Propaganda film made for the U.S. Defense Department during Cold War, entitled “Freedom and You.” Opening scene shows a typical town in the United States, except that soldiers are patrolling and sandbags and barbed wire fencing are seen in places. Narrator, Jack Webb, approaches the camera with comment: “Frightening isn’t it.” Overview of the town. Views through barbed wire of an armed soldier and local people. Ordinary automobile traffic on the street. (Narrator suggests that this town could created somewhere in the Soviet Union to teach young Communists about the United States.) View inside an ice cream parlor with soda jerk serving customers. Numerous views typical of what one would find in an American town: Inside a bank; White Church steeple seen through trees; men conversing in ice cream parlor; inside of a supermarket; (Communist civilian chatting with soldier near barbed wire fence); a baseball game; A tray of hot dogs; school building with students outside; (Teacher inside discussing explosives and listening devices.) Teacher and students in chemistry lab; Slate identifies film title: “Freedom and You.” Boy playing with his dog is chastised by his mother; Young couple conversing over car with open hood; Man going to work kisses his daughter; Men at work in a machine shop; An airmen, marines, and a woman at a table on an air base; KC-97 aerial refueling aircraft in background; Young couple sitting in hotrod car watching as a man races a Chevy Corvette car on the runway. Group at the table give woman timing report; A single engine Beechcraft airplane on the runway; Young couple kiss in front of a M101 105mm howitzer sitting in a building; They speak with an Army officer about postponing his active duty. More views of machine shop; Family at dinner saying goodnight to small children; Father talking with small boy wearing Cub Scout cap; Film is interrupted with a dream sequence showing Communist Martial law imposed on the town. Effects are shown in small vignettes of ordinary life. The machine shop now displays a sign with the day’s production quota. Children being packed to go away to a State School. Father rebels and is seized by military guards. The church is closed for worship, and now houses a Soviet museum. Father stands trial before a military court for rebelling against the Communist State. Family testifies against him. He is sentenced to be shot. He gives impassioned speech about freedom. He is hauled into a room and is shot by a soldier with a pistol. Film ends as he wakes from his nightmare and finds everything back to normal.
U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace on a journey to China through Soviet Union. An animated portion of a globe shows his next destination. The Vice President visits Kazakhstan. A man on a horseback. Sheep, camel and cattle graze in the field. Kazakh man uses a pole with a running noose on it to lasso a horse. The people cook donuts. The horsemen smoke American king size cigarettes for the first time. Women make tea in the open. The coal mine industry in Karaganda. Open cut coal pits. Bulldozers scoop of the earth to revile of coal. Tracks being laid and the trains moves into the cut coal pits. The equipment being used in the mines. Wallace speaks to the engineers. The machines and trains being operated by women. They then visit a copper mine also known as Soviet anaconda. A crane picks up the copper.
Major "space race" and defense events of the year 1957. Laika, Soviet space dog prepared for the space flight. Laika takes off in Sputnik 2 in Soviet Union. An animation shows the spacecraft in outer space. In United States, Space Race efforts to launch a small "grapefruit" satellite on Vanguard TV-3 test rocket meet in failure as the rocket explodes at take off on December 6, 1957. View of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. President Dwight D Eisenhower arrives in Paris, France to talk about the development of missiles with other NATO leaders. The French Prime Minister Felix Gaillard with President Eisenhower. View of Atlas missile SM-65A Serial 12A launched successfully from Cape Canaveral pad LC-14 in Florida, United States, on December 17, 1957.
Victory in Europe Day celebrations in Wiesbaden, Germany after the end of World War II. Damaged buildings . Displaced person's camp buildings. Men decorate platform for a speech on the VE Day (Victory in Europe Day) celebration. Picture of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin,Premiere of the Soviet Union and Russian banner on the platform. Portrait of Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov,Soviet Military Commander and Russian banner. Group of DPs (displaced persons) as they hold a portrait of Stalin and Red flag. Parade begins. Men and girls stand in formation with Red banners and pictures of Stalin. Buildings in the background.
National leaders of Great Britain, United States of America and Soviet Union meet during the Yalta Conference at Crimea in Ukraine. Foreign secretaries of the three Allied nations Stettinius, Eden and Molotov meet at Malta. General George C Marshal meets with the secretaries. Meeting of the secretaries at Montgomery house at Malta. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill disembarks from a plane for Yalta Conference. U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt arrives with his daughter. The dignitaries review an honor guard. Soviet Premiere Joseph Stalin arrives and the Big Three during the meeting at conference hall in the summer palace of Czar Nicholas. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin pose for a group photograph and military generals stand behind them. (World War II period).
Communist-backed North Korea at war with South Korea. Views of U.S. Navy warships firing on North Korean targets, U.S. Army tanks moving through a city in Korea, and U.S. soldiers scrambling in a fire fight. A U.S. Army chaplain hugs a dying American soldier and pats his face. The chaplain closely prays over the dying soldier. A U.S. Army officer lifts a shocked Korean child into a truck. Young Korean children, possibly orphans, eating food at a table. Korean civilians including women and children fleeing the war. UN council in a meeting regarding the Korean War. Soldiers from multiple nations mobilizing for the effort in Korea. View of Kremlin in Soviet Union. Scene of Stalin dead, lying in state surrounded by flowers around his casket. Other Soviet political leaders look on. Citizens pass by site where Stalin is memorialized. East German leader Walter Ulbricht speaking at a podium. Laborers in East Germany struggling as they work longer hours for less pay. Workers construct buildings. East German construction workers sitting idle on the scaffolds of a building under construction as they begin their strike in June 1953, initiating the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany.
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