You Nazty Spy! The Stooges and Naziism in 1940

[rpannier]

This may be the best Stooges short ever and the best pre US involvement in WWII made

In the little country of Moronika three munitions makers only made 5 million in profits last year. The king wants peace and they can't make a profit off of peace, they plan the overthrow of the King and plan to replace him with a dictator. The reference to the industrialists who backed Hitler is there. Good on the Stooges
Moe Hailstone is made the dictator (in a non-subtle Hitlerian way). Curly Gallstone is made Field Marshall replete with hundreds of medals. (He's a Goering with a smattering of Mussolini tossed in) and Larry Pebble is made Minister of Propaganda (Goebbels)

The movie was released in 1940 and mocks the Nazis.
It was made at a time when isolationist Senators Burton Wheeler (D-MT) and Gerald Nye (R-ND) were opposing films made in Hollywood they considered anti-Nazi propaganda and pro-war. You Nazty Spy! was released before The Great Dictator was released. This made You Nazty Spy the first anti-Nazi comedy made in Hollywood.
The short was in violation of the Hays Code which prohibited movies that made fun of world leaders and movies had to present 'fair' portrayals of world leaders (funny how that never seemed to apply to Asians -- but what the heck)
The movie got released without much opposition because it was a short and they tended to slide by Congress. Plus, there was more attention paid to the Chaplin movie which didn't get released until 6 months after You Nazty Spy! came out

- Moe became the first American to portray Adolf Hitler in a released movie
- Larry Fine walked with a limp to imitate Goebbels limp
- The scene where Larry starts with "If I take Mickey Finlen, I better be rushin'." is hysterical with many political jokes
-The phrase "Moronika for Morons" which is a play on the Nazi's "Deutschland den Deutschen"
- The Stooges (all of whom are Jewish) use many Yiddish words in the film, some of them considered obscene at the time:
-Moe Hailstone says "in pupik gehabt haben" which translates sd "I've had it in the bellybutton" would have been considered slightly obscene and would normally have been yanked by the censors -- I don't know the history of how it got through
- One of the weapons manufacturers encourages Moe Hailstone to affect a 'Beer Putsch'
- Curly says "Let's go shoot the works." was aslang term about using morphine and was a jab at Goering's morphine addiction

It's worth every second og the 18+ minutes. Enjoy

[appalachiablue]

1. Genius comedy. Haven't seen this in decades. Thanks for the great info. & posting.

[Duckfan]

2. I instantly thought of Frank Capra

And how can you not. That is if you did not study documentary film making.

Why We Fight is a series of seven documentary films commissioned by the United States government for propaganda during World War II whose purpose was to show American soldiers the reason for U.S. involvement in the war. Later on they were also shown to the general U.S. public to persuade them to support American involvement in the war.

Most of the films were directed by Frank Capra, who was daunted yet impressed and challenged by Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film Triumph of the Will and worked in direct response to it. The series faced a tough challenge: convincing a recently non-interventionist nation of the need to become involved in the war and ally with the Soviets, among other things. In many of the films, Capra and other directors spliced in Axis powers propaganda footage going back twenty years, and re-contextualized it so it promoted the cause of the Allies.

Why We Fight was edited primarily by William Hornbeck, although some parts were re-enacted "under War Department supervision" if there was no relevant footage available. The animated portions of the films were produced by the Disney studios – with the animated maps following a convention of depicting Axis-occupied territory in black.

[Feeling the Bern]

3. I used this in class many times

The best short they ever did!