Who is singing My forgotton man ? I don't think Joan Blondell is singing this track. thanks
shareGreat song, wonderfully realised in this movie. Deserves to rank with "Brother can you spare a dime" as a Depression anthem.
If you think "My Forgotten Man," is powerful, read up, if you haven't, about the Bonus March to post-WWI Washington, D.C. It's sad that our government, in so many admiinstrations, had nothing but disrespect and disregard for its citizens. We haven't learned much in over 200 years.
The way it ended on that note was pretty powerful. It's about the WW 1 vets and their fight to get an early pension, and the governments reaction. Powerful stuff,
great movie!
The Bonus March and the pension issue is very complex and worthy of open-minded examination. The government's reaction wasn't a monolithic response. It varied with different Presidents and Legislators. One might question the granting of the pension in the first place as a political ploy to win votes, just as the idea that the pension should be paid immediately rather than used to get govt loans when the Depression was at its depth was highly political. This movie was made 15 years after the end of the war, a war in which we had relatively few soldiers and a short time in combat, in an era when we had a small national budget and a horror of running massive deficits that our children and grandchildren would still be paying off. That point of view changed dramatically under FDR when a huge percentage of the populace was on the govt payroll or on welfare. Whether that change was good or bad depends on your point of view.
One wonders what the men were doing in the boom Twenties that dumped them out the other end in such a dire strait--of course if they went into farming the answer is clear! We did learn from the fiasco of the aftermath of WWI, and the GI Bill of Rights was a direct outcome.
assuming you're right that we learned, and the GI Bill is proof, from WWI's "Forgotten Men", let's not forget that this was not the case as this film was being conceived/made. Warner's was in the minority of studios in that they were pro-FDR, who was elected for the first (of 4) times right around the time this film was being made (or shortly before), campaigning with "The New Deal". The Forgotten Man segment came directly out of their pro-soldier/pro-FDR attitude. If the points you made were actually factors in the government's reluctance to treat these soldiers fairly (especially the "very few soldiers" thing), I would find the neglect/mistreatment even more indefensible. If there were relatively few soldiers, then what's the big deal? And this stuff about economies (which are fake) when there were/are human lives are at stake I find and always will find disgusting. And, not to sound like I'm attacking you or your comments because, giving you the benefit of the doubt, I think you tried to remain neutral, but about the changes (under FDR (welfare, etc, and others on the "government payroll"), and the view of whether they were good or bad would seem to be a Republican vs. Democrat issue, which is some of the most ridiculous crap that exists in our country today. I don't know how bad it was then, but today, political parties have become rooting interests, like sports teams. Notwithstanding these particular points, and whether you're right or wrong as to whether we've learned better of them or not, there's still a jillion things we're dunces about, and that, I'm afraid, will never change, as long as it can be used as political currency.
"How do you feel?"
"Like the Kling-Klang King of the Rim-Ram Room!"
They were working Then the Depression hit them.
shareThe somber tone of the ending threw me off
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