The Red Menace

World War Two vet Robert Rockwell finds himself rooked by lying land developers, and falls in with some communists, particularly pretty Hanna Axmann-Rezzori. Meanwhile, Shepherd Menken finds himself in trouble with the Party because a poem of his noted that Marx had historical antecedents.

It seems to be a rule of Hollywood movies that no pretty woman remains a communist when loved by a handsome leading man, and that's pretty much what happens here. Meanwhile, in ideology land, the multi-racial, tolerant views of the party begin to shred in the presence of individual thought and sympathy.

It's one of the many virulently anti-Communist movies made in Hollywood in this period in an effort to avoid losing the entire studio to the Blacklist -- just the highly priced writers and directors. The script by Albert Demond and Gerald Geraghty makes a play at intellectual fairness by noting the CPUSA work in unionization and civil rights. Having done that, it goes off the rails in a manner that Red Channels would approve of.

OK, the acting, direction and production values are below average. But the writing is above average and that is why this film gets a 6. I have seen several commie movies from the fifties, and most of them have better production values. However, the scripts for these often entertaining films is usually the same; the commies are the bad guys and the American government officials are the good guys; a simple case of black and white. Unfortunately, most of the things in life are not simple black and white issues. There is no pancake so flat that it does not have two sides. Instead of using stereotypes with predictable plot development and a pat ending, this film, at least, avoided half of those shortcomings. It is an intelligent look at the motives of members of the communist party in the US. The characters are complex and realistic, not cartoonish black and white characters portrayed in the vast majority of red scare films of the fifties. Even though the film had a weak conclusion, the rest of the film was very entertaining.

Although the movie is 70 years old, its message rings ever more true now in the 2020s, as the evils it warned against then, are more thoroughly entwined into current day politics and society

communism demanding slavelike servitude and obedience, and wilfully encouraging historical revisionism are an ever present threat as even today our history is under threat by people who seek to push a mandela effect on people and gaslight away truth, and act violently towards anyone who dares question it or seek to maintain truth

of all movies that need a remake to keep the message alive, THIS is one badly in need to be revisited.

When I grew up, the Iron Curtain existed. The Soviet Union was a Place that did not allow its Citizen to travel freely. And so it was easy to renounce the Place and look for no further explanations.

At the same time, communism stood for equality and class warfare, allowing for only one class, the working class, since allowing for different classes of people was just Another Word for inequality and injustice.

Now, if you could therefore renounce equality and justice by renouncing the Soviet Union, which, through communism, stood for these qualities, why, then you could defend the injustices and inequalities you wanted to keep by Calling every wish for equality and justice to be the same as a wish for communism and that is just what has been done in the USA for the last 70 years, which this film bears witness to.

The Soviet Union was a failed system but that has Little to do with communism because, although the SU called itself "communist" it was not a system of equality and justice and instead just a dictatorship ensuring that a Little Group of people had all the wealth and all the Power just like in the USA, where the same was ensured by somewhat different means.

How to achieve equality and justice is still a problem to be solved but it will never be solved by simply Writing these qualities off by Calling them "communism".

This film illustrates the propaganda being used against the American Citizen and is helpful to understand the brainwash that Americans seem to suffer from. I therefore give it 5 stars.

In view of what the Soviet archives revealed about the U. S. Communist Party(thank you, Gorby), this movie hits the nail right on the head. All the tactics Communists used to gain members, such as having female members sleep with prospective male members, as well as the means they used to create trouble, are shown in this movie. My father-in-law was once a Communist. He told me that the CPUSA would take up a collection for African-Americans on trial somewhere and keep the money for themselves. If a man quit the party, not only would he be shunned, but other members' kids would be expected to bully his kids! All this is shown in the movie, including even the beatings administered to wayward members. See this film and learned what we narrowly escaped from ending up as.