War

Mr. Blabbermouth!

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Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, America was rife with rumors about the size of Japan's armed forces and how well-equipped they were to wage war against the U.S. Using animation, the first part of this film dispels these rumors by showing that the U.S. had more raw materials and more fighting ships. The narrator also cautions moviegoers against spreading rumors (which are often initiated by enemy infiltrators to create fear and dissention) and believing everything they read in the newspapers. Just because "they say" something, that doesn't make it true.

Release Date : 1942-08-08

Language :English

Adult : false

Status : Released

Production Company : Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Production Country : United States of America

Alternative Titles :

Cast

John Nesbitt

Character Name : Narrator (voice)

Original Name : John Nesbitt

Gender : Male

Ralph Peters

Character Name : Mr. Blabbermouth

Original Name : Ralph Peters

Gender : Male

John Berkes

Character Name :

Original Name : John Berkes

Gender : Male

Stanley Andrews

Character Name :

Original Name : Stanley Andrews

Gender : Male

May McAvoy

Character Name :

Original Name : May McAvoy

Gender : Female

Reviews

C

CinemaSerf

@Geronimo1967

2025-03-05

This features quite an effective use of archive to bolster US public awareness of the risk of idle talk. Using a variety of social scenarios, we put some “I’ve heard” or “I’ve read” sentences in the mouths of those in the shops, the hairdressers and the bars and then attempt to counter these speculative gossips with some facts and then some out and out propaganda about the superiority of the American soldier, kit and technology against not just the Japanese, but the Nazis too. On that last front, it does recognise that the  USA is not the only nation fighting here, but as this is essentially designed to boost domestic morale and encourage people to keep their traps shut, it’s largely a celebration of the might of a military and the strength of a democracy that will prevail, no matter what. There is some original photography here, but if you’ve followed the approach newsreel cinema took to World War II in any depth, then you will have seen most of that before. The commentary is far too earnest, and the more I watched this I wanted someone sarcastic and caustic to make the point a little more engagingly and less like it was a school lecture, but in 1942 it probably served it’s purpose.