Spies
About Spies
Private Snafu is handed one military secret: his ship sails for Africa at 4:30. He leaks it in pieces, first to the audience, then to his mother from a phone booth, then to a magazine salesman, and finally, after a whole bottle, to a bar girl who works for the Nazis. The report reaches Hitler, who orders an attack. Snafu falls overboard yelling for full speed and is hit by torpedoes. In a cauldron in hell he demands to know who talked. A mirror shows his own face, then a horse's rump.
Cast & crew
More about Spies
Chuck Jones directed this Private Snafu short for the U.S. Army. Dr. Seuss wrote it, Leon Schlesinger produced, and Dr. Seuss also supervised. Mel Blanc supplies every voice. Treg Brown edited. Animators included Robert Cannon, Ken Harris, Ben Washam, Phil Monroe, Lloyd Vaughan, and Phil DeLara.
Themes
Background
Released in August 1943, it drills the wartime slogan about careless talk by having a single GI hand a convoy schedule to German agents.
Making
Private Snafu cartoons were training films, made at Warner Bros. and shown to soldiers rather than booked as ordinary theatrical shorts.
Music
Carl W. Stalling wrote the score and used Raymond Scott's 'Powerhouse' under the bar scene.
Preservation
Prints survive, including a copy circulated as an Army training short.
Notes
- The drunken scene is scored with an excerpt from Raymond Scott's 'Powerhouse.'
- The secret Snafu cannot keep is a sailing time: Africa, 4:30.
- The short was later shown in the World War II spying exhibit at the International Spy Museum.
Scenes
- Snafu, boiling in a cauldron, looks in a mirror for the traitor and sees himself turn into a horse's rump.
Also available
- Internet Archive (private_snafu_spies)
- Wikimedia Commons (Spies - Snafu 1943.webm)
