I understand this film did poorly at the box office. And I understand. A lot of it is pretty uninteresting, although its intent -- to instill pride in America -- was admirable. What's interesting about this "flop" were the big stars in it: Ethel Barrymore, Gary Cooper, Nancy Davis (not a big star, but the future First Lady), Van Johnson, Gene Kelly, Janet Leigh, Marjorie Main, Fredric March, George Murphy, William Powell, S.Z. Sakall, James Whitmore, and Keenan Wynn.
So how did a film with such a stellar cast flop? It was 8 unrelated "skits" about some aspect of American life. So each star was on camera for maybe 5-10 minutes only. Some of the stories were dumb and/or boring. Lots of propaganda-type film in between. A couple of the stories were interesting -- for example the Italian family segment (headed by Fredric March) was well done, as was the census story headed by Ethel Barrymore.
This is NOT one for your DVD shelf, but is worth one watch for the big stars.
So how did a film with such a stellar cast flop? It was 8 unrelated "skits" about some aspect of American life. So each star was on camera for maybe 5-10 minutes only. Some of the stories were dumb and/or boring. Lots of propaganda-type film in between. A couple of the stories were interesting -- for example the Italian family segment (headed by Fredric March) was well done, as was the census story headed by Ethel Barrymore.
This is NOT one for your DVD shelf, but is worth one watch for the big stars.