Don't Be a Sucker!

Don't Be a Sucker! is a short film produced by the US War Department in 1943 and re-released in 1947. It has anti-racist and anti-fascist themes. The film was made to make the case for the desegregation of the United States armed forces.

Hungarian professor

• In this country we have no "other people", we are American people, all of us.
• Hans had swallowed the bait alright, and these were the men who baited the hook. Why? So that Hans could come to power? No, of course not, so they could come to power! They would merely use Hans to help them get there! He would do the "dirty work" for them.
• They had split the nation into a hundred pieces, and then one by one, they had destroyed the pieces. Over these broken pieces the Nazis rode into power, one party, one nation, one religion.
• These men had won their struggle for power, they now ruled all of Germany, but still they had trouble with their oldest and most persistent enemy: the truth. They found that truth does not die easily, and so they decided to "abolish" truth.
• Hans was an expert at brutality by this time; and Hitler had decided to use Hans and his brutality against other peoples: The Czechs, The Poles, The French, the Russians. But in the crucial test of war, Hitler's race theories didn't pay off. His "pure-blooded super men" were defeated by the "mongrel armies" he despised: by the British at El-Alamein; by the Russians at Stalingrad; and then on D-Day by American soldiers of every color and religion, who smashed across the Normandy beaches, and drove on through to the heart of Germany. For the misguided Germans who had swallowed the Nazi bait, the Nazi game did not pay off. The continent of Europe was strewn with millions of German bodies, "pure, Aryan bodies":
• And Hans, who was going to rule the world, got only a little patch of Normandy that he could call his own.
• So let's not be suckers. We must not allow the freedom or dignity of any man to be threatened by any act or word. Let's be selfish about it. Let's forget about "we" and "they", let's think about us!

Anti-Nazi teacher

• There is no "Aryan race" – and more important – there is no "master race."
• In all racial groups, we find the same range of potentialities. We find idiots, and geniuses, we find criminals, and philanthropists. We must judge each man as an individual, and not by the color of his skin, or his eyes, or by the length of his nose.
• There are many differences between individuals. We each have different capabilities, different backgrounds, different ideas about what's right and what's wrong. Like the difference between me and these gentlemen who have just arrived. But that is not a difference in race, it is a difference in the way we think. Remember that. And remember, that there is no master race, that is a scientific truth. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying!

Nazi Speaker

• The Nazi Party will provide land for the farmer, work for the worker, and profits for the small businessman. Who is getting these things now? The Jew... The Jew who has stolen our nation and our birthright! Who makes all the money and takes all our jobs? The Jew!!! He must be shunned, he must be ostracized, he must be eliminated!
• You who are true Aryan Germans will share the glorious destiny of our Fatherland!!! You are the pure blooded! The master race! It is your divine right to rule, and the Nazi Party stands ready to put you into power! It is for you to command All-Germany, and some day, the entire world!

Dialogue

Hungarian professor: I've heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America.

Mike: Well, I mean, this fella seems to know what he's talking about.

Hungarian professor: [sarcastically] Yes, he knows all right.

---

Hungarian professor: Excuse me young man, but are you actually going to read that stuff?

Mike: Well sure, why not, you heard what he said, didn't ya?

Hungarian professor: Yes, I heard, but you actually believe in that kind of talk?

Mike: I dunno, makes pretty good sense to me.

---

Speaker: I'm speaking to you as an American American. And I tell you friends, we'll never be able to call this country our own, until it's a country without. Without what?!

Onlooker: Yeah, without what?

Speaker: Without negroes! Without alien foreigners! Without Catholics! Without Freemasons!

Mike: Wait, what's wrong with the Masons? I'm a Mason! Hey, that fella's talking about me!

Hungarian professor: And that makes a difference, doesn't it.

Cast

• Paul Lukas as the Hungarian Refugee
• Richard Lane as the Soapbox Orator
• Felix Bressart as the Anti Nazi Teacher
• Bob Bailey as Mike
• Robert Adler as a Listener
• Chick Chandler as a Con artist
• George Chandler as Sucker
• Kurt Kreuger as Hans
• Frank O'Connor as a Listener

External links

• Don't be a Sucker quotes at the Internet Movie Database