Make Mine Freedom 1948 Harding College Cartoon Animation (Patreon)

more at http://quickfound.net/

Directed by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera

Produced by Fred Quimby

Starring

Billy Bletcher

Frank Nelson

John Hiestand

Daws Butler

Produced by John Sutherland Productions

Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Release date February 25, 1948

Originally a public domain film from the Library of Congress Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Mine_Freedom

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Make Mine Freedom is an American animated propaganda cartoon created by John Sutherland Productions for the Extension Department of Harding College (now Harding University). Financed with a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the cartoon was the first in a series of pro-free enterprise films produced by Sutherland for Harding. The cartoon depicts a satire of perceived life under collectivist ideology...

Production background

Around 1947, the Sloan Foundation provided a grant of between $300,000 and $600,000 to Harding College to produce cartoons that promoted the American way and uplifted American business philosophy. Staff at Harding originally approached Walt Disney Productions, but were referred to John Sutherland, who left the company in 1940, shortly before a crippling strike. According to the film's original copyright entry, its original title was The Secret of American Prosperity, but this was later changed to Make Mine Freedom for the film's February 1948 release. The film debuted on February 25, 1948, and Harding president George S. Benson played the film at his inaugural Freedom Forum, a gathering of pro-business speakers, the following year.

Plot

The film opens with a paean to American values, noting how America means different things to different people. The central conflict in the film concerns four composite characters, a worker, capitalist, politician, and farmer, who all find themselves at odds with each other. A slick salesman approaches the men, offering them a solution to all their problems in the form of a magic tonic known as ISM, which he claims will "cure any ailment of the body politic." He offers the tonic to the men for free, but provides them a contract that requires them to–quite literally–sign away the freedom of themselves, their children, and their grandchildren. Upon hearing this, a sleeping man on a bench wakes up and approaches the group, announcing that he is John Q. Public. He demands to see the contract, examines it, and is astonished that the men would so readily sign away their freedoms. Public then regales the men with a tale of Joe Doakes (another generic American name), a lowly inventor who became wealthy with the help of his family and friends. Public explains that Doakes' success is due to the American system of free enterprise, and that being a capitalist is nothing to be ashamed of. He also notes that America enjoyed a standard of living after World War II unparalleled by any other country. He then invites the men to try ISM and see what its collectivist vision would allegedly bring. The worker finds himself shackled to a machine and branded a state union member, the capitalist removed from his factory, the farmer stripped of his power, and the politician turned into a propaganda speaker. Disgusted with the ISM, the men turn on the salesman and chase him out of town. The film ends with patriotic music backing up the now-united marchers, claiming that an ever-increasing abundance for all is the secret to American prosperity...