Censored

1944
6.3| 0h3m| en
Details

Private Snafu wants to tell his sweetheart, Sally Lou, that he thinks his unit will be sent to the South Pacific. But every effort he makes to get his letter through uncensored is thwarted by a resourceful (and unseen) censor with an array of contraptions and booby traps. Not even Snafu's carrier pigeon can avoid the censor -- not when he has a hawk for an assistant. Technical Fairy, First Class, comes to the rescue and agrees to deliver the letter -- but he has good reason to say that he'll hate himself in the morning.

Director

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Warner Bros. Pictures

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Reviews

2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!
GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.
Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Edgar Allan Pooh . . . conveying the message that "Loose lips sink ships." However, frame-by-frame scrutiny of this World War Two Era "Private Snafu" Warner Bros. animated short reveals that CENSORED is ACTUALLY promoting a "Loose lips jinx Nips" message. Bare Nips appear on many of the Pin-ups plastering the walls of Snafu's South Seas Quonset Hut. They later are featured prominently when Snafu's loose-lipped gal back home, Sally Lou, greets her mailman totally topless. Bare Boobies are even used as a camouflage screen by the Japanese troops acting upon Sally's Brazen Braless Baring of American Invasion plans for "Bingo Bango Island." This atoll is drawn as an apparently welcoming but actually Nit- or Nip-infested portal for the entry of clueless U.S. Seamen. Snafu then crows about catching someone with "their pants down," but it's awfully hard to tell just whose panties are in a bunch. CENSORED is pretty much five minutes of non-stop sexual innuendo. Warner Bros.' subliminal marching orders urge U.S. servicemen to instigate a Baby Boom by servicing American Ladies ASAP. This strategy of eventually overwhelming the Japanese through a sheer U.S. numerical advantage was, of course, short-circuited by the atom bombs. However, by then the flood of babies already were in the pipeline (no more able to be returned to the Tube than excess toothpaste).
MartinHafer The Private Snafu films were clearly made to be seen by soldiers and not by the general public. The dirty jokes, sexual innuendos and language is relatively tame today but never would have been allowed in the regular theaters due to the Production Code. But, such off-color remarks went over very well with the enlisted men and helped to illustrate important information in a humorous and memorable fashion.In this particular short, Snafu keeps trying again and again to sneak a letter to his girlfriend past the military censors. However, again and again they catch him. So, when his Technical Fairy First Class arrives, Snafu asks him to deliver the letter. As usual, the fairy is able to show Snafu what COULD happen if this information got out--even if it seemed very innocent.All in all, not among the very best (such as BOOBY TRAPS and SPIES) but still a very good cartoon. Not only did it illustrate its point well but had a few good laughs thrown in to make the message quite palatable.
phantom_tollbooth Frank Tashlin's 'Censored' is a so-so Private Snafu short which aims to teach the importance of the Censor in stopping military secrets from leaking out. Snafu attempts to get word out to his girlfriend that he's to be stationed in the South Pacific but the Censor foils each attempt he makes to send the letter. These early scenes are the best, with the unseen Censor plucking the letter out of the sky with long mechanical arms, nets and even a specially employed eagle! The second half of the cartoon, in which Snafu manages to send the letter with the aid of Technical Fairy, First Class (who is actually teaching him a lesson), is less funny and climaxes with a disappointing only-a-dream finale. The main point of interest in this part of the cartoon is the appearance of Snafu's extremely scantily clad girlfriend who is even seen bare-breasted, albeit with strategically placed limbs at all times! Aimed at the military, the Snafu shorts were often characterised by a heightened bawdiness but these scenes, crowbarred in as they may be, are by far the most erotic I've come across in any of these shorts thus far. Despite all this, I prefer the Snafu shorts that go for the jugular a little more, usually resulting in the death of the main character. For great examples of this, seek out Tashlin's 'The Goldbrick' or Chuck Jones's 'Spies'. 'Censored' is fairly weak by comparison.
Robert Reynolds This is one of 28 short (three to four minutes each, typically) cartoons showing how NOT to be a good soldier and the potential consequences of doing or saying the wrong things. Targeted solely at servicemen, the language was far more graphic and animation more adult in nature on a few occasions. Censored is about the need to censor correspondence home so that the enemy doesn't pick up vital information from the seemingly innocuous, casual remark (i.e., troop movements, location, unit number, et cetera). Private Snafu is the world's worst soldier and the name is an acronym-Situation Normal, All Fouled Up being the kinder, gentler meaning given in polite parlance. Excellent series, well worth seeing. Highly recommended.

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