Make Mine Freedom
An evening pause: A 1948 cartoon, made at the start of the Cold War. It uncannily predicts quite accurately what is happening now, in America, because the Boomer generation and those who followed poo-pooed its lessons. They knew better!
I post it on Memorial Day because I wish to remember what once was.
Hat tip Lazarus Long.
From the press release: From the moment he is handed a possibility of making the first alien contact, Saunders Maxwell decides he will do it, even if doing so takes him through hell and back.
Unfortunately, that is exactly where that journey takes him.
The vision that Zimmerman paints of vibrant human colonies on the Moon, Mars, the asteroids, and beyond, indomitably fighting the harsh lifeless environment of space to build new societies, captures perfectly the emerging space race we see today.
He also captures in Pioneer the heart of the human spirit, willing to push forward no matter the odds, no matter the cost. It is that spirit that will make the exploration of the heavens possible, forever, into the never-ending future.
Available everywhere for $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit. And if you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.
Great selection!
https://archive.org/details/4050_Make_Mine_Freedom_01_01_10_02
“Produced by John Sutherland Productions (Hollywood) for Harding College (Searcy, Arkansas). Registered for copyright April 6, 1948. Distributed theatrically by Loew’s, Incorporated (MGM) and nontheatrically by Harding College and Modern Talking Picture Service. 10 min., 16mm, Technicolor. Music composition and arrangement: Scott Bradley, Paul J. Smith. Winner of a 1949 Freedoms Foundation Award and an “Oscar” at the Cleveland Film Festival (Free Enterprise Division), 1950. “This is one of a series of films produced by the Extension Department of Harding College to create a deeper understanding of what has made America the finest place in the world to live.”
Well that is a lesson America didn’t listen too.
Let’s go for a ride…..
“Freedom Highway” (1956)
https://archive.org/details/0686_Freedom_Highway
“This entertaining “story of America,” as endless as a cross-country bus ride, places an unusual group of travelers on a long-haul Greyhound bus. Fred Schroder, embittered by the death of his son in Korea, is riding to Washington to accept a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor on the son’s behalf. Jimmy Rollins, the Scout, is heading to Washington for his first Jamboree. Love interest is supplied by Mary (a young Angie Dickinson) and Bill Roberts, a basketball star on the make. Tex Ritter, playing himself, takes a short ride on the bus as it passes through Texas, singing about the Alamo and the “freedom road.” Most important of all, a black-suited mysterious stranger appears, as if from nowhere, to transform the outlook of the passengers, who include us, the audience.”
Interesting that so many of the characters look like they came from the 19th century.