The Inside Story

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DATE: 1944

LENGTH: 27 min.

CATEGORY: Educational & Instructional, Animation, Sound, Black & White

DIRECTOR: Uncredited

PRODUCER/PUBLISHER: Paramount Pictures with United States Navy

Summary

This film deals with the typical emotional problems suffered by men entering military service and how they should be treated. A sailor suffering from knee pain goes to the base doctor, who finds nothing wrong and refers him to the base psychiatrist. The psychiatrist reassures the sailor and explains how psychosomatic disease arises—in a charming cartoon sequence that gives a Freudian interpretation of how repression and anxiety work in the mental structure and body of an individual.

Supplementary Materials

Stills from The Inside Story

A baby boy laying down on a bed and pillow, drinking from a bottle held by an adult

A teenaged boy wearing a football jersey with the number fifty-five lying down on the grass with an injured knee with other football players and coaches giving him attention

A white male lying on his side, reading a book while on a bed in a decorated and furnished bedroom

A man smiling and counting the cash in his wallet with a line of other men and a clerk behind him.

A group of seamen walking in formation with their instructor walking alongside them. The seamen and instructor are walking at a far distance from the camera.

A white male sitting at a desk and writing down notes in one hand and nervously wiping the sweat off of his forehead. In the background is a classroom filled with other seamen learning and sitting at desks

A seamen facing the camera alone with empty hands. In the background are other seamen preoccupied with letters in their hands, walking in a different direction.

A man sitting in a bunk bed, annoyed and reading on his bed alone. In the background are other seamen crowded on the same beds, laughing and talking with each other.

A young white male gets his knee checked by a doctor

A young white male knocks on a door inside a building. Outside the door is a sign that reads, "Mental Health Dept."

Four standing books in between bookends on a desk

A white male patient sitting down and talking to a white male psychiatrist across the table.

A silhouette of a man with a cartoon overlay of a brain

A cartoon bald man in police uniform holding his hat and a baton with miniature characters climbing up on a wall behind the censor policeman. The side of the policeman is bright whereas the side of the characters is dark.

A miniature man with a diamond-shaped body wearing black clothes and a black hat pointing a toy gun to his head

A miniature two-headed man, conjoined at the hip, strangling each other while facing the audience

A cartoon bald man in police uniform throws miniature characters over a dark wall

A caveman-like person wearing a torn shirt listening to miniature characters found on either side of his shoulders

The miniature characters jump inside a miniature shuttle outside of a control panel that reads, "Nervous System Transportation Co." The shuttle is directly in front of a circular entry. To the left of the entry are levers with labels that read, "Arm," "Neck," "Eye," "Pelvis," "Head," "Ear," "Feet," and "Knee"

A person holding a book with the title "Mental Health"

A cartoon caveman presses down on a control panel's lever that reads, "Stomach." The "Stomach" label lights up.

A seaman sitting down on the grass outside holding a pamphlet with other seamen sitting, lying down, and listening to him talk.

A room filled with seamen sitting together and talking in groups. In the background is a seaman playing at a ping pong table with another seaman.

Other Films Featured in the Essay

Explore thirteen films considered in the “Public Health Films Go to War” essay.

In the Collections of the National Library of Medicine

Prints & Photographs Collection

These posters, produced by or for the U.S. military in conjunction with campaigns that also employed films, come from the Prints and Photographs collection of the National Library. Explore these and more from the NLM’s Images in the History of Medicine.

image of cartoon mosquito with information about them — Poster shown in the film Medicine in Action: Pacific Enemy Number Two-Malaria (1944).
U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, 1945.
*National Library of Medicine #101438600*

Poster text reads: protect yourself, protect your buddies, keep covered after dark — This is a Malaria Zone, ca. 1940s
*National Library of Medicine #101451934*

cartoon man hanging surrounded by mosquitos with sword for noses — World War II-era health campaigns often used military metaphors to depict mosquitoes.
U.S. GPO, 1944.
*National Library of Medicine #101454784*

cartoon of a lady mosquito with makeup — The “Annie O. Pheles” anti-malaria campaign featured a seductive or criminal female malaria mosquito in several animated cartoons.
U. S. GPO, 1944.
*National Library of Medicine #101454783*

men shooting large cannon missiles at the words chancroid, gonorrhea, syphilis — Venereal disease campaign poster.
Wyeth & Bro., 1942.
*National Library of Medicine #101438710*

horizontal colors of red white and blue with the letters VE, VJ, and VD in them — U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine & Surgery, 1945.
Artist. Bob Bode.
*National Library of Medicine #101438715*

illustration of a blue silhouette man with white drawings of the inside of a human on the skin — Venereal disease campaign poster.
U.S. Public Health Service, ca. 1945.
Artist: Leonard Karsakov.
*National Library of Medicine #101439384*

drawing of man in army helmet underneath explains how to fight syphilis and gonorrhea — Venereal disease campaign poster.
U.S. Army, ca. 1942.
Artist. Robert Riggs.
*National Library of Medicine #101444144*

cartoon man scrubbing himself with soap — Personal hygiene campaign poster.
U.S. Public Health Service, 1942.
Artist: H. Price.
*National Library of Medicine #101438120*

man in army helmet looking into water reflection of his skeleton with large beware word on top — Water purity campaign poster.
U.S. War Dept., 1944.
*National Library of Medicine #101454782*

Historical Audiovisuals Collection

Commandments for Health: The Private McGillicuddy Cartoons
Hugh Harman Productions, United States Navy; b&w, 1945

In 1942, the animation department of the Armed Forces Motion Picture Unit began producing a series of humorous animated cartoons featuring the bumbling “Private Snafu.” Shown to millions of armed forces personnel, the Private Snafu series dealt with black marketeering, wartime censorship, the need for military discipline, and so on, but also malaria and venereal disease prevention and the physiological stress of combat.

In 1945 the U.S. Navy commissioned Hugh Harman Productions to create an entertaining cartoon series, patterned on Snafu, but dealing solely with health issues, for troops in the field. Harman was a veteran animator who had worked in 1920s with the (pre-Mickey Mouse) Walt Disney Laugh-O-Gram studio in Kansas City and in the 1930s in Hollywood on the Warner Brothers’ Merrie Melodies series. The McGillicuddy cartoons had a smaller budget than Snafu—the producers saved time and money by using fewer drawings and less precise sound synchronization, which made for jagged animation and a greater reliance on voiceover narration—but the talent was top flight. Like Snafu, McGillicuddy featured the voice of Mel Blanc and music by Carl Stallings. While the director/animator is not identified, the artwork and direction has a definite Warner Brothers “feel.”

The series is formulaic: each episode takes place on a South Pacific island where the dim-witted Marine Private McGillicuddy ignores a different “Commandment for Health,” suffers the bodily consequences, and jeopardizes the war effort. The cartoons, aimed at a male audience of young soldiers and sailors, are mildly risqué. Unlike commercial films of the period, military cartoons were not subject to the dictates of the Hays Office, which censored what could be shown on civilian screens. The gags are corny; shopworn racial and social stereotypes abound. Flies that contaminate food are depicted as buck-toothed Japanese soldiers wearing thick glasses; South Sea islanders are given exaggerated African features and depicted as cannibals; doctors are sadists; and so forth.

Disclaimer: These films depict ethnic, gender and racial stereotypes that were once commonplace in American society. We present them here as historical artifacts, valuable documents of the cultural practices of their time. Viewer discretion advised.

Read the Essay “The Five Commandments“

Guide to Tropical Disease Motion Pictures and Audiovisuals

The Tropical Disease Motion Picture and Audiovisual Collection is comprised of films, videorecordings, and digital videocasts produced from the 1920s through 2009, with the majority shot prior to the 1960s. All are devoted to health concerns and include material on medicine and public health. Materials range from ideological, documentary, educational, and training films to American war propaganda. The intended audience is diverse and includes military personnel, health professionals, and the general public. The collection will be of particular interest to scholars concerned with the social, economic, and political implications of health disparities in a world where epidemics travel with great rapidity across national and regional borders. Explore the Guide.

Digital Collections

Explore first aid manuals, pamphlets, and other documents in this digitized set of World War II materials held at NLM.

View digitized films on tropical disease.

Related Resources from the National Library of Medicine

Circulating Now

Read blog posts on topics related to World War II based on research in the NLM collections.

MedlinePlus

See current information from MedlinePlus on tropical disease and military health topics.

External Resources

Articles and Websites

See World War II: A Resource Guide from the US Library of Congress.

Watch these World War I and World War II films from the US National Archives and Records Administration.

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