. . . exclaims the local butcher to Mr. Moneypockets, who's just outbid the ration card customer for a $1.60 T-bone in a hypothetical American store WITHOUT FDR's price controls. FOOD AND MAGIC is just another American propaganda film from WWII, during which the U.S. War Department movie censors screened EVERY snippet of civilian film studio output with a 28-point checklist to insure that every frame was in full compliance with the Roosevelt Administration's legally-binding Rules for Proper Thoughts (RPT). "Certainly we'd all share with ANY soldier," emcee John Q. Mysto continues in an RPT vein. "This is a War to end Wars for all time," Mysto trots out, recycling a WWI RPT previously seen in silent movie inter-title cards. Mysto follows up that antique RPT with the more current, "Food fights for freedom--we can use it to mow down our enemies just like it was a machine gun." Mysto concludes his nearly endless RPT pontifications with this brief exhortation: "Share, and play fair." My ancestors followed this final RPT in Mysto's War, as well as during Korea and Desert Storm. But I haven't tasted steak since 2006, as Fat Cat Wall Street Frat Brats, with their "derivatives" and "housing bubbles," have moved the American Middle Class to Skid Row.
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tavm19 March 2010Just watched this instructional short on the Thank Your Lucky Stars DVD. In this one, Jack Carson is a magician at a carnival who demonstrates the importance of food rationing to his audience. He and director Jean Negulesco are effective in showing how important it was during World War II to avoid letting freshly grown fruits and vegetables go to waste, how price controls make rare items like steak affordable, and how feeding hungry soldiers contribute to their well being and morale. And it's done both humorously and with a serious purpose. So on that note, Food and Magic is worth a look for anyone interested in this sort of thing.