Summary

Don't Be a Sucker

Source Archive Films by Getty Images
Title: Don't Be a Sucker
File Number: PA-0022 Beta SP
Color: B W
Type: Educational Industrial
Year: 1947
Subjects: Aerials
Description: Don't Be a Sucker The Refugee: Paul Lukas. Like The House I Live In, this film warns that Americans will lose their country if they let themselves be turned into "suckers" by the forces of fanaticism and hatred. This thesis is rendered more powerful by the ever-present example of Nazi Germany, whose capsule history is dramatized as part of this film. There's a great deal of good sense in this film and more than a bit of wartime populism: "Let's not think about 'we' and 'they.' Let's think about 'us'!"] It's interesting to think of this film in the light of Cold War anti-Communist politics, which really came into their own in the year this film was made. Were the witch-hunting politicians and citizens of the late Forties and early Fifties protecting the people, or were they themselves acting like "suckers?" Ken Smith sez: Everyone has something that can be taken away, explains the narrator of this film, and so does average everyman "sucker" Mike -- he stands to lose "America." Mike watches idly while a street corner soapbox orator rants against Negroes, "alien foreigners" and Catholics. Mike thinks this is pretty agreeable, until the rabble-rouser adds "freemasons" to his list. Hey, wait a second, Mike says, I'm a freemason. Over wanders an elderly man with a Hungarian accent (so he says) who proceeds to set dizzy Mike straight. The Hungarian reminds Mike that Germany was "a nation of suckers" who allowed "crazy people stupid fanatics" to use prejudice to "cripple the nation." "We must guard everyone's liberties, or we can lose our own," he declares. "Let's not be suckers! Let's be selfish about it let's not think about 'we' and 'they'. Let's think about 'us'!" Good direction and an obviously decent budget make this film very watchable, and it's interesting to hear the old man appeal to our "good, hard, common sense" in that Bugs Bunny blue-collar worker colloquial slang that was the accepted voice of Average Joe in postwar America. "America is minorities," the old man proclaims, "and that means you and me!" This populist New Deal view would disappear as quickly as evil German references in the Republican 1950s. 22:33:53 Don't Be a Sucker 22:34:01 Four men gambling 22:34:22 Man walks down dark street with blonde girl. 22:34:26 Man hiding in dark corner behind couple 22:34:30 Man in corner steps out on street with weapon 22:34:31 First man falls forward on sidewalk 22:34:35 Second man searches his pockets (girl does nothing) 22:34:40 Attacker and girl look through wallet together 22:34:33 They run off together 22:34:45 CU Hands playing shell game 22:34:49 Superimposed CU Face of gullible man VO: "There's a good old fashioned word for people like this 'suckers.' And there are other people, people who stay up nights figuring out how to take away what they've got." 22:35:14 Pan of factory * 22:35:17 Fade to pan of cityscape 22:35:20 Fade to AV of crowd 22:35:28 Coal mining shots 22:26:54 Man on soapbox with flag behind him and small crowd in front: "The truth about Negroes and foreigners! The truth about the Catholic Church!" 22:43:32 AV of massive rally (cannot tell from shot if this is a Nazi rally) 22:43:08 WS Mass book burning 22:43:11 Book burning
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