You, John Jones!

This was the first of only a few times Cagney worked at MGM, and the only time during the Louis B. Mayer era that he did so. Cagney didn't do anything else there until the mid 1950's after Mayer was long gone and the studio was in decline. Cagney plays an air raid warden with few lines who is called to duty one night, away from his wife (Ann Sothern) and child (Margaret O'Brien). As John Jones (Cagney) writes his time of arrival in his log book and sits on a park bench, the narrator talks about how that, as an American, he is lucky that air raid duty is boring, and mentions all of the countries where there is constant violence and bombing from the enemy. At this point this becomes Margaret O'Brien's short, as she is the waif that is in terror, or hungry, or missing part of a limb, or in one scene even dead.

The short serves two purposes - it's a patriotic morale booster during WWII to remind Americans how lucky they are that their nation is untouched by the actual warfare raging worldwide, and it was also a device for MGM to build up Margaret O'Brien at the very beginning of her childhood career. At this point she was only six.

This short is an extra on the "Yankee Doodle Dandy" DVD and is interesting largely from a historical perspective, but still worth viewing.

James Cagney, Ann Sothern and Margaret O'Brien all star in this Mervyn LeRoy-directed "wartime short," as they called them. Cagney plays an aviation worker who comes and sees his young daughter rehearsing the Gettysburg address.

The man ("John Jones" played by Cagney) then gets called out on a security watch. As he sits on his park bench post, he starts talking out loud to God, saying "I don't think there will ever be a raid on the United States of America but people on our side are being bombed somewhere - England, Russia or China. It's just terrible, horrible....but I just want you to know I appreciate that it's not happening here."

God talks back to him, asking him if he truly does appreciate it, and then Cagney sees pictures of what it would be like if he were in England, Greece, China, Yugoslavia, France and other war-torn areas. In each case, we see his daughter (O'Brien playing her) physically harmed or starving.

The man returns home, asks his wife "Mary" (Sheridan) if she's okay, then gets another phone call with an "all-clear" message, goes to the door, looks upward and says "Thanks, God." Their daughter then finishes Lincoln's famous speech.

The father kisses his daughter and adds, "Ain't it the beautiful truth?"

This short was part of the 2-disc special-edition DVD of "Yankee Doodle Dandy."

Margaret O'Brien is practicing the Gettysburg Address for recital a school. Father Jimmy Cagney leaves her and mother Ann Sothern to perform his duties as an air raid warden. It's a clear night, and he is thankful there are no actual air raid in the United States, just practice. Tired, he falls asleep and dreams of his daughter in a bombed-out English home, as a Greek girl fleeing the soldiers, as a starving child in China, as a corpse in Lidice....

Carey Wilson's narration talks about the lucky nation of the United States, where the home front was actually safe -- unless you were in Honolulu or the Aleutians. I'm not sure how they got Cagney away from Warner Brothers for it, but perhaps director Mervyn Leroy pulled a few strings at his former studio. He was, after all, married to the boss's daughter.

Though the film is dated because of it's obvious World War II origin, You John Jones still has a somewhat relevant message for today. I qualify that with a somewhat because surely 9/11 shattered quite a few illusions about that.

Still we are a wealthy and prosperous country and still relatively safe as opposed to a lot of areas on this globe. May it ever be so as James Cagney realized while doing his thankless job as an air raid warden in World War II America.

Of course these war time shorts brought together folks from different studios for the war effort. Cagney got to work with Ann Sothern and Margaret O'Brien and never did so again.

Wouldn't it be interesting today though if this short film was updated and say Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and their little bambino did something similar? As an example of course.

Heavy-handed short gets the glossy MGM treatment as James Cagney, Ann Sothern and Margaret O'Brien play a typical American family during World War II.

His daughter's recitation of The Gettysburg Address makes the father think about how differently things would be if he didn't live in the good old USA.

The effectiveness of this short will depend on just how heavy-handed you think this kind of propaganda was--either then or now--but there's no doubt that WWII audiences were being fed wartime shorts like this as a way to stir patriotism in the hearts of viewers.

The performances are professional and will certainly please fans of the three stars. Mervyn LeRoy directed, so you know how important shorts like these were for the studio. They even borrowed James Cagney from Warner Brothers.