Don't listen to the negative reviews

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

This is an exceptionally well-written and directed B-film from MGM directed in crisp, tense style by RICHARD THORPE.ROBERT YOUNG is at his most affable best as a typical young man of the '40s era who is sought by the government to work on plans for a new bomb-sight design which he must keep top secret. Spies kidnap him and it's while he's being held hostage that he forces himself to remember how he met his wife (MARSHA HUNT) and there are a series of homespun scenes with Young and his son, DARRYL HICKMAN.But even though loaded with flashbacks, Thorpe keeps the action and suspense alive by cutting back and forth between those scenes and clips of his brutal torture by the spies. Fortunately, he keeps his wits about him and is able to recall various things about the hiding place and his captors that help the FBI capture them in the end. A clever series of incidents leads to the manner in which he's able to lead them to the hideout.Well done in crisp style with Robert Young and Marsha Hunt making an attractive pair in the leading roles. Darryl Hickman is effective as the son who has a secret of his own that he's unwilling to tell.Well worth watching as a bit of American propaganda at the outset of WWII.

Joe Smith, American is a bit more than flag waving film, typical of the times back in 1942. It's quite the sociological treatise of its time and rates quite a bit more than most propaganda film, B film that it was.Robert Young's character of Joe Smith is your average American who probably got some help from the New Deal and now that America is mobilizing for war has landed himself a nice job in the defense industry. Which makes him of interest to enemy agents as we shall see.One of the things that really got me was that one of the questions that was asked of him as he's being grilled by security people is his religious views. Young replies that he doesn't go to church regularly, but hastens to assure these people that he does send his kid young Darryl Hickman to Sunday School and he does believe in God. The security people beam their approval at him. The idea that someone who is of atheist or agnostic or even freethinking views is a security risk is something we'd see later on in full force during the McCarthy era.Anyway he gets cleared to work on installing a new kind of bombsight into the planes and then one night some enemy agents kidnap and force him under torture to tell about the bombsight. When the agents go to kill him they make the bad mistake of not killing him in the hideout, but take him by car to wherever they're planning dispose of him. Young makes a daring escape and the police get involved in a hunt for the perpetrators.The out and out flag waving is kept to a minimum, but when young Darryl Hickman tells Young about Nathan Hale whom he learned about in school it's clear that the message of the film is that there might come a day when we could be called on to make a sacrifice like Nathan Hale, even your average Joe Smith, American.The film was released in February of 1942 and must have been rushed into production after Pearl Harbor. Marsha Hunt plays Young's wife and if you look carefully you will spot Ava Gardner in an unbilled non-speaking part.Young who played the ultimate average man in Father Knows Best a decade later on television is perfectly suited for the role of Joe Smith, American. He could be any one of us.

This film was made during World War II and it's an excellent example of positive propaganda. The purpose was not just to entertain but solidify the American public behind the war effort. Instead of the usual war films or escapism, the hero of this story is a regular guy---just like those in the audience--and it shows how even people on the home front can be important to the war effort.Robert Young plays a defense plant worker who is the crew chief responsible to assembling bombers. However, after being interviewed by federal authorities, he's given a super-top secret job installing bomb sights. The American bomb sights were one of the biggest secrets of the war, as planes were able to use this simple computing device to make much more accurate bombing runs.Soon after beginning this job, Young is kidnapped by enemy agents and is beaten rather brutally in order to get him to talk. However, Young is a true hero and not only refuses, but uses his brain in order to take in every detail and plan his escape. When he does ultimately get away, his incredible mind for details and courage leads to the apprehension of the gang.While the film at first seemed a tad hokey, over the course of the film it became obvious that this was an extremely well written and exciting film. Plus, Robert Young did an excellent job in the lead role. Even today, over sixty years later, this is still a great suspense film and great curio to give us insight into what it was like to live at the time in the US.

Interesting movie on a number of levels. As a patriotic retrospective it is good to see how well the "pledge of allegiance" stands up without the "under G*d" inserted by the brave cold warriors of the Eisenhower era and defended with such valiance by the boobs of the new millennium.Another poster mentioned a strange fascist-like salute to the flag. What they were doing was not saluting the flag. When they stood sideways and raised their right hands, palms forward, fingers flattened and pointing at the flag, they were *presenting* the flag as one would present an honored guest at a banquet. I remember doing that as a child in school.