The Shining Future

It's 1960, and the skies are dark with flying cars. Jimmy Lyndon complains to mother Olive Blakeny about having to eat steak for dinner again. Then father Charlie Ruffles has them set the retroscope to 1944, so they can watch and listen to to a bunch of stars try to sell war bucks nds to Canadians.

It's a pretty good array of musical talent, and the non-musical folks on display are pretty good too; as one reviewer elsewhere remarked, it's Cary Grant's only sci-if movie. It's mostly movie stars, and the various studios cooperated in having their talent appear in this short short and distributed by Warner Brothers. That was standard procedure during the War.

"The Shining Future" is a short film made to further the bond drive in order for the United States to fight WWII. It is available on YouTube if you are interested.

The film is a strange one when it begins...supposedly in 1954 in a family's living room. In this screwy view of the future, it's already a lot like the Jetsons! You see folks flying all about in airplanes instead of cars...and one of the characters talks about wanting one of those rocket instead of a helicopter! Soon after, they turn on a television-like device and watch to see what life was like back in 1944!

What follows are a variety of famous Hollywood actors singing about war and victory as well as Cary Grant reading a very moving letter from a dying soldier. All in all, very interesting due to the many guest appearances. Worth seeing.

By the way, the same material in this film was used in another short from 1944...."The Road to Victory". However, "The Road to Victory" was shorter and this expanded version was apparently aimed towards Canadian viewers, as there's a short prologue with Herbert Marshall to that effect.

The acts featured in "The Shining Future" which are not in "The Road to Victory" are Deanna Durbin, Benny Goodman with Harry James, a skit with the Great Gildersleeve (Harold Peary) as well as a song and lecture from Bing Crosby. All in all, an interesting and unusual peek into the past.