I Led 3 Lives

"I Led 3 Lives" needs to live another life--on dvd. Preferably as a complete box set, but I'd be happy with a multi-volume Alpha Video release a la "The Adventures of Fu Manchu." This is a great show that is entertaining today not only for it's bizzaro camp appeal, but also because it is a great look into the paranoid world view of the super-paranoid, mindlessly anti-communist mindset that ruled American life from the end of WWII to the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was serious stuff back in the day! And that's what makes this deadly earnest show all the more hilarious.

Hey those in charge: We Need this Show on DVD!

Supposedly Lee Harvey Oswald's favorite show, which raises many interesting questions not the least of which is : Was Oswald living out the main character of the show for real? Another question: If so, was that how Oswald was set up as a patsy on 11/22/1963, as he maintained on TV (recording still exists - search YouTube) while being dragged down a hallway of the Dallas police station past TV and print reporters?

"I Led 3 Lives" Was Lee Harvey Oswald's favorite TV show when he is young boy Living in Forth Worth, Texas. This was confirmed by his older brother during his interview on "Frontline" Lee was immersed in the series during the 1952 Season. After his older brother left to the Marine Corps. Lee was intrigued by the idea of a man creating a new and separate identity. The early Black and White Espionage Television show was based on the true-life exploits of Herbert Philbrick, an FBI agent who worked undercover as a communist sympathizer infiltrating communist cells and suspected subversive groups. His love for the show was also noted in the Warren Commission Report.

I watched this show at first out of curiosity and I laughed just as many of my generation probably have . . .or will. Then I started researching that era and now I know they were deadly serious when they made that series! This was the sort of thing that Americans were truly fearful of, a Communist takeover. This was just as serious in the 50's as a Chinese invasion was in the late 1930's. Okay so maybe they dramatised things but they did that in "Dragnet" too, right? This was American propaganda made to make Mr and Mrs. Average American believe that Commies were around every conner trying to subvert the mentality of Post (Korean) War America. This could have been what led to people building fallout shelters instead of swimming pools and schools teaching kids to "duck and cover".

Okay, so maybe I got a little heavy handed in that last paragraph but watching the adventures of Mr. Philbrick led me to wonder just how much of it was Hollywood and how much was real? A certain Mr. Kruschev did promise "We will bury you without firing a shot!" so I really began to wonder and started watching the episodes with a less cynical eye. The one about vacuum cleaners that were really missile launchers smacked of the gadgetry that proliferated the James Bond movies of the 1960's but then, where did they get that idea? The one about taking over an American newsreel company and making propaganda movies seems unreal too but then, remember wasn't the US Government doing the same thing at the same time too?

Today watching "I Led Three Lives" gives me a chill. Everything they were talking about might really have happened. Perhaps all that paranoia was not unfounded. Mr. Herbert Philbrick, wherever you are, thank you.

"I Led 3 Lives" was a sincere and authentic expose of the activities of the Communist Party USA. I was impressed by it as a child and I think the plot lines remain very interesting. Although rather cheaply done it had good workmanlike production values. It still provides good insight into the motivations and activities of fanatical subversives which are still valid to this day. I think Richard Carlson did a good, serious job with his role and he was always one of my favorite actors of the '50's. My father, who was a USMC officer at the time with a great interest in the psychology of communism, followed the show regularly. All in all this was one of the more important television productions to ever come along. Unfortunately it would not be touched with a 10 foot pole by the establishment media producers today!