Rationing - 1944

Rationing (1944) pokes fun at a wartime home front nuisance while at the same time staunchly upholding support for this act of civilian sacrifice.  It is one example of many from that era where decency was expected, sometimes enforced, and lauded as noble in a way that was genuinely and charmingly American. 

Wallace Beery, whose career was an example of that rare character actor-as-star, runs a general store in a small town. Wartime rationing is his nightmare and having to deal with irate customers is the sacrifice he makes to his country during wartime. 

Marjorie Main, in a role unlike her usual crusty maids and aunties, plays the humorless administrator of the local Office of Price Administration, which regulated the ration system and issued books of ration stamps and tokens. They are adversaries and constantly spar, but there is more to their fractious relationship—they were once headed for the altar, but when her mother did not approve, Wallace married someone in France when he was in the Army in World War I, and she married someone else because he was reported missing.

Beery, who makes deliveries to his customers in his car, drives by road signs that illustrate how pervasive rationing has become to society: mile markers are replaced by signs that tell us how many gallons is it to the next town.  Poor Wallace runs out, and has to push his auto.  

Here are some gasoline ration stamps from that era.  Each state issued its own.  Here we have a set from California, and another from Connecticut. The owner of the vehicle wrote the license plate number on the stamps, and they could not be used by anybody else.  See this previous post on gasoline rationing stickers on cars in the movies.

Back at the store, customers clamor for meat, which, of course, could be purchased only if one had the required number of red meat tokens.  Blue tokens were for milk and cheese.

Marjorie Main’s office is next door at the post office.  Wallace petitions her for more gas coupon books.  She won’t give them to him. She lives behind the post office.  Not her usual frumpy role, Miss Marjorie looks quite stylish in her upsweep hairdo and business suit.

She is a model of efficiency, gives him forms to fill out in triplicate and cautions him that he must not sell any merchandise in his store that require tokens, or “points’ without the customer turning in those points with the payment.  The audience at that time surely could relate and smile.

Marjorie Main, a widow, has a daughter played by Dorothy Morris, who is in love with Wallace Beery’s adopted son, played by Tommy Batten. He is preparing to go into the Army.  They want to marry right away, and though Uncle Wallace doesn’t object, they are all afraid Marjorie Main will not give her consent. Marjorie actually does approve of the marriage, but want to make sure practical matters are addressed: What if Tommy is killed in the war and Dorothy is left with nothing, what if she has a child alone.   He must have savings put by before they can marry. Tommy agrees they should wait; it is Dorothy who wants to marry immediately, and they fight. There is a touching moment when Wallace gives him the medal he won in World War I as a good-luck piece before he goes off to war.

Young Richard Hall plays Teddy, a boy whose mother is away looking for work in a war plant, so Wallace his minding him and entertaining him with the rationing book version of Little Red Riding Hood.   His tangled tale gives us an idea of the complexity of the rationing book system.

The movie has villains far worse than the wolf, two of them.

Donald Meek is the equivalent of a home front villain: he is a hoarder.  Wallace admonishes him, and all the crabby ladies who come in for meat and such that the country must save its resources for the fighting troops.

A subplot involves a lady barber with whom Wallace is comically infatuated.  She’d like to wheedle a rationed rubber girdle from Wallace, who must sneak one under the watchful eye of Marjorie Main (and will later have to sneak it back). Marjorie comes to him for a preparation for a toothache, and he sarcastically teases her.  The two old pros play well off each other.

Fed up with the OPA rules, and Marjorie, Wallace takes a train to Washington, D.C., to visit with his senator, who is also his old Army pal, to loosen up the rationing rules for his store. 

The senator reminds him of the vital patriotic nature of rationing, and appoints Wallace to work alongside Marjorie on his local board.  Now the shoe is on the other foot and his added responsibility turns him from a guy who wants to bend rules to a guy who has to make sure the rules are upheld.

And he runs smack into a black market plot right under his nose.  In an effort to raise money for his son to marry, he sells half interest in his store to Howard Freeman, who as it turns out, runs a local black market ring. He is the second villain. In a two-fisted he-man confrontation at the local ice house, Wallace proves himself to be a hero as he uncovers the black market ring and he pummels Mr. Freeman with blocks of ice.  His ex-partner’s share in the store is now bought by Marjorie Main – Wallace’s once and future partner in life.  To avoid a 72-page form to dissolve the partnership in the store, Wallace takes the lesser of two evils: he signs a marriage license instead.

The movie is a lighthearted look at what was really a pain for Americans on the home front, but in reminding them through films, ads, and cajoling by their favorite stars on radio, the civilian population was also painted as heroic and patriotic for cooperating.  It was an effective program for giving the populace a sense of mission.  This is not to say that there wasn’t plenty of irritation felt by people, or that they had a Pollyanna-ish attitude toward rationing.  

Woody Woodpecker in Ration Bored (1943) is, as usual, unrepentant in his exaggerated antics to get enough gas for his car, and a prolonged fight with a cop in a junkyard after he is caught siphoning gas from the cop car, results in the two of them being blasted to kingdom come. We have to assume moviegoers took the hint even if they cheered for Woody.

Masters of the obvious will refer to this movie as dated.  Indeed, for in today’s world where we will die and kill others by not cooperating with simple social distancing restrictions, we have to marvel at how many people in this country put self over country.  And how the more despicable of them do it waving a Nazi flag.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Memories in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century. Her newspaper column on classic films, Silver Screen, Golden Memories is syndicated nationally.