Plot
The film begins with a father and worker (Cagney) working at an armaments factory, until he finally gets off and goes home. When he is at home, he is interrupted from listening to his daughter's recitation of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to go out for the Civil Defense on an air-raid patrol. When he is out at his post he feels a little silly being there, as no air raids have hit America, though they have hit America's allies.
He then goes off into a dream sequence, narrated by God, about the various areas in which air raids and other violence has been brought on civilians, by air and other means. Each vignette ends with a small child dead or wounded and the narrator asking him, what if it was "your baby, John Jones, your baby" the dream sequence ends with an air attack, after which Jones finally awakes. He returns to his house and his daughter finishes the recitation of the Gettysburg Address "...so that government by the people, for the people, and of the people shall not perish from this Earth."
James Francis Cagney Jr. was an American actor, dancer and film director. On stage and in film, Cagney was known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal style, and deadpan comic timing. He won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is remembered for playing multifaceted tough guys in films such as The Public Enemy (1931), Taxi! (1932), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), The Roaring Twenties (1939), City for Conquest (1940) and White Heat (1949), finding himself typecast or limited by this reputation earlier in his career. He was able to negotiate dancing opportunities in his films and ended up winning the Academy Award for his role in the musical Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). In 1999 the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its list of greatest male stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Orson Welles described Cagney as "maybe the greatest actor who ever appeared in front of a camera".
Thomas Jasper "Tom" Cat Sr. is a fictional character and one of the two titular main protagonists in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of Tom and Jerry theatrical animated short films. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, he is a grey and white anthropomorphic domestic short haired mute tuxedo cat who first appeared in the 1940 MGM animated short Puss Gets the Boot. The cat was known as "Jasper" during his debut in the short; however, beginning with his next appearance in The Midnight Snack he was known as "Tom" or "Thomas".
The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics is a 1965 animated short film directed by Chuck Jones and co-directed by Maurice Noble, based on the 1963 book of the same name written and illustrated by Norton Juster. The film was narrated by Robert Morley and produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It won the 1965 Academy Award for Animated Short Film and was entered into the Short Film Palme d'Or competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.
Gustav Gerson Kahn was an American lyricist who contributed a number of songs to the Great American Songbook, including "Pretty Baby", "Ain't We Got Fun?", "Carolina in the Morning", "Toot, Toot, Tootsie ", "My Buddy" "I'll See You in My Dreams", "It Had to Be You", "Yes Sir, That's My Baby", "Love Me or Leave Me", "Makin' Whoopee", "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "I'm Through with Love", "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and "You Stepped Out of a Dream".
Irving Lahrheim, known professionally as Bert Lahr, was an American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. He was best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion, as well as his counterpart Kansas farmworker "Zeke", in the MGM adaptation of The Wizard of Oz (1939). He was well known for his quick-witted humor and his work in burlesque and vaudeville and on Broadway.
Margaret O'Brien is an American film, radio, television, and stage actress, and is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Beginning a prolific career as a child actress in feature films for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at age 4, O'Brien became one of the most popular child stars in cinema history and was honored with a Juvenile Academy Award as the outstanding child actress of 1944. In her later career, she appeared on television, on stage, and in supporting film roles.
Gerald Jinx "Jerry" Mouse is a fictional character and one of the two titular characters in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's series of Tom and Jerry theatrical animated short films and other animated media, usually acting as the protagonist opposite his rival Tom Cat. Created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, Jerry is a cute brown mute anthropomorphic house mouse, who first appeared as a mouse named Jinx in the 1940 MGM animated short Puss Gets the Boot. Hanna gave the mouse's original name as "Jinx", while Barbera claimed the mouse went unnamed in his first appearance.
Amy Heckerling is an American film director. An alumna of both New York University and the American Film Institute, she directed the commercially successful films Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985), Look Who's Talking (1989), and Clueless (1995).
Virginia Mayo was an American actress and dancer. She was in a series of comedy films with Danny Kaye and was Warner Brothers' biggest box-office money-maker in the late 1940s. She also co-starred in the 1946 Oscar-winning movie The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat (1949).
Gordon Douglas Brickner was an American film director and actor, who directed many different genres of films over the course of a five-decade career in motion pictures.
Boom Town is a 1940 American Western film starring Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr, and directed by Jack Conway. The supporting cast features Frank Morgan, Lionel Atwill, and Chill Wills. A story written by James Edward Grant in Cosmopolitan magazine entitled "A Lady Comes to Burkburnett" provided the inspiration for the film. The film was produced and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Angels in the Outfield is a 1951 American comedy film produced and directed by Clarence Brown and starring Paul Douglas and Janet Leigh. Based on a story by Richard Conlin, the film is about a young woman reporter who blames the Pittsburgh Pirates' losing streak on their abusive manager, who begins hearing the voice of an angel promising to help the team if he changes his ways. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on September 7, 1951.
Smart Money is a 1931 American pre-Code drama film produced and distributed by Warner Bros., directed by Alfred E. Green, and starring Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. It is the only occasion Robinson and Cagney appeared in a film together, despite being the two leading actors, mainly portraying gangsters, at Warner Bros. studios throughout the 1930s. Smart Money was shot after Robinson's signature film Little Caesar had been released and during the filming of Cagney's breakthrough masterpiece The Public Enemy, which is how Cagney came to play a supporting role.
George E. Marshall was an American actor, screenwriter, producer, film and television director, active through the first six decades of film history.
Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures, featured in the studio's production logo, which was created by the Paramount Studios art director Lionel S. Reiss.
MGM Animation/Visual Arts was an American animation studio established in 1962 by animation director/producer Chuck Jones and producer Les Goldman as Sib Tower 12 Productions. Its productions include the last series of Tom and Jerry theatrical shorts, the TV specials Horton Hears a Who and How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, and the feature film The Phantom Tollbooth, all released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The Show of Shows is a 1929 American pre-Code musical revue film directed by John G. Adolfi and distributed by Warner Bros. The all talking Vitaphone production cost $850,000 and was shot almost entirely in Technicolor.
Harry Beaumont was an American film director, actor, and screenwriter. He worked for a variety of production companies including Fox, Goldwyn, Metro, Warner Brothers, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Our Gang Follies of 1938 is a 1937 American musical short subject, the 161st short subject entry in Hal Roach's Our Gang series. Directed by Gordon Douglas as a sequel to 1935's Our Gang Follies of 1936, the two-reel short was released to theaters on December 18, 1937 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Little Johnny Jet is a 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio cartoon short directed by Tex Avery about a "family" of airplanes. The title is a play on Little Johnny Jones. The screenplay was written by Heck Allen. The film score was composed by Scott Bradley. The film was produced by Fred Quimby.
