unwashed_brain

Cyd Charisse is the vocalist of "This Love of Mine" in this Soundies short. I can't tell if it is dubbed or not. She would have been 19 or 20 years old in this film.

I'm pretty sure that the trumpeter is Chico Alvarez, a noted member of Kenton's early band lineup.

Can anyone identify any of the other band members in this version of the Stan Kenton Orchestra?

"This Love of Mine" was a major hit in 1941 by Tommy Dorsey (vocal by Frank Sinatra), later becoming a Pop and Jazz standard that has been interpreted by jazz artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hodges, Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, and many more.

I think that, unlike common propaganda, where things are more black and white, good and bad, 'All My Good Countrymen' illustrates where real people, that are just like the rest of us (more or less), are capable of being very unjust and inhumane, when using the excuse of supposedly working to benefit "the people", and especially when given ultimate power over others. The most common human motivation is greed/selfishness. In a "free enterprise" model, those motivations can be turned into positives, because someone with those motives often is willing to work very hard to achieve his desires, and the increased production is a benefit to society (assuming that the proper laws are in place eliminate the worst abuses and corruptions of capitalism). Under Communism, the will to produce is stunted via collectivization, because the fruits of your labor are taken from you without recompense. The peasant and serf labor was in for a big surprise. The only way to success was through politics (not through hard work or skilled labor). The Agitators, Commissars, Bureaucrats and Apparatchiks reaped the benefits of your hard work, and were much harder taskmasters that the old landowners. As shown in this film, the small independent farmers had it the worst of all, because everything they had was taken from them via collectivization, then they were forced to produce as before, but without gaining the benefits of their labor. The "agitators" portrayed in 'All My Good Countrymen' never do anything but complain and steal what others have accomplished by hard work. It has been said "You have to break some eggs to make an omelet", but as this film shows, it's your eggs, but it's their omelet.

Many people considered Stalin to be a Hero and a fine fellow, with a great sense of humor. Of course, we don't know what they thought when Stalin had them all shot six months later.