) talks about the many, many ways the speech is abhorrent to any decent American and why. While it could have come off as preachy and silly, the short film was handled well and is a lovely appeal for tolerance and decency.

The short film "Don't Be a Sucker!" (17 min) is a tidy argument against fascist racism and it is an eye-opening study in philosophical pragmatism. I was surprised to learn that the US War Department was so explicitly anti-racism in 1943 even before the end of the second world war.