Der Fuehrer's Face

NR 7.5
1943 0 hr 8 min Animation , Comedy , Music

A marching band of Germans, Italians, and Japanese march through the streets of swastika-motif Nutziland, serenading "Der Fuehrer's Face." Donald Duck, not living in the region by choice, struggles to make do with disgusting Nazi food rations and then with his day of toil at a Nazi artillery factory. After a nervous breakdown, Donald awakens to find that his experience was in fact a nightmare.

  • Cast:
    Clarence Nash , Billy Bletcher

Similar titles

Boys & Toys
Boys & Toys
30-something Abby hits on a younger guy at a bar. Things get awkward when it turns out she already knows him.
Boys & Toys 2020

Reviews

Lawbolisted
1943/01/01

Powerful

... more
Listonixio
1943/01/02

Fresh and Exciting

... more
Hayden Kane
1943/01/03

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

... more
Kinley
1943/01/04

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

... more
Hitchcoc
1943/01/05

Basic propaganda, using an icon, Donald Duck, to demean Adolph Hitler. In this one, our Disney duck finds himself part of the Nazi military industrial complex. Sacrificing everything for the Reich and having to continually salute the awful Fuerher. He works in a munitions factory, screwing on bomb parts and being assaulted by his superiors. Of course, this would have been used to make Americans feel good about their role in WWII. Hirohito and Mussolini are referred to. There was still a lot of war left when this was made. It is based on the Spike Jones song of the time. Donald is perfect as he frantically tries to conform until he becomes a ranting mess. Significant only for its timeliness.

... more
ackstasis
1943/01/06

WWII-era filmmakers used two broad approaches when attempting to discredit Adolf Hitler and Germany in general. The first, and least interesting in my view, was to treat them with the utmost seriousness, painting the Nazis are perverted, sadistic and evil baby-killers, and the like. Secondly, there was the comedic approach, by which Hitler was belittled through having entire audiences laughing in his face. 'The Great Dictator (1940)' and 'To Be or Not to Be (1942)' accomplish this hilariously well, but what about the younger demographics? To help communicate the evils of Nazism to children, the Walt Disney cartoon 'Der Fuhrer's Face (1942)' tosses Donald Duck (voiced by Clarence Nash) amid Hitler's militaristic regime, where he slaves away for "48 hours a day" in a munitions factory, continually bombarded with the swastika symbol and the phrase "heil Hitler!" At the end of the cartoon, after a surreal montage of Nazi (or "Nutzi," as the film says) oppression, Donald wakes up in America, thankfully sighing "am I glad to be a citizen of the United States of America."Despite winning an Oscar in 1943 for Best Short Subject Cartoon, 'Der Fuehrer's Face' was rarely seen following the end of the war. As the atrocities of Hitler's "Final Solution" came to light, the Nazi badge quickly became something, not to be merely ridiculed, but to be loathed. Nevertheless, the sheer audacity of Jack Kinney's cartoon has to be seen to be believed. There's hardly a frame in which the swastika is not visible in one form or another, and Donald is ludicrously forced to bark "Heil Hitler" whenever he comes across a photograph of the Fuhrer. The cartoon's climax is a dizzyingly-surreal montage in which anthropomorphised Nazi machinery relentlessly beats Donald into submission. It's all a little disconcerting, as was its intention, but it's also a lot of fun. Also featured is Oliver Wallace's song "Der Fuehrer's Face," which was covered by Spike Jones and His City Slickers with great success. Indeed, the name of this cartoon was changed from "Donald Duck in Nutzi Land" to capitalise on the song's popularity.

... more
ihatestairwaytoheaven
1943/01/07

Leonard Maltin was right when he said, (in his new introduction on the DVD set) that this cartoon is "very funny". It tells the story of Donald Duck, who has a nightmare he's living in a place overrun with "nutzis", (supposed to represent the nazi party). He eats wooden bread, slaves away in Hitler's ammunition factory, a is rudely awakened by the film's catchy title number.Disney withheld the cartoon for many years because of it's subject matter, it's just another instance of people trying to erase history. I'm glad Disney finally had the balls to release this. It's hilarious. Even more so after the war is over, and history tells us what buffoons Mussolini and Hitler really were.Anyway, to cut this short. This film is classic. One of the best I have ever seen, not only from Disney, but ever.10/10

... more
shadycraft
1943/01/08

This Disney short is an amazing piece of animation that any movie lover can enjoy and be moved by. It features Donald Duck starring as a Nazi worker who is awakened by a band singing the cartoon's incredibly catchy theme song (along with an alarm clock, cuckoo clock, and rooster, all doing the Nazi Salute!) He starts his day by heiling pictures of Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini, which is quite shocking to hear from a Disney character. He then has a healthy breakfast of bread so stale that he has to use a saw to slice it, coffee (which is actually just one coffee bean dipped in water), and a few sprays of a perfume called Aroma de Bacon & Eggs. His meal is cut short though by a soldier shoving a copy of Hitler's best selling novel, Mein Kampf, in his face. He then is hauled off to work `48-hours-a-day for the Fuehrer' in a shell factory where he is forced to heil every picture of Hitler that follow the shells on the conveyer belt which moves so fast that it's almost impossible for him to keep up (He even stands on his head to salute a picture that was framed upside-down.) He does however get a paid vacation, `through the kindness of the Fuehrer', which consists of him exercising in front of a large picture of the Alps for thirty seconds. He then of course has to work overtime which eventually causes him to go crazy and see insane visions of shells walking on and hitting him and playing musical instruments while singing the title song super fast. After this insane sequence is over, Donald awakens in his bed wearing stars-and-stripes themed pajamas and realizes it was only a nightmare. He then proceeds to kiss is Miniature Statue of Liberty and proclaims `Oh boy! I'm glad to be a citizen of the United States of America.I absolutely adore this cartoon and wish Disney would stop being so uptight and release it, along with their other WW2 shorts because they are really powerful and very important shorts that show us just what Americans thought back during the war. I highly recommend this and any other Disney WW2 short that you can actually get a chance to see.10/10

... more