User reviews

John Wayne (in ties and jackets!) ferrets out Commies in post-WWII Hawaii along with strapping partner James Arness. For a movie so obviously filled with swaggering machismo, the overall results of "Big Jim McLain" are fairly tame, with just a scene or two of fisticuffs outnumbered by the romantic clinches between the Duke and Nancy Olson (who moves quickly). Archie Stout's black-and-white cinematography isn't expressive (the budget here doesn't seem large enough for expressive), and yet his silvery shots of the tropics in all their '50s splendor are memorable. As for Wayne, he walks through the whole thing rather sheepishly; Jim McLain isn't much of a character, and Wayne doesn't look like he's anxious to find one in the writing. The flag-waving, Purple Heart-patriotic drama at hand is tidied up very quickly, and yet the film is directed with an easy-going pace by Edward Ludwig. The title was changed for release around the globe (most often due to redubbing to remove the Communist plotting): in Germany and Austria, it was called "Marihuana"; in Mexico and Chile, it was "Intrigue in Honolulu". ** from ****

This was made in the midst of the Korean War and during the 'red scare' days and needs to be viewed in that context. The cold war was on and America had recently lost the security of being the sole nuclear power, the US Army was locked in a dismal stalemate after hordes of Communist Chinese soldiers poured over the Korean border launching a surprise attack against the vastly outnumbered UN forces snatching sure victory from them and pushing them back again into South Korea, Soviet pilots were flying against American pilots for the North Korean Air Force, American and allied soldiers in Europe were facing off against a large Soviet and allied communist army, at home there were fears of war with nuclear USSR and scandals as communist party members with links to Soviet agents were uncovered. This was the mess that America found itself in when this movie was made. This mix led in turn to paranoia, some well founded and some not. The answer to this threat seemed to be the House Un-American Activities Committee that used intimidation to do what it thought was necessary to secure American safety (Perhaps there's a lesson for in it us today as our people give away freedoms for safety) This film therefore should be viewed in the context of the times when it was made and not with 50 year hindsight, as doubtless 50 years from now our children will view at least some of the steps taken in the heightening of security today. While some critics have cited the committee for its violations of civil rights, it should be mentioned that many that have criticized this committee also heap praise upon the film industry for its patriotic films of World War II. Unfortunately this is a hypocritical viewpoint as the anti-Japanese films produced certainly helped produce the fear and paranoia that led to the abuse of Japanese-Americans' civil rights and their internment by their own government. The internment of a whole group is a much worse example of civil rights abuse than calling someone before congress resulting in them losing their job. Such is the narrow-sightedness of those who pick and choose their heroes and villains in black and white. The film in question deals with spies and saboteurs and not with (as one review gave me the impression of) the innocent "small fries". In the film the villains are not the idealists who go to American Communist Party meetings call everyone comrade debate Marx and Engel's viewpoints and who should run for election next fall and then go home to their spouses, but agents acting against the United States, and yes this did exist at the time. (People that had been believed innocent victims of communist 'witch hunts' were indeed shown later to have actually been foreign agents when the Soviet archives were opened after the collapse of communism in the USSR)

While facing the same problems as many other patriotic wartime films it does deliver enjoyable scenes and it is certainly mostly superior to many similar films made during World War II. The plot is generally entertaining but seems to suffer from an identity crisis as to whether it is trying to be more a counter espionage film or a romance film set in beautiful Hawaii. In fact a few parts even seem more reminiscent of a travelogue or a Hawaiian tourist advertisement. Despite this the plot does fill out and provides some entertainment. Wayne's acting is good as is that of most other cast members except for James Arness whose emotional outbursts don't come off as very believable when he gets infuriated about the traitorous party members and possibly Soo Fong also when recounting her personal ordeal about her 'recovery' from communism. She may have been trying to do her best with a script that seems to fall apart on this point of making communism sound like alcoholism or drug dependence. (You can almost picture John Wayne doing an 'intervention' and dragging off Stalin to the Betty Ford Clinic. In some ways this part of the movie reminds more of anti-drug or anti-sex exploitation films that have become cult classics such as Reefer Madness) While not the best, once the plot develops it is entertaining. Overall there are better films (and worse) about similar subjects and many better Wayne films but it is worth watching even if it's just to see one of the Korean-Cold War patriotic films or Wayne as a counterspy.

I like this movie, but must admit it's rather cheesy. It's not that I disliked the plot of having John Wayne playing an FBI man bent on smashing communism--it certainly is unique and very much like the real life Wayne. No, what makes this movie so campy is James Arness' incredibly silly performance. Unlike Wayne, who seems rather restrained and cerebral in comparison, Arness responds to every commie the same way Mike Tyson responds to Evander Holyfield's ear! He goes nuts and beats the crap out of all of them, so there's not much dialog. He roughly responds to every potential enemy with "you commies make me so mad,..."--then WHAM, BAM, POW!!! Civil liberties aside, it's quite thrilling to watch him in action!

An American political thriller; A story about two federal agents who are assigned the task of breaking up a ring of Communist Party troublemakers in Hawaii. This film has a propaganda tone, dealing with a subject matter such as House Un-American Activities Committee investigations (the HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organisations suspected of having Communist ties), a major news item in late 1940s America. The script is patent in portraying communists as inadequate, pseudo-intellectuals, error-prone gangsters, and agents of the Kremlin and declares that incidents in the film were based on the files of the HUAC Committee, without questioning its power to jail people for contempt of court or its damaging effects on the careers of many artists it summoned. This melodramatic movie uses comic relief as well as mystery and a love story set against a travelogue of locations in Hawaii. Its subject matter was timely but crude, failing to be even-handed in its telling of a fictionalised spy story. Its depictions of anti-communists blurred the line of intent between serious documentary-drama and arousing and entertainment fact-based fiction. John Wayne gave his character potency, but other characters are often wooden. The screenplay is inconsistent in story flow, and the story thrust gets muddled as new characters are introduced. The dialogue snaps well to the narrative, but Wayne's snarling attitude is misplaced and awkward, and overall, the story is inaccurate, even at the time it was made, in its hysterical attempts to educate the public.

It's interesting and difficult to assess films with extremist viewpoints that were made at times when their viewpoints were considered perfectly acceptable. BIRTH OF A NATION is one such flick, with its heroic Ku Klux Klansmen saving the day.

BIG JIM MCCLAIN is another film of this ilk. It was made in a time when a small but unfortunately powerful political and media cabal successfully convinced the public that Commie Spies were infiltrating everywhere. To stop them, all we needed to do was rip up the Constitution and set up a secret police to arrest these evil foreigners and their native-born Fellow Travellers. That we had just spent five years stopping a similar system in Germany never entered into most folks' minds.

But I digress....

Wayne and Arness star as agents of the secret police.... err, investigators for the House Un-American Activities Commission ferreting out a group of obviously intellectual and well-traveled Commies and Commie Dupes who use the Constitution to prevent their prosecution. That's pretty much sums up the film. The film is a sad recitation of various bugaboos held by the conservatives. The Commies are highly intelligent, well-educated, and philosophical, and possess a wide view of the relationship between nations and an even better understanding of the rights inherent in the Constitution. The Good Guys are common folk without any intellectual pretense, possess a strong nationalistic bias, and dislike the Constitution because it prevents their actions.

Hmm, sounds like the Bush Adminstration....

The film is ripe for revival. The same script performed now could be a riotous dark comedy. Maybe throw in a few catchy song and dance numbers.

Early in the film Wayne and Arness take the US Navy "picket boat" out to Battleship Row and the superstructure of the USS Arizona, long before the familiar white memorial was built. This little side trip provides a continuity. The 50's fear of Communism was seen, in that era, as being informed by the experience of the attack at Pearl Harbor 11 years before. Folks then knew from bitter, bloody experience, that evil in the world existed, and they were trying to thwart the new evil. It may appear ham-handed to us today, but, in the context of the times, finding the enemy through investigative techniques probably appeared preferable to another sneak attack. Having read the above comments, I also appreciate the way the writers heaped praise on the local, Hawaiian, police.

Big Jim McLain is a 1950s museum piece of a film. What previous reviewers have not mentioned is that John Wayne was a friendly witness at the House Un-American Activities Committee and he and his best friend Ward Bond were founders of a pro-blacklist group in Hollywood, the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. He saw HUAC as a positive force, keeping the country safe from Communist subversion.

Most people today know HUAC because of the investigations into Hollywood and that's not by accident. The members of that Committee went to investigated motion pictures because that's where the celebrities were. Lots of headlines back home when John Wayne, Ward Bond, Gary Cooper, Adolphe Menjou testified there. Good photo ops we would now say. No publicity value in investigating plumbers.

One previous reviewer said that their probably could be a good movie written about the Communist Party efforts to take over labor unions. They certainly were active on that front in the 1930s and 1940s. But this ain't that movie.

What saves the film from being a total waste of time is the presence of Veda Ann Borg. She plays her usual brassy broad with real flair in this one. Wayne, strictly in the line of duty, has to date her to get some vital information and then has to explain this to Nancy Olson who he's really romancing.

Wayne's first lead takes him to a doctor who's secretary is Nancy Olson and Wayne takes time to romance her. What's fascinating here is that Ms. Olson plays a doctor's secretary, personal confidante and all that. But she has no problem in informing on her employer to HUAC investigator Wayne. And Wayne who if he really did get involved romantically with the secretary of a Commie would be completely compromised as an investigator.

One little known fact about this film is that Wayne gave a last pay day to character actor Paul Hurst. Hurst, who was terminally ill with cancer at the time that this film was made, played the father of a rising labor leader in Hawaii that HUAC was looking into. You can see how ill he was in the one scene he played with Wayne. Hurst committed suicide after the film was completed. Whatever you think of John Wayne's politics, the Duke was a man capable of a lot of personal kindness. This was not the first or the last time he helped out colleagues down on their luck.

Big Jim McLain is one of the lamest movies John Wayne ever did. He saw the world in simple terms, black and white, good and evil, etc. I recommend a movie called Trial that Glenn Ford made in 1955. It presents a far more balanced view of the period in that it reserves condemnation for both right and left wing extremism. But if you want to see Veda Ann Borg play the brassiest of broads, well this is your flick.

The absurd stupidity of the movie would be funny if not for the chilling realization that some folks actually believed this nonsense.

I found the scene with the "reformed" communist nurse who now worked in a leper colony (nice symbolism there -- that working with lepers, the lowest of the low, is still a step up from Commies) to be a good microcosm of the entire film. The woman explained that she reformed when she realized that communism was nothing more than a vast conspiracy to enslave the working man.

It's one thing to critique a philosophy because you believe it is unjust, or unworkable, or otherwise flawed. But to find yourself so threatened by someone else's beliefs that you'll put such ridiculous words into the mouths of your characters is insulting to the intelligence of your audience. It's also lousy propoganda. There was plenty wrong with communism (still is), but to suggest that it's a "conspiracy" trying to make slaves of the working class is downright crazy.

Particularly stomach churning is to see such pap come from Hollywood in 1952, right in the middle of Senator McCarthy's brutal reign of terror -- many of whose victims were actors and directors.

This film does do a good job of exposing traitors -- I'd say that those involved in creating it would certainly fit the bill. Not traitors to their country, of course. In fact, I'm sure they all believed themselves to be great patriots. They were, instead, traitors to their own kind.

John Wayne made some great Westerns. He shouldn't have branched out. Certainly not like this.

Many people will disagree, but this is one of my favorite John Wayne films of all time, and for all the wrong reasons: This film is a cold-war camp classic that has to be seen to be believed. Imagine Alfred the Butler from the 1960's TV show Batman as the head commie and you have some idea what you are in for. James Arness is such great at John Wayne's side kick who hates commies because they shot at him during the war. I could watch this film anytime because it is very relaxing and has a quiet air about it, but at the same time, such a harsh reminder of what America was like in the 50's.

This is an awful movie.

No matter what your politics, this is one of those jaw dropping bad movies that is so bad it's mesmerizing.

Duke and Marshall Dillion scurry around Hawaii chasing an inept bunch of "commie" conspirators, though Big Jim somehow manages to spend the majority of his time wooing Nancy Olson. Stuff happens, just much of it makes little sense. It's hard to imagine this bunch involved in a struggle for world conquest. It's all about as exciting as traffic tickets.

This is Ed Wood caliber cinema here people (just a larger budget). It's just hard to imagine Duke and pretty Nancy Olson stuck in the middle of this nonsense (on the other hand, Uncle Tonoose seems right at home).

While Big Jim McLain will hardly rank with the greatest of John Wayne's films, it expresses the conflict between loyal American citizens and law enforcement officials and the threat posed by Soviet agents. Only since the release of some of the USSR archives can we see how real the threat was although rarely as simplistic as the film shows it. Big Jim McLain needs to be viewed in the context of its times just as other US wartime action films reflect the tenor of our role in World War II and how people saw the enemy of that day.

Before getting into the political aspects of this film and the reviews posted here, I wish to correct a couple of misstatements in other reviews. 1: John Wayne never testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and 2: Senator Joseph McCarthy had nothing whatsoever to do with the House investigation of Communism in Hollywood (he was a Senator, and not a member of the House; McCarthy's Senate investigation was into Communism in the Army and the State Department). Now, the film: reasonable people can disagree on matters of import, whether they are political issues or social, cultural, or religious issues. But Hollywood -- the commercial, money-making Hollywood -- rarely does nuance. And all nuance is missing from this film's attempt to portray what its makers saw as a grave threat. I would like to think that Hollywood was capable, even in the midst of the paranoia of the early 1950s, to create an anti-communist film that truly explored the issues and compared and contrasted the viewpoints at play in the country at that time. But I'm unaware of any film of the time that did so and did it well. Virtually every anti-communist film that came out of the Red Scare period is as nuanced as a sledgehammer hitting a muffin. This film is one of the worst examples. I love John Wayne, regardless of his politics, and he's fine in this. But it is embarrassing for me as a citizen of the U.S. to know that this was not only the nadir of film-making of the time on this subject, but actually as high as the intelligence level of such films ever got! Everything is black and white, belief in one system is good, belief in another is irredeemable evil. Horns sprouting from the heads of the communists among the characters would not have been surprising. And whatever side you might find yourself on in this ancient argument, viewers do not deserve to be treated as idiots. I suspect that even intellectual anti-communists hated this film and must have thought something along the lines of "Get off our side!" As much as I love Wayne and his films, I find it necessary to pretend Big Jim McLain is investigating pedophiles or some such, if I want to get through this movie. The arguments used against the commies in this movie are about what you'd hear in a cops-vs.-pedophiles movie. "Them bad, us good. Ugh."

Big Jim McLain is a hilariously bad propaganda film. If it was made by the Nazis, the cast and crew would had got medals from Goebbels.

John Wayne surely was doing his best to avoid being labelled as a commie (it was made in conjunction with his own production company.)

Big Jim McLain (John Wayne) and his partner even bigger Mal Baxter (James Arness) are investigators for the House Un-American Activities Committee. They have been sent to Hawaii to round up some local Communists. They visit Dr Gelster a psychiatrist who is treating one of the party members. While there, McLain charms the doctor's secretary, Nancy Vallon (Nancy Olson) and asks her out. McLain and Baxter become targets of the local communist head honcho, really tall Sturak (Alan Napier.)

It is left to James Arness to really ham up his character's anti communist credentials. Oh if only he could get his hands on those reds under the beds. He fought in Korea you know.

Wayne is too busy being a tourist and trying to charm Olson who he met on his first day ashore. Although raucous party girl Veda Ann Borg is also interested to know how big John McLain really is.

Napier is suave and despicable going around in expensive cars treating the lower ranked members of the party with disdain. It is a laughably bad and camp film. You have a nurse who once dabbled with the reds and talks about being a communist like being struck down by a disease. She does penance by working with ill children.

Given the mayhem caused by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s. Wayne should had burned the negatives.

The style of filmmaking of "Big Jim McLain" may be a little dated but its message is not. The movie looks great. The locations are beautiful. John Wayne gives a nice performance. The supporting cast also does a nice job. There are some moments that don't work so well but "Big Jim McLain" has a ton of goodwill going for it. I'm a big fan of John Wayne. I watch his movies all of the time. I don't watch this one as much as some of his other movies. But when I sit down to watch "Big Jim McLain", I enjoy it.

This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, due to the theme. It was a propaganda tool for the House Un-American Activities Committee and glorified the denial of basic civil rights. I was really shocked to see how biased the content was.

Seeing as this film is about John Wayne saving the world from commie scum I burst out laughing at the credits which listed one of the actors as Red McQueen ! Red Mcqueen ! , an actor called Red in a film starring John Wayne saving humanity from the horrors of communism ! I`m surprised the Duke didn`t have him shot on the spot . Actually this irony sums up this propaganda piece , it`s side splitting in its humour but no one seems to notice the hilarity they`re causing to a critical free thinking viewer , check out this dialogue

" Seventy six inches . That`s a lot of man " You`re telling me dear

" I`d better shut up before I start talking politics " Duke you do nothing else but talk politics so please shut up

I know I`m probably being churlish in pointing this out ( This film is propaganda of the worst sort remember ) but the un-American activities commitee didn`t really concentrate on hard detective as shown here , they pressured people into becoming informants and anyone refusing to grass up anyone with vaguely liberal views soon found themselves becoming a suspected communist themselves . People lost livilihoods , liberty and reputations simply for not turning stool pigeon , what a disgraceful chapter in American history

(Some Spoilers) John Wayne as James "Big Jim" McLain in a very restrained role for him, in the action department,as an investigator for the House on UnAmerican Activities Committee. Big Jim is sent to the island of Oahu Hawaii who along with his friend and fellow investigator Mike Baxter, James Arness, is out to expose and arrest a Communit group operating there.

Planing to start labor unrest and even going as far as planing to release disease infected rats loose on the unsuspecting people living there these commie swines were up to their old tricks again in fomenting fear and hatred among the local population in order to start a Communist take-over of the island.

Big Jim and Mike get a very important lead that may well break the entire Communist operation wide open when they find out from a former commie member that was the treasury secretary of the communist party Willie Namaka is cracking up under the strain of being a Red in Paradise. Willie may well spill the beans on his commie comrades but they, the communists, get to Willie before Big Jim and Mike can put him into protective custody.

Totally unconscious from drugs injected into his system by a local commie Doctor Willie is now useless to the US and local official's in getting any information out of him about what his "friends" in the movement are planing for the good and honest people of Hawaii. What the commies didn't plan on is that they were up against Big Jim and he was gonna make them pay in full for what they planned to do and later did, the rotten and cowardly commies murdered Mike later in the film, and that they were going to pay for it in spades.

There were some things in the movie "Big Jim McLain" that was obviously over-the-top but at the same time the film was very honest about the threat of Communisum that the USA and the Free World faced at that time. At the conclusion of the movie we see US Marines going on a troop ship to the Korean Front to fight the Communist North Koreans and Chinese troops. The movie was made in 1952 when the Korean War was at full tilt and tens of thousands of Americans were being killed and wounded fighting the Communists there. With thousands of US servicemen fighting and dying in Korea, against the Communists, what was so wrong to put the local Communists, who were totally supportive of the Red Communist army in Korea, in the film in a bad light?

There were also excesses over the Red menace in the movie as well. We see Willie's wife Mrs. Namaka, Soo Yong, who was a commie like Willie but quit the movement after ten years to become a nurse, at the famous leper colony of Kalaupapa on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. This action by Mrs. Numaka to make amends for her past sins was a little too much to take. Later when we see the Lexiters, Paul Hurst & Sara Padden, who disowned and threw their son Eddie, Robert Keys,out of the house after coming home from a trip to the Soviet Union and declaring himself a commie was also somewhat ridicules.

Eddie was a good and decent boy only for the fact that he was a commie! Was that enough for his parents to throw him out in the cold and not even make an attempt to try to talk him out of being one? I don't think that there was any parent, who loved their children, that would have done that to their own son or daughter even back then at the very hight of the "Red Scare".

In general "Big Jim McLain" was very honest about how the USA was in it's fear of the Communist Menece and how the American people felt about it.

In the movie, like in real life, I could never understand why people would join the Communist Movement. It offered them nothing but hopelessness and despair. It used the people like you would use a hanker-chief to blow your nose discarding its loyal members when they were no longer of any use to it. And even the Communist Party's promises of freedom and economic security was nothing but a fraud in the movie like in real life. It treated the working men and women with utter contempt like in one scene in the film where Big Jim let one the commies have it, right in the mouth, when he called those who worked for a living "White Trash and Cotton Choppers".

You can overlook the excesses of "Big Jim McLain" and see a clear picture of how really vicious and deranged the hard corps Communist not the vast majority of Communist members in the movement, or "Useful Idiots" as their leader called them, really were and why that created the excesses that the US government went to in combating them.

Anyone who doesn't believe that the US engages in propaganda needs to see this film. This film, made during the McCarthy era with the aid of the US government, seems like it could have been scripted by Joseph McCarthy himself. John Wayne and James Arness are HUAC investigators out to break up a communist cell in Hawaii. There is no actual discussion of what communism IS, only that it is pure evil and must be stopped at all costs. The pair take the time to visit aging ma and pa farmers who give what is supposed to be a heart-rending account of how their son turned to communism, bit the scene only evokes laughter. Hilarious dialogue includes the Duke's line, "I wanted to hit you, but now I see you're a little guy. That's the difference between us -- we don't hit the little guy." While I am giving this film a rating of 3 out of 10, I actually recommend seeing it. The rating is based on the quality of the film, but this unabashedly gung ho movie definitely fits in the "so bad it's good" category.

While the brainwashed elite criticize this story of how Communism threatened the security of America in the 1950s, any unbiased viewer will understand a piece of history that has since been revised.

This movie was made while the liberal elite defended their liberalism by making a straw man of Senator McCarthy. John Wayne understood the real threat of Communism and their spies in America. Making this movie was unpopular then, nevertheless now; Wayne was a brave patriot who should be commended for doing the principled thing, however unpopular.

The liberal politicians and the media has waged war on the fight against communism for 40 years. That repeated mantra of group thinking has obscured the real attitudes of that era. This movie is valuable for the independent minded; it shows a history and culture that Hollywood wants to deny and ignore in the same way the Klan wants to deny and ignore the Holocaust.

It is not Wayne's best film. It is probably the least seen. However, a student of history or a student of Wayne's character should view the movie.

This film was made during the height of McCarthyism and shows it. The film glorifies the work of the Un-American Activities agents who went around looking for communists behind every tree and under every rock. I seriously doubt that the story line has any real validity, but instead was an excuse for making a film in Hawaii that was in keeping with the paranoia of the times. The sound and editing is terrible, and the acting is almost silly. This film should be retitled BOOGIE BOOGIE BOOGIE -- and I don't mean in the dancing sense.