My Country 'Tis of Thee

This Oscar-nominated 20-minute short (also included on the CAPTAIN HORATIO HORNBLOWER [1951] DVD) is basically a crash-course in American history – from the days of the pilgrims through the acquisition of Independence, the Western expansion, the Civil War, and going up till the then-recent two World Wars. Needless to say, it has a strong propagandist feeling – generally depicting the American people as industrious and upholders of justice (opting, for obvious reasons, to by-pass such despicable social scourges as gangsterism and racial hatred), while constantly namedropping famous figures which have left their mark in the country’s development from a British colony to supreme world-power over the centuries. Mind you, it’s all quite interesting (though there was little even I wasn’t familiar with) and certainly entertainingly deployed; incidentally, given that the film is mostly made-up of stock footage (even the ‘staged’ scenes), no directorial credit has been attached to it!