Don't Be a Sucker

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.