Der Fuehrer's Face

Der Fuehrer's Face
Donald Duck series

Original theatrical film poster
Directed by Jack Kinney
Produced by Walt Disney
Story by Joe Grant
Dick Huemer
Voices by Clarence Nash
Billy Bletcher
Music by Oliver Wallace
Animation by Bob Carlson
Les Clark
Bill Justice
Milt Neil
Charles Nichols
John Sibley
Layouts by Don DaGradi
Andy Engman[1]
Studio Walt Disney Productions
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Release date(s)
  • January 1, 1943 (1943-01-01)
Color process Technicolor
Running time 8 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Preceded by Bellboy Donald
Followed by The Spirit of '43

Der Fuehrer's Face (originally titled Donald Duck in Nutzi Land[2]) is a 1943 American animated anti-Nazi propaganda short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released in 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon, which features Donald Duck in a nightmare setting working at a factory in Nazi Germany, was made in an effort to sell war bonds and is an example of American propaganda during World War II.[3] The film was directed by Jack Kinney and written by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer from the original music by Oliver Wallace.[4] The film is well known for Wallace's original song "Der Fuehrer's Face", which was actually released earlier by Spike Jones.

Der Fuehrer's Face won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 15th Academy Awards. It was the only Donald Duck film to receive the honor, although eight other films were also nominated.[5] In 1994, it was voted Number 22 of "the 50 Greatest Cartoons" of all time by members of the animation field. However, because of the propagandistic nature of the short, and the depiction of Donald Duck as a Nazi (albeit a reluctant one), Disney kept the film out of general circulation after its original release. Its first home video release came in 2004 with the release of the third wave of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets.

Plot

The cartoon begins with music from Wagner's comic opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg before continuing into the title song.


A German oom-pah band—composed of Axis leaders Joseph Goebbels on trombone, Heinrich Himmler on snare drum, Hideki Tōjō on sousaphone, Hermann Göring on piccolo and Benito Mussolini on bass drum—marches noisily at four o'clock in the morning through a small German town where everything, even the clouds and trees, are shaped as swastikas, singing the virtues of the Nazi doctrine. Passing by Donald Duck's house (the features of which depict Adolf Hitler), they poke him out of bed with a bayonet to get ready for work. Here Donald then faces and "Heils" the portraits of the Führer (Adolf Hitler), the Emperor (Hirohito), and Il Duce (Mussolini), respectively. Because of wartime rationing, his breakfast consists of a piece of wooden bread, coffee brewed from a single hoarded coffee bean, and an aromatic spray that smells like bacon and eggs. The band shoves a copy of Mein Kampf in front of him for a moment of reading, then marches into his house and escorts him to a factory with Donald now carrying the bass drum and Göring kicking him.

Donald salutes the Führer

Upon arriving at the factory (at bayonet-point), Donald starts his 48-hour daily shift screwing caps onto artillery shells in an assembly line. Mixed in with the shells are portraits of the Führer, so he must perform the Hitler salute every time a portrait appears, all the while screwing the caps onto shells, much to Donald's disgust. Each new batch of shells is of a different size, ranging from minute shells to massive shells, as large as Donald if not larger. The pace of the assembly line intensifies (as in the Charlie Chaplin comedy Modern Times), and Donald finds it increasingly hard to complete all the tasks. At the same time, he is bombarded with propaganda messages about the superiority of the Aryan race and the glory of working for the Führer.

After a "paid vacation" that consists of making swastika shapes with his body for a few seconds in front of a painted backdrop of the Alps as exercise, Donald is ordered to work overtime. He has a nervous breakdown with hallucinations of artillery shells everywhere, some of which are snakes and birds, some sing and are the same shape of the marching band from the start, music and all. When the hallucinations clear, he finds himself in his bed, and realizes that the whole experience was a nightmare, but he sees the shadow of a figure holding its right hand up in the form of a Nazi salute. He begins to do so himself until he realizes that it is the shadow of a miniature Statue of Liberty, holding her torch high in her right hand. Remembering he is in the United States, he embraces the statue, grateful of his United States citizenship.

The short ends with a caricature of Hitler's angry face, and a tomato is thrown at Hitler's face and forms the words The End.

Song

"Der Fuehrer's Face"
Single by Spike Jones and His City Slickers
Recorded 1942
Writer(s) Oliver Wallace

Before the film's release, the popular band Spike Jones and His City Slickers, noted for their parodies of popular songs of the time, released a version of Oliver Wallace's theme song, "Der Fuehrer's Face" (also known informally as "The Nazi Song") in September 1942 on Bluebird Records #11586.[6] The song parodied the Nazi anthem, the "Horst Wessel Song". Unlike the version in the cartoon, some Spike Jones versions contain the rude sound effect of an instrument he called the "birdaphone", a rubber razzer (aka the Bronx Cheer) with each "Heil!" to show contempt for Hitler (Instead, the cartoon version features the sound of a tuba.) The so-called "Bronx Cheer" was a well-known expression of disgust in that time period and was not deemed obscene or offensive. The sheet music cover bears the image of a tomato splattering in Hitler's face. In the Jones version, the chorus line, "Ja, we is the Supermen—" is answered by a soloist's "Super-duper super men!" effeminately delivered suggesting the prevalence of epicenes in the Party; in the Disney version, these lines are flatly delivered but with effeminate gestures. The recording was very popular, peaking at #3 on U.S. charts.[7]

Other versions

Comic book cover

Inclusion in Russia's "extremist" list

In 2010, Der Fuehrer's Face was ruled by a local court in Kamchatka, Russia to be included in the national list of extremist materials, which was first created in 2002. This was due to a local who received a suspended sentence of six months for uploading it to the internet and "inciting hatred and enmity". On July 21, 2016, another Russian court reversed the ruling of the local court, removing the short film from the list. The court highlighted that the film's portrayal of Nazism through caricature form cannot be deemed "extremist" in nature.[9]

In other media

Releases

See also

Further reading

References

  1. 1 2 Der Fuehrer's Face at The Encyclopedia of Animated Disney Shorts
  2. ↑ "New U.S. War Songs". LIFE. 13 (18): 44. 2 November 1942. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
  3. ↑ Blitz, Marcia (1979). Donald Duck. New York: Harmony Books. p. 133. ISBN 0-517-52961-0.
  4. ↑ "Der Fuehrer's Face". BCDB. 2012-12-16.
  5. ↑ Biographies of 10 Classic Disney Characters from Walt Disney Archives at D23: The Official Disney Fan Club
  6. ↑ "The Week's Best Releases". Billboard. September 26, 1942. p. 66. Retrieved June 17, 2014.
  7. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (1986). Pop Memories 1890-1954. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research, Inc. p. 242. ISBN 0-89820-083-0.
  8. ↑ Praguefrank's Country Music Discography: Johnny Bond http://countrydiscoghraphy2.blogspot.ca/2015/02/johnny-bond.html. Retrieved 11 December 2015. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  9. ↑ Kozlov, Vladimir (21 July 2016). "Oscar-Winning Donald Duck Short About Nazi Germany Taken Off Russia's List of Extremist Material". The Hollywood Reporter. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 21 July 2016.

External links

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