Boring

The acting in this movie is really good.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Some people may be shocked or even shriek to find out Disney was once known for creating shorts that involved the Nazis and Nazi Germany during the World War II era. These shorts have gone on to live kind of an infamous life in terms of popularity amongst cinephiles and Disney-enthusiasts, but arguably the most known short of all these is Der Fuehrer's Face, focusing on Donald Duck, who resides in Communist Russia, working the unforgiving job of constructing artillery shells of all different sizes on an assembly line. However, whenever an image of Hitler passes on the assembly line, no matter what Donald is doing, he must "heil" to Hitler to show respect and fatefulness. As one can imagine, Donald's job is an exhausting one, and at home, nothing awaits besides bread that is really a wooden log, a sole coffee bean, and bacon and eggs straight from an aromatic spray can. The music in the short is outstanding, catchy and infectious, while the breakneck animation, paced quite briskly, is equally outstanding. The short flies by the seat of its pants and provides one with thought about the conditions living in the USSR during the Cold War times, if in a vague, propagandistic way. The bottom line is the short is heavily entertaining and so wild it needs to be seen, like many Disney shorts, just to feed rampant curiosity.Directed by: Jack Kinney.

Curiosity brought me to this Disney cartoon since of all the things you probably don't expect to see in them is a reference to Hitler in the title. Within a few seconds that list of "things you don't expect in a Disney cartoon" got a brand new #1 as I saw the sight of Donald Duck wearing the swastika and living in Nazi Germany! Yes this film is a piece of propaganda based around a Mel Brooks-esque song which spoofs the Nazi party anthem. The plot sees Donald living in Germany, working in an ammunition factory and struggling with the demands from his bosses, the limited rations and other conditions.Watching this film years later is an odd experience because it is a very basic and crude affair if you watch it today; it blasts stereotypes and uses nationalistic and racist caricatures in its animations while all the time the visual humor is very much limited to "look at these suckers" style humor (which is reconfirmed at the end). However it isn't really possible to watch it without the context that this is a propaganda film and this is not only to be expected but is actually the whole point. In this regard it does work and I did find parts of it funny and quite imaginative while the song itself is very good. I can understand why Disney kept it out of circulation for so long, since it could have damaged Donald as a character to be seen dressed as a Nazi (albeit to make a point).The thing that surprised me the most is reading that it won the Academy Award that year for best animated short – I am now really curious as to what the other nominees were because I struggle with the idea that this was the best the year had to offer. Of course voting is always political in these things and I guess there is no more worthy political cause to vote with at the Oscars than defeating Nazism – but for sure this is why the short won, not just off the quality.

It's a common opinion that all kinds of propaganda movies should be banned altogether and not made accessible to the public. This 8-minute Donald Duck short film is the perfect example of why that would be a huge mistake. These kind of films are often a great way to understand historical context from times long gone and are also a fascinating watch in order to witness how they tried to and often succeeded to manipulate the people. "Der Fuehrer's Face" is possibly the most famous political cartoon from World War II. The only other one that may reach the same status is MGM's Blitz Wolf from the same year. "Der Fuehrer's Face" BTW. also won the Oscar over that one in a year where it was the only Disney entry in the animated short category, a rather unusual occurrence as Disney occasionally took 4 of the 5 spots with their films.In any case, the film is packed with a few subtle and very many not-so-subtle Nazi symbolisms and metaphors, like the windmill or Donald's house. But also the Italians and Japanese get their fair share of shade. The story can be summarized pretty quickly. Donald wakes up as a proud Nazi, but his lack of great living conditions, especially food, and hard work make him quickly turn insane as he has knives put to his neck and is constantly treated with noisy propaganda. The end is as patriotic as it gets and it's easy to see why people liked it that much in times like these. An important historical document.

I can see why this episode was banned. What some children were going through, they couldn't stand but see it happen to a character they love. Or though I think. That's just my theory. Or it was just not appropriate for a child to watch something as horrible as that.Donald Duck, who is actually sleeping but having a horrible nightmare, making missiles of different shapes and sizes, which seem to be hard. He has to eat horrible food. Wood instead of bread, which I'm not sure if the people who were in the German army actually had food or this is true.I do not really recommend this cartoon. It was just horrible, but interesting. Horrible for children though.