The first few minutes of this shortie from 1944 are clever and interesting, but halfway through, it takes a quick turn. All of a sudden we're begging for money for the war effort, which was pretty common at the time. Here, it starts out as a skit, showing what the future will be like for the average family, those darn teenagers! Then, Bing sings, Jack Carson introduces some Hollywood bigshots, and Cary Grant reads a heart-wrenching letter that "some soldier's dad" has written, telling of his horrible health issues. This is supposed to guilt us into buying more war bonds. I totally get asking the public to buy war bonds, but most of the war bond commercials of the time told us why they were giving the entertainment up front... to make us want to buy more war bonds. Here, it starts out as a fun little family skit, and bit by bit, uses guilt and horror to shock us into buying war bonds. Turner Classics shows this occasionally between films. It's an interesting bit of history, and certainly fun to see the entertainers of the time, but by the end, I found it just annoying.
Review of The Road to Victory
