good back-story, and good acting

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"Spies" runs for 3.5 minutes, is in black-and-white, directed by Chuck Jones and voice acting comes from Mel Blanc. This one shows us how Snafu cannot keep a secret and enemies have their eyes and ears everywhere, so they know all about Snafu's plans. This was a pretty entertaining watch, packed with nice political references and we seven see Hitler as Satan in the end. I can totally see why this Snafu cartoon is more popular than most of the others. It is better in terms of humor, but also more relevant in terms of political context. And it actually tells an important message to soldiers. Be quiet about what you know if you talk to people that you cannot 100% trust. This somehow applies today as well. A very entertaining film and I very much recommend it. My favorite Snafu.

I have no idea if this is typical of the Snafu series, many directed by Jones and written by Dr. Seuss, but I certainly want to see more even if this does not show either master at his very best. Here our private in question blabs his orders to anybody and everybody after vowing to keep it all secret, and of course all the voluptuous babes, bartenders, and even a little guy inside the telephone box end up being broadly caricatured Japanese, German and Italian spies. It all ends quite literally with a big bang and a trip to Hell. Propaganda at it's finest, if awfully frenetic and short.The copy I watched was from "Treasures of American Cinema", volume I, a four-disc set of mostly early shorts and features, all beautifully restored and remastered, with excellent notes and music - an essential set for anyone who wants to better know the history of the American film.

Chuck Jones's 'Spies' is one of the best Private Snafu cartoons made for the military. Used to instruct soldiers against certain behaviour by using Snafu to epitomise it, the Snafu cartoons were known for their bawdier nature inserted to keep the soldiers' attention. So 'Spies' features some prominent breast-based recording equipment, then-risqué use of the word "Hell" and a great horse's ass joke. Directed with great flair by Jones, 'Spies' main trump card is a cracking, witty script entirely in rhyme written by none other than the great Dr. Suess. Suess and Jones were a match made in heaven, as the classic 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' would later attest, and this early collaboration between the two is a worthy forerunner. Though it only lasts about three minutes in total, 'Spies' packs in plenty of laughs and sneaks its message in amongst them so that the audience doesn't feel it has been crammed down their throats at the end.

This film must be understood in the context for which it was made. While this is a film made by talent from Warner Brothers (with voice work by Mel Blanc and production by the folks at Looney Toons), it was NOT intended for general release--but was meant to be shown to soldiers to illustrate the importance of keeping troop activities secret. You can tell this is the case for several reasons--the cartoon is black and white (when Looney Toons had just recently switched to color), the guy at the newspaper stand is reading a magazine entitled "SEX" and the female Nazi spy has a radio hidden in her boobs. This was certainly NOT intended to be seen by the kids! So, with it's more adult humor designed to appeal to those in combat, the movie did a wonderful job of conveying its central message in a cute way--using great animation and a crazy rhyming style that is very, very catchy. Even today, this film is worth seeing--not just by history teachers but by anyone wanting a good laugh or wanting to see what life was like during the war.