Watch Sons of Liberty For Free

Too much of everything

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

"Sons of Liberty" is an American English-language short film from 1939, the first year of World War II, so this one is already over 75 years old and the patriotic sentiment is easy to find in these 20 minutes. The director is Michael Curtiz, mostly known today for "Casablanca" and his writer is Crane Wilbur. People with a great interest in old American movies will find several familiar names, like Claude Rains ("Casablanca"), Oscar winners Sondergaard and Crisp and there are more people in here who you will find on the Walk of Fame or the lists of Oscar nominees. Pretty impressive for such a brief movie. It is in Technicolor, but the version I saw looked almost black-and-white still. As for the plot, this is about the life of Haym Salomon during the American Revolution. I may be slightly biased here as this era in history never really interested me that much, but the plot in here also did not manage to sparkle my interest. Apparently, the Academy thought differently as they gave this one an Oscar, which is why I would not say it is unwatchable. However, I personally found it underwhelming and don't recommend checking it out.

In 1939, as the world perched on the brink of World War, "Sons of Liberty" served to remind the American public of the sacrifices necessary to preserve our freedoms, particularly freedom of religion. And its focus a Jewish patriot might be seen as an appeal to recognize the contributions of Jewish Americans during the American Revolution and to sympathize with Jews who were undergoing religious persecution in Germany and elsewhere.One has to wonder how much of the story of "Sons of Liberty" is true. It feels like a fabrication with only the most basic facts being true. The use of the breathless voice-over, sounding like an episode of Zorro, only serves to heighten the feeling that "facts" were embellished and even created.As a young student in the public school systems, I was familiar with the dramatized and sterilized versions of history--where the motives were so pure and the lines of conflict so clear. Such colorful but biased reconstructions of history only served as impediments in my later search for historical truth."Sons of Liberty" is so overly dramatized that its value as a revolutionary recounting is practically nil. It is understandable that Hollywood might produce such a piece in 1939 given the world situation. But now, its super-stylized, bombastic approach to story telling--with chronological events so condensed and orchestral flourishes for every scene--makes it only an interesting remnant of the run up to WWII.

Another Oscar-winning Technicolor short, a product this time of Warner Bros. rather than MGM; featuring the involvement of possibly their top director and such first-rate actors as Claude Rains and Gale Sondergaard, it is handled in the studio's recognizable style. The plot is a recreation of a historical incident from America's infancy, with various immigrants (led by a Jew, Haym Salomon) uniting into the titular 'resistance' group – that was also mentioned in D. W. Griffith's America (1924) – against the occupying British forces. With WWII looming, this clearly made for a stirring patriotic call to the masses: however, even when taken on its own merits, the film proves interesting (especially for the unenlightened) and entertaining.

However minor this sort subject is, one cannot fail to notice that, given the date of conception and release, the subject matter(Reminding the general American public of the Jewish contribution to the Independence of the Nation through the portrayal of Haym Solomon)and the direction entrusted to the care of Michael Curtiz rather than, say B. Reeves Eason or Don Siegel, this is not just another short. Warners, at the time, peppered their films(the Sea Hawk is a good example) with allusions to the imminent conflict and this might have been a naive, but very dignified attempt at preparing the American moviegoer of 1939 to the inevitable moment when a decision would have to be taken. Anyway, it is also very much a Michael Curtiz film, even clocking at twenty minutes; Claude Rains is rather good, a bit solemn at times, but the subject demands it; the use of color is quite impressive, but not surprising for a director who experimented with it as early as 1932(Doctor X) and 1933(Mystery of the Wax Museum)and his trademark use of shadows is also present. A theme present in many Curtiz features finds its way in this tiny two-reeler, with Solomon having to make a choice, take sides and leave his mark in history, like Rick and Captain Renault in Casablanca, or Captain Blood... So, although minor, this is pretty much a typical Curtiz Warner film... to be found on DVD alongside a brilliant(But much funnier)film, the 1939 Curtiz/Flynn western Dodge City... not bad indeed.