'BACKFIRE!'
Dworkin, Martin S.
'Backfire!' By MARTIN S. DWORKIN THERE is a fervor about Backfire!, the short film sponsored by the American Economic Foundation, which won an award at the 1952 Cleveland Film Festival. There is a...
...Her father, who had been an unwitting carrier for such socialistic ideas, sees his error in the injustice to his daughter's abilities...
...What there is of action is shot in plain, real-life surroundings, rather than on a studio set...
...In its exaggeration, Backfire...
...Maybe there is truth in it...
...The Foundation evangelizes for "private enterprise" against "socialistic" government regulation...
...Her mother is outraged...
...One of "the most fundamental" of these laws is that "no two human beings are ever born with equal talents and equal abilities, and, consequently, their performance in life is bound to be unequal...
...The principal character represents a real person, and the events depicted are supposed to have actually happened...
...The film itself, made by the Princeton Film Center, is a glossy, professional job, simple in outline and deliberate in content...
...He apologizes to the teacher—whom he had publicly ridiculed some time before for his "outdated" economic ideas...
...whenever possible, to any and whatever audience, "from twelve years old up"—employes and customers, school and social groups...
...An invidious destruction of one of the more obviously contradictory slogans of 19th Century Marxism should not be dramatized as a contention with our present-day political and economic problems...
...Some sponsored films offer their arguments with honesty and taste...
...There is nothing new about these views, which have certainly been stated by others with greater clarity...
...In form, it imitates the documentary...
...It sounds fair and reasonable, to be sure...
...As he tells the story, the teacher suggests that the father, now converted, be supported for the city council, and the delighted mayor agrees...
...Both are now of equal worth...
...Thus a paper with a 95 score donates 20 of its points to bring up one with a score of 55...
...There is little point in telling the American Economic Foundation that the matter is not so simple...
...Its own method is one of deliberate superficiality and distortion, badly serving what is surely a respectable, conservative business position...
...People all around you," he says, have been taken in by the unworkable theories "of some intellectuals, calling themselves socialists...
...H6r is there anything especially nefarious in their being submitted openly to the American public—especially since they point to problems of great contemporary relevance...
...Even the girl who propounded the equalization principle is puzzled, and brings her paper home to her parents...
...We meet a high-school economic* teacher and the mayor, after a P.T.A...
...The film with a "message" need not treat Americans as simpletons held captive by the seductive flickerings of the motion-picture screen...
...Nor is the happy ending yet complete...
...is an example of a kind of presentation that cannot be accepted as legitimate...
...He gives the class an examination, but instead of grading each paper according to its actual deserts, he equalizes their grades at 75 per cent...
...Like Typhoid Marys, these ordinary people have become unwitting carriers of ideas which contradict the laws of nature...
...For one thing, it is not an open statement of the ideas of the Foundation...
...To hammer this unassailable verity home, we are entreated to show Backfire...
...We are used to repeated evocations of the virtues of "free enterprise," and "the American way of life," although we may be annoyed that anyone thinks we have to be so obviously exhorted, and we may be offended when blatant boasting— usually with a commercial angle to plug the sponsor's product—masquerades as patriotism...
...We expect the promotional intent of the sponsored film, which has been made to persuade us to buy something, believe something, or do something favorable to the maker's interests...
...The mayor is disturbed by the spread of socialistic ideas, and remarks that the school is a fine place to begin a counter-attack...
...The story is told in a simple flashback...
...There is a sense of righteousness, together with a feeling of innovation, of discovery of a new truth that will finally make things right which were not right before...
...For another, the film makes bad propaganda in favor of bad propaganda...
...Disturbed by their acquiescence, the teacher decides to test the principle before their eyes...
...The students protest...
...illuminates a failing of too many films offered by industrial and commercial firms or groups...
...to each according to his needs," the other students appear to be persuaded...
...It advocates just rewards for talent and investment as according to laws of nature which are contravened at our peril by high personal income and corporation taxes...
...The film runs less than 15 minutes, but it is preceded by a leader— which does not have to be shown to general audiences—in which Morgan Reichner, executive director of the Foundation, plugs the film as "ammunition" in the battle against "socialism" at home...
...When a girl in one of his classes argues for the principle, "From each according to his ability...
...meeting...
...The Foundation is ready, at any instant's notice, to provide an imposing literature dedicated to proving how very simple it all is...
...The ! teacher, ^explains that he has ,been counter vat-tacking for years.- using a novel device for graphicJtfly illuStratin'g'the natural necessity for varying rewards according to ability...
...But Backfire...
Vol. 17 • March 1953 • No. 3
