Endfield’s first film was made for MGM – and never released. Inflation, a 15-minute [sic] short produced at the request of the Office of War Information, was favorably reviewed in the trade press and 700 copies (about three times the usual print order) were struck. Then the Chamber of Commerce requested it be suppressed, with no reason given, and MGM complied. (…) Offering at separate junctures two patriarchal sages seated behind desks, the Devil and FDR, each of whom furnishes a voiceover for documentary footage, this punchy expressionist short attacks, with sardonic glee, various forms of capitalist greed leading to inflation. (Apparently Endfield carried out its assigned task all too well.) The Devil adresses his pal Adolf Hitler on the phone and chortles to his sultry mistress in his Futurist tycoon’s office; outside he encourages citizens to spend money lavishly and raise prices through various scams he elucidates.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment, November-December 1993