The Spirit of ’43 (1943)
Article 6074 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-14-2022
Directed by Jack King
Featuring the voice of Clarence Nash
Country: USA
What it is; WWII Propaganda Piece

It’s payday for Donald Duck. Should he go out and spend his money, or should he save it for taxes?

The fantastic content in this short is not the presence of talking ducks; at this point of time the presence of talking animals is considered by me a tradition of the cartoon genre and not fantastic content per se. Rather, it’s because Donald is tempted by this cartoon’s equivalent of the devil/angel wrong path/right path concept; both the thrifty duck and big spending duck initially appear magically to lead or tempt Donald. It also took a little time for me to see why this cartoon appeared in my Banned Cartoons collection. The wartime setting had me expecting offensive stereotypes of Germans or Japanese, but none appear. It was only when my wife pointed out that the thrifty angel was Scottish that the stereotype alarm finally went off.

As for the cartoon itself, I am a bit in awe of what it was attempting to do, which was to try to make the paying of taxes appear to be a patriotic duty, using the war as its selling point. I do wonder how effective it was at its time; I certainly doubt that message would have any resonance today. Being a Disney cartoon, it is a well-mounted production, but I doubt it was very popular; it’s so focused on its message that it becomes rather tiresome, and Donald is really not given much to do. It’s best taken as a curio of its time.

The Sender (1982)
Article 6070 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-1-2022
Directed by Roger Christian
Featuring Kathryn Harrold, Zeljko Ivanek, Shirley Knight
Country: UK
What it is: Offbeat horror film

A psychiatrist attempts to treat a suicidal amnesiac in a mental ward only to discover the patient has an uncontrollable psychic ability to project his nightmares into the minds of others.

Though I feel this movie has some flaws (such as being a bit muddled at times and having a somewhat unsatisfying ending), I’m really taken with the low-key approach the movie uses to tell its story; it makes the fantastic aspects more unsettling and provides a good contrast to the nightmare sequences. The movie is also anchored by the performances of the leads; Harrold, Ivanek and Knight (as the young man’s mother) all give fine, engaging performances. There are also some odd religious subtexts to the story, given that the young man does not believe he has a father and is mistaken as a Christ figure by some of the other patients. In the end, the positive aspects of the movie are strong enough to make it a worthy view.