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who places honesty and love for his country above private gain; at the same time it is folly for the exploited to fight for their freedom. Patience and trust in official leadership are the only safe means open to them.
I have described this film at some length, because it is a first-rate example of a highly skilful propaganda film. While not all the films of the first Roosevelt era were as skilful and effective in their propaganda technique, the basic propaganda character of their overwhelming number was, nevertheless, patent for all to see.
It is sufficient to mention films such as Dangerous Age, dealing with the problem of America's "wild boys" tramping through the length and breadth of the American continent in a vain search for work. Again the subject is treated with astonishing frankness, though, of course, not with the same brutality as in the case of Massacre. But from the propaganda point of view Dangerous Age is a much less skilful film than Massacre, since the end, in which the heroes of the story are rescued by a benevolent magistrate who finds jobs for them, is so obviously out of tune with the picture drawn by the remainder of the film that it can scarcely be convincing even for the most unsuspecting.
On a different level the spectacular Fox chorus girl show, Stand Up and Cheer, belongs to the same category of Roosevelt propaganda films. The story, which provides the skeleton for the series of Hollywood parties and revue scenes characteristic of the "musical comedy" type of film,is in this case that of a new official who has been entrusted with the organisation of a big "Joy Trust," in order to dispel the gloom of the crisis with lavishly organised entertainments. The story of the film is the story of the fight between this official and the powerful vested interests in the entertainments rackets who, of course, employ every means to frustrate the fulfilment of his task. Needless to say, he defeats these sinister influences after many adventures, puts over a grand show, turns the universal gloom into optimism, and thus enables the country to turn the corner towards prosperity.
Altogether incomparable with any of these pictures wrere a number of exceedingly interesting films also produced during the first phase of the Roosevelt presidency films, the obvious aim of which was a scarcely veiled criticism of capitalist society. I am referring to a number of James Cagney and William Powell films, in which these actors represent racketeering business men with astonishing cynicism.
The first Mae West film, with its glorious demolition of the last fragments of bourgeois morality, belongs to the same group. All these films are objectively an expression of a genuine left wing criticism of present day society. They were allowed to pass by the
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