Great/good Films - With underlying or secret agendas !!

Watched one of my favorite films the 1956 Invasion of the bodysnatchers the other night!! and it is so obviously a pop at the Mccarthyite witch-hunts that blighted my Country in the 50's/ early 60s!!

Crazy when you look back now how intelligent people were taken in by paranoia during the cold war.............

Which leads me to ask about other films which although great/good...some intelligent people can see right through to get the message!!

Didn't it have something to do with Communism Vs the USA.

I'm sure a lot of Sci-Fi films from the Cold War era were simply "Us Vs Them".

Commies Vs Yanks.

(havn't seen the film)

I've put this in the film section so If the mods could take it off here..as I've posted it on the wrong section...........

Obviously Mackem..but this was a subtle dig.....in dangerous times to make subtle digs........

Directors and actors lost everything through the communist witch trials....

Robinson, Wanamaker etc.....all lost.............

Oh i see, the Mccarthyte witch hunts had something to do with communism (If I'd read your full post instead of jumping in after reading the first sentence i would have realised that).

I hadn't heard of Mccarthyte witch trials until now (but i'll look into them).

Also, I know nothing about films.

I'll bow out.

TheMackemMawler wrote:Oh i see, the Mccarthyte witch hunts had something to do with communism (If I'd read your full post instead of jumping in after reading the first sentence i would have realised that).

I hadn't heard of Mccarthyte witch trials until now (but i'll look into them).

Also, I know nothing about films.

I'll bow out.

A huge piece of American history which ruined quite a few careers.

Maybe Truss will know this but wasnt Frank Capra implicated and blacklisted?

Dawn of the Dead is obviously about the brain deadening effects of consumer capitalism. M.A.S.H (the film), despite being set during the Korean War, is clearly about the Vietnam War.

I remember reading somewhere that it was noticeable that during the Vitenam War there was a significant increase in the number of slasher films produced in America and that these films in which teenagers/young adults were butchered were representative of a country that was sending it's kids to be butchered in South East Asia.

Fast forward thirty years or so and America is sending its soldiers to be killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and there's a sudden rise in the popularity of slasher films and many of the orginal slasher films are remade.

Could be a coincidence but there could be something to it.

On the Waterfront is an apology by the director, Elia Kazan over his role in naming names during the McCarthy witchhunts.

I'm not an expert on movies but a lot people got elected by painting there rivals as PINK.....Communist reference!!

For some reason intelligent people thought the communists had infiltrated all members of government and society and were going to strip assets and takeover....

In fairness to your country Mccarthy sent people over here in the 50's to check on the communist menace...and you laughed at them and sent them back...

Bad times..and many talented people either committed suicide or fled our Country because they were wrongly painted by associates as being pink......

It's why I won't watch James Stewart or John Wayne movies..........and why I have a huge respect for Henry Fonda..

Great Dawn of the dead reference.. Super......

But how many got the message???...90% just thought groovy movie I bet!!

I am positive that I once read that George Romero never meant for DotD to be a social commentary on consumerism but it was suggested to him in an interview and he agreed. Then he carried on with the story!

I cant remember (or find) where I read that but it wouldnt surprise me.

Can recommend "Good Night and Good Luck" which is about a TV journalist that spoke out against McCarthy. Would be worth doing a bit of background reading first to place it into context.

Interesting film based fact (well I think so) - the guy who played the judge in "Anatomy of a Murder" (Jimmy Stuart film, Truss and you should try to watch it if you haven't) was a lawyer in real life and effectively ended McCarthy's career. His name was Joseph Welch and he was head counsel for the US Army which was under investigation by McCarthy. In an exchange with McCarthy, Welch essentially finished McCarthy off with the line:

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Its surprising Truss doesnt watch James Stewart movies when he was in some great Hitch films!

He wasnt a great actor but I always found him incredibly lieable and watcheable.

I've seen the film of him doing it and he was a good man..........In essence it had been over for Mccarthy before then ..Eisenhower had run out of patience with Mccarthy.............He hated the odious Nixon too who rode Mccarthy's coat tails when it suited him....But getting rid of a vice president proved difficult..although he did try to throw Nixon to the wolves over his expenses ...

Then we got that gut wrenching Checkers-the-dog speech........

and the rest is history............Interesting chapter though....

This might surprise you.....

the X-man movie franchise is actually based on the African American civil rights movement in the 60's.

Let me break it down for you.

Mutants are deamed as second class or even 3rd class citizens. Shunned whereever they turn up. There is an active political movement to ''do something'' about them.

Professer X is seen by many mutants as the 1 single voice who speaks for them. Now, Professer X is a peace loving mutant himself who just wants peace and co-operation between mutants and non mutants. He opens a place of refuge for runaway mutants and helps them to understand their power.

Magnito on the other hand represents another more militent voice that some mutants, fed up with being harassed , agree with and join his cause.
Magnito wants and I qoute ''seperation by any means necessary'' which is a direct qoute from Malcolm X.

Professer X wants peacefull resolution like Dr Martin Luther King.

District 9 wasn't very subtle.

All Studio Ghibli films are rich in concurrent narratives.

superflyweight wrote:On the Waterfront is an apology by the director, Elia Kazan over his role in naming names during the McCarthy witchhunts.

Kazan made it as a criticism of the Communist-sympathizers in Hollywood; "Terry Malloy" is his on-screen stand-in.

Not that it has any great secret message, but Galaxy Quest ends with a neat swipe at the California/America/World car-dependent culture.

For other movies, after the Egyptian army is wiped out in The Ten Commandments the Pharaoh remarks to his queen, "his god is God." The last shot of the two has them seated on their thrones contemplating their stupefaction. The Pharaoh is bald and his queen has her hair in bangs - like Ike & Mamie.

And, of course, who can miss the subtextual homosexuality in so many of those sword & sandal epics?

In the '30s screen characters were offered at screen value. Beginning with the war and shortly thereafter, inlaid psychological motives began showing up in many characters. Perhaps the first great portrayal of these was by James Cagney as the mother-obsessed gangster Cody Jarrett in White Heat. Among other things, it reflected how the psychology industry had become openly acceptable in America (at least, among the more open-minded.)

Having spent a few years thinking Zombieland as commentary on the state of horror films. It finally dawned on me that it is instead, one awesome Tinkies Ad.

Read somewhere that Superman was a white supremacy movie. I wouldnt pay it that much attention, Seeing as Richard Pryor played the only black character of any impotance...

kingraf wrote:Having spent a few years thinking Zombieland as commentary on the state of horror films. It finally dawned on me that it is instead, one awesome Tinkies Ad.

The Zombie fad seems a response to the Bush-Cheney co-presidency and its most lasting effect, the Teabagger movement.

kingraf wrote:Read somewhere that Superman was a white supremacy movie.

Bit of a stretch, given that he was invented by two sons of Jewish immigrants.

kingraf wrote:I wouldnt pay it that much attention, Seeing as Richard Pryor played the only black character of any impotance...

You haven't; Pryor was in Superman III.