Black Marketing
1943 dramatic propaganda short film directed by William Castle
Black Marketing is an American 1943 dramatic propaganda documentary short produced by the United States Office of War Information and directed by William Castle. It is an educational film warning American civilians against buying unrationed foodstuffs and materials.
Synopsis
The film opens in a courtroom with the prosecutor laying the government's case against a syndicate of racketeers with names like Joseph B. and Sam E. Once the prosecutor starts to go into the timeline of the case, the film dissolves into short segments showing the racketeers at work, how they organized themselves, bought up steers at inflated prices and forced butchers to distribute the illicit beef. They are caught, however, when one housewife is told that she can't buy a steak with her ration cards, but a woman after her does without them.
The butcher is taken by the OPA (Office of Price Administration) and interrogated. He is asked what his son in Africa would think if he knew his father were cavorting with saboteurs, and spills the beans about his accomplices. When the lawyer comes back, he looks to the audience and tells them that they too must not buy goods above the rationed price, and report it if they see it. A closing note tells the audience that everyone in the film is a law-abiding citizen who volunteered to act in the movie to educate the public about black marketing.
See also
List of Allied propaganda films of World War II
United States home front during World War II
References
External links
The short film Black Marketing is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
“Black Marketing” enters the record as 1943 dramatic propaganda short film directed by William Castle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Black, Marketing and dramatic can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4921247. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1943.
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This entry incorporates text from “Black Marketing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.