Safeguarding Military Information
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Safeguarding Military Information was a short propaganda film produced by the US military in 1942, starring John Huston.
The film opens with a dramatic explosion of a ship by two undercover saboteurs and then fades into a written "Thoughtlessness Breeds Sabotage" message. a short vignitte come next with a sailor with his girlfriend on the telephone at a bar. As he placates her suspion by telling her that he is sailing to Hawaii on the USS Navajo at 10:30 pm. A man with a radio disguied as a hearing aid is sitting next to him, and he sends the message to his confederates speaking in code with an enemy submarine, which blows up the ship.
John Huston then appears as a military instructor briefing a class about military security, and narrates a short vignitte about service men in a bowling ally and how they confront a stranger asking questions about military equipement.
Probably the most powerful segment is the last, in which a woman at a grocery store, tells the grocer about her son George taking a train to the West Coast, unaware of the person standing behind her. The film fades into a newspaper room, and an editor hurriedly ordering a re-write after receiving a telephone call. When the headline is show, it doesn't show the information that the woman gave out, but that 200 servicement died in a train explosion. The womans face is shown superimposed on the newspaper saying, "No, not George!"
[edit] See also
List of Allied propaganda films of World War II
