Spies

One of the best Private Snafu shorts. These cartoons were made for use by the U.S. Army during WWII as instructional films for soldiers. The hope was the grunts would learn what to do (and not to do) by watching buffoonish Snafu make mistakes in humorous fashion. Directed by Chuck Jones with a rhyming script from Dr. Seuss himself. Typically fine voice work from Mel Blanc. Nice black & white animation. The subject for this short is, as you can guess by the title, espionage. Specifically that soldiers should be aware that enemy spies are all around and not to be blabbing military secrets in public. To illustrate this, the short starts with Snafu bragging about having a secret that he can't tell. It doesn't take long before Snafu winds up telling the secret to a beautiful Nazi secret agent. This has disastrous consequences for the American fleet, which leads to a hilariously dark ending for Snafu.

I have no idea if this is typical of the Snafu series, many directed by Jones and written by Dr. Seuss, but I certainly want to see more even if this does not show either master at his very best. Here our private in question blabs his orders to anybody and everybody after vowing to keep it all secret, and of course all the voluptuous babes, bartenders, and even a little guy inside the telephone box end up being broadly caricatured Japanese, German and Italian spies. It all ends quite literally with a big bang and a trip to Hell. Propaganda at it's finest, if awfully frenetic and short.

The copy I watched was from "Treasures of American Cinema", volume I, a four-disc set of mostly early shorts and features, all beautifully restored and remastered, with excellent notes and music - an essential set for anyone who wants to better know the history of the American film.

The Private Snafu cartoons generally are a lot of fun, and Spies is no exception. In fact, I do consider Spies one of the best Snafu cartoons despite that it does feel a little too short, being only about 3 minutes long, and there will be people who'll take offence at the caricatures of the Germans and Japanese(considering though that Spies was made during the war where the Germans and the Japanese were the enemy it was somewhat inevitable that they would be targeted). The animation is very beautifully done, with the drawing far from scrappy, the backgrounds show lots of detail and for black and white the colours are fluid and have atmosphere and warmth. The music is characterful and dynamically orchestrated in a way that is unmistakable of Carl Stalling, it accompanies the action brilliantly, matches the expressions and gestures equally as well and the use of pre-existing tunes are fun to spot. As well as one of the best of the Private Snafu cartoons Spies is also one of the funniest and cleverest. The horse's ass joke and the wonderfully devilish ending fare the best of the gags(which like all the cartoons revolves around how not to do things and their consequences but never does it feel predictable) but the joy is the cracking script that style and structure-wise has Dr.Seuss' style written all over it. A lot of the Private Snafu cartoons are risqué and quite ahead of their time and Spies is among the most daring. Snafu is an endearing and hilarious character, and the rest of the characters are just as colourful, yes including in a way the caricatures. Mel Blanc's- as usual in multiple roles- voice work typically is faultless. Overall, while it is easy for people to be offended by it Spies is a clever and extremely cartoon that is among the best of the series. 9/10 Bethany Cox

Chuck Jones's 'Spies' is one of the best Private Snafu cartoons made for the military. Used to instruct soldiers against certain behaviour by using Snafu to epitomise it, the Snafu cartoons were known for their bawdier nature inserted to keep the soldiers' attention. So 'Spies' features some prominent breast-based recording equipment, then-risqué use of the word "Hell" and a great horse's ass joke. Directed with great flair by Jones, 'Spies' main trump card is a cracking, witty script entirely in rhyme written by none other than the great Dr. Suess. Suess and Jones were a match made in heaven, as the classic 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' would later attest, and this early collaboration between the two is a worthy forerunner. Though it only lasts about three minutes in total, 'Spies' packs in plenty of laughs and sneaks its message in amongst them so that the audience doesn't feel it has been crammed down their throats at the end.

For several of the shorts in this series, Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) scripted and the speech patterns here reflect his quite familiar cadence. It's great! Private Snafu really screws up royally here, which was the point, as the series was meant to show soldiers what not to do and what the consequences could be. These are not balanced and fair cartoons-there was a war on at the time and Germany and Japan were the ENEMY, so the caricatures are not nice. If you are easily offended, you likely won't like these. The series is great and well worth watching. Recommended.