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# Documentary in Transition, Part I: The United States # Robert Katz and Nancy Katz # Hollywood Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Summer, 1948), pp. 425-433

This is a contemporary essay of how government agencies helped shape Hollywood documentaries. What is particularly interesting is that an author of the essay was involved first-hand in the Hollywood-US government interaction: Robert Katz was Deputy Chief of Long Range Operations in the Office of War Information (OWI), Overseas Branch and then Assistant Chief of Production Planning in the International Motion Picture Division of the Department of State in 1946 and 1947. In this essay he co-authors with Nancy Katz, Robert Katz discusses the role of the "Private Snafu" series vis-à-vis other elements of government propaganda to manage and ensure morale of the troops. Specifically, the Katzs discuss how one of these shorts film portrays the consequences of Private Snafu neglecting a hole in the mosquito net: death at the hands of "Anopheles Annie," a malaria-carrying mosquito. Such films were direct answers to concerns and questions that soldiers had about life in the military. In addition to the Armed Forces, other forms of government interaction with the film industry included the Overseas Branch of the OWI, which actually made films that were shown exclusively abroad to promote elements of the New Deal.

This essay places the “Private Snafu” series in historical and contextual perspective in relation to other war time film propaganda, both in terms of the intended audience and the production process. It also captures the importance of the documentary filmm=-making approach and its relevance for effective propaganda.

Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939-1945 (review) Fyne, Robert. Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies, Volume 35.1 (2005), p. 78 (Review)

In a book review in the 2005 issue of "Film & History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Television Studies," Robert Frye discusses the importance of parody as a viable propaganda format. The subject of his review is "Doing Their Bit: Wartime American Animated Short Films, 1939-1945" by Michael S. Shull and David E. Wilt. (McFarland, 2004. 246 pages), a study of Hollywood films during World War II. Frye writes how the book provides additional information about America's attitudes toward World War II and the responses from Hollywood to such feelings, especially how these changing attitudes shaped production of animated films during World War II. An example he points out is how advancements made by Allied Forces on Germany and in the Pacific Theater against Japan were coupled by a decline in the number of cartoons produced. The authors conclude that the sense of impatience for a prolonged war and optimism for a better life post war contributed to the decline of the animated short.

Just as propaganda films such as the “Private Snafu” series were born of wartime sentiments, their ending was also correlated with war time events in real time. As people yearned for more positivism as the War dragged on, there was less of a demand for propaganda film that centered around the war effort. Indeed, film often represents a cultural and societal dialogue not just between the studios of the film industry with the government but also with the people who serve as audience and consumers of the film product. In this way, control of films is restored in part to the people from the government’s film office.

Animating culture : Hollywood cartoons from the sound era / Eric Smoodin.

Smoodin discusses the complex relationship between Hollywood and the government, which essentially acts as a studio as it plays a increasing role in controlling film media during World War II. Smoodin points out the irony that in serving to assuage soldiers’ discontent with military life, the “Private Snafu” series also reinforced how much discontent permeated the military. By presenting a negative example of how not to act, these films were effectively both modeling and providing resistance against military authority.

Smoodin’s argument resolves the fact that the “Private Snafu” series both illuminated and worked to address contradictions within military life. In fact, the seeming irony does not undermine the ideological purpose and inherent success of these films to serve the needs of the government in maintaining morale in the military because they represented the reconciliation between the individual and the group in social psychology. The relevance of psychology and one’s awareness as an “everyman” soldier vis-à-vis the greater goals of the group (and the nation) meant that the “Private Snafu” series provides more positive answers to address soldiers’ concerns than exposes negativity about these concerns.

Review: [untitled], Susan Ohmer, Film History, Vol. 6, No. 3, Exploitation Film (Autumn, 1994), pp. 405-408 (Indiana University Press)

Ohmer notes in her review of "Animating culture: Hollywood cartoons from the sound era" by Eric Smoodin (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, NJ, 1933. 216 pgs) that "Private Snafu" series was often shown at civilian theaters at the end of military film. According to Smoodin, the character of Private Snafu acted as an outlet that addressed soldiers' discontent while also indoctrinating them further with ways of military life.

Ohmer’s discussion hints at a counterpoint to the effectiveness of the “Private Snafu” series in that the propaganda may have done more harm than good for its audience. Although the films succeeded in ironing out soldiers’ qualms, their discussion of these qualms reinforces many of the negatives of military life.

Danks, Adrian.

In this article, Danks focuses on "Spies" as a quintessential example of the "Private Snafu" series and how its close relation to documentary film reinforced its effectiveness as propaganda. The films were produced by Frank Capra and commissioned as part of "The Army-Navy Screen Magazine." Their targeted audience is reinforced in the film’s use of sexually suggestive content that would have been banned by the Production Code if not for the film’s role in propaganda for the military. In addition, the series was also the first collaboration of Dr. Seuss and Chuck Jones, and drew attention to the social psychology of the individual in the military.

“Private Snafu” was particularly effective because of the many ways in which it was allowed to differ from mainstream cinema as a result of its production for a specific audience. Exclusive exhibition to the military enabled the films to capitalize on its creativity and often raunchy humor to tell the story of Private Snafu. Furthermore, the propaganda purposes of “Private Snafu” give it an approach similar to that used in documentary film-making aimed at telling the “truth.”