''Safeguarding Military Information'' was a short
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
film produced by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...
in 1942.
Description
The film opens with a dramatic explosion of a ship by two undercover saboteurs and then fades into a written "Thoughtlessness Breeds Sabotage" message. A short vignette comes next with a sailor with his girlfriend on the telephone at a bar. As he placates her suspicions by telling her that he is sailing to
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...
on the USS ''Navajo'' at 10:30 pm. A man with a radio disguised as a hearing aid is sitting next to him, and he sends the message to his confederates speaking in code with an enemy submarine, which blows up the ship.
then appears as a military instructor briefing a class about military security, and narrates a short vignette about service men in a bowling alley and how they confront a stranger asking questions about military equipment.
Probably the most powerful segment is the last, in which a woman at a grocery store, tells the grocer about her son George taking a train to the West Coast, unaware of the person standing behind her. The film fades into a newspaper room, and an editor hurriedly ordering a re-write after receiving a telephone call. When the headline is shown, it does not show the information that the woman gave out, but that 200 servicemen died in a train explosion. The women's face is shown superimposed on the newspaper saying, "No, not George!"
See also
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List of Allied propaganda films of World War II
During World War II and immediately after it, in addition to the many private films created to help the war effort, many Allied countries had governmental or semi-governmental agencies commission propaganda and training films for home and foreig ...
External links
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1942 short films
American World War II propaganda shorts
American black-and-white films
Films with screenplays by Preston Sturges
American short documentary films
1942 documentary films
1940s short documentary films
Paramount Pictures short films
20th Century Fox short films
1940s English-language films
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