See America Thirst [SEP] director
See America Thirst
See America Thirst is a 1930 American comedy film produced and distributed by Universal Pictures and directed by William James Craft. Silent comics Harry Langdon and Slim Summerville star along with silent actress Bessie Love. Though released late in 1930, it nevertheless had a silent version.
In the film, Bessie Love introduced the type of sandals later known as "flip-flops" to American audiences. The title is a parody of the Cole Porter musical "See America First".
Plot.
Slim (
town America in much the same way as did Fritz Lang's "Fury" (also based on the same factual episode). Soon after making this film, the director was blacklisted because of his leftist positions on social and political issues. It's a superb characterization of America's thirst for crime and violence; one of the most powerful statements ever from a Hollywood film about the class divide in America and the yellow rag press that incites the public with poisonous newspaper coverage to sell papers. It calls attention to something about