Daily Variety reported on October 8, 1946 that Sutherland had received approval of script on the animated, Technicolor short "Private Enterprise" from Harding College, and shooting was to start that week. There was no cartoon released with that name, so this may have been the working title of Make Mine Freedom, its first cartoon for Harding. Sutherland managed to find a theatrical release, with MGM revealing on February 6, 1948 it would put Make Mine Freedom into theatres. That happened the following month.
There’s no subtleness in this short. John Q. Public (who sounds like Stan Freberg at least some of the time) urges representatives of labour, management, government and farmers to try the “Ism” being peddled by Dr. Utopia (played by Frank Nelson).
After glugging down the “Ism,” the picture fades into a fantasy sequence of what America would turn into.
A factory worker (voiced by Billy Bletcher) protests working conditions imposed by the government. The huge hand of government clamps a ball and chain on him. “The state forbids strikes,” says the ominous off-screen voice (Bud Hiestand). When the worker threatens union action, the hand stamps him with a government union mark.
When the tycoon objects to having his business taken over and threatens to sue, the hand appears again to tell him “The state is the Supreme Court” and tosses him out of his former factory. “No more private property. No more you.”
When the government takes away the pigs and corn of the farmer, he pledges the “farm vote” will put a stop to it. The voice tells him farmers don’t vote any more, and after clamping an iron collar on him, informs him “the state will do the planning from now on.”
The scene swirls into the Congressman (John Brown?) in a concentration camp, calling for a fight “to regain our freedom.” The hand squashes him and turns him into a propaganda record player, repeating over and over “Everything is fine.”
Not surprisingly, reactions to the cartoon varied depending if you were on the left or the right side of the political fence. Hearst columnist George E. Sokolsky wrote on May 8, 1948:
I saw a movie short, done after the style of Walt Disney, which is humorous, colorful, bright and yet explains why the United States is an excellent place in which to live—in fact a better place than those proletarian heavens that are so widely advertised by the seekers of utopias. The short is called “Make Mine Freedom” and it was prepared by the John Sutherland Productions, Inc.The reason why I like this short so much and call it to your attention so that if your movie house shows it, you will go to see it, is that it is the first of its kind that is wholly affirmative. It does not apologize for the American civilization: it rather challenges anyone to produce a better one. And while the nine–minute short is full of humor, it nevertheless hits the nail squarely on the head. In this country, we have freedom, and that is worth more than anything else in all this world.
On the flip side was this review by Herb Tank of The Daily Worker, May 6, 1948.
SEEING MOST of the nonsense that concerns this department at press previews saves me from the short subjects that often plague the neighborhood film goer. But now and then I get trapped. The last time was by Metro. The short in question was a little animated item that struck me as particularly phony.
The short: Make Mine Freedom. The subject: political. The viewpoint: strictly NAM [National Association of Manufacturers].
If this color cartoon is an example of the film capitol’s [sic] sense of public responsibility A. T. (After Thomas) I’ll take Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Compared to Make Mine Freedom, the mouse and the duck stand out as veritable elder statesmen.
. . .
THE OBJECT of this film is to sell a non-existent status quo which it lightly labels the American way of life. This it does with all the deftness of a full page ad by the NAM on why price controls are un-American. Says the film, with appropriate cartoon images: America is ... the cracker barrel philosophers in Crabtree Corners. And it’s the tycoons on Wall Street. Then it lists our freedoms, some of which we have yet to win, and some that are disappearing at an alarming pace.
BUT THE MAIN ACTION in Make Mine Freedom takes place in a park. Here we find presumably four fifths of America in vigorous conflict. The final fifth, of course, comes in later. He saves the day.The four fifths are represented by labor, management, farmer and politician. During their argument an olive-skinned individual dressed in a violet zoot suit breaks up the conflict by offering to sell them each a bottle of Dr. Utopia’s Ism.
Each takes a sip and discovers the horrible things that will happen to people who listen to speeches about ------ism on street corners. Comes then the resolute final fifth of America, John Q. Public, who is neither farmer, worker, manager, or politician and he saves the day. Under his leadership and united, the others chase Dr. Utopia out of the park, belting him over the head with bottles of Ism. I presume they damn well made him go back to where he came from!
. . .
MAKE MINE FREEDOM, in its content and method, its obvious pandering to a mentality certainly short of the usual 12-year-old level, is an insult to the audiences who will have to see it along with the full-length feature that brought them into the theater. Particularly obnoxious is a cartoon in it depicting people of other nations in much the same way as the Nazi Streicher once did in his anti-Semitic magazines.
. . .
APPARENTLY the makers of Make Mine Freedom felt that the term Ism was sufficient to identify socialism and communism.
I’m not so sure. After all there are also such Isms around as capitalism, imperialism, nationalism, chauvinism and fascism . . . all Isms that are embodied one way or another in this film.
Certainly, it MUST be about those Commies. Individual freedoms couldn’t be taken away under capitalism. Could they?
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