Everybody on the Hollywood food chain had a shot at using 'the Reds' as surefire villains to terrify audiences......from the top Hollywood studios all the way down to.......well, all the way down to the crew who concocted this priceless wingding of hysteria....
This one starts out like a staging of a joke that begins...."five people sit down in a bar." In strolls a TV newsman who starts pestering them with the question 'what you think of a Universal draft?' Meaning: the dad-gum Guv'mint drafting men, women and corporations for the war effort....
The bar crowd turns their collective noses up at that idea.......no doubt an early version of the Tea Party, they want to go about their damn business with no government rules, regulations and requests to help defend the country. Their motto: 'let George do it'....an ancient phrase meaning 'the other guy'. This doesn't sit well with the one guy at the bar who's actually named George. Heh, heh...that's as far as we go in this film for comedy relief.....
A quietly mysterious character sits at the end of the bar with a brandy snifter, Mr. Ohman...(take note of that name, folks....this movie is anything but subtle) Mr. Omen...oops, Ohman, swirls his brandy around dramatically, hypnotizing the bar bunch en masse......with the exception of the bartender who's too busy shaking up cocktails....(somebody at the bar must be James Bond...)
In their mesmerized state, our collection of would-be libertarians experience a group hallucination in which the sneaky Russkies stage an all-out invasion of our Homeland. Atom bombs blossom freely over the skyline and aerial combat rages across the heartland.,....
Since this movie's budget barely covers one bulb to light the set, all of this spectacular Armageddon is depicted with generous chunks of old World War II battle footage. But hold on....these filmmakers, exploitation hucksters at heart, come up with a doozy of their own....Russian paratroopers drop down to the U.S. Capitol building and machine-gun congressman and senators, who in the spirit of bi-partisanship, run like hell together......
It gets better.....after nuking Manhattan, slobbering Russian soldiers commit their worst atrocity.....pawing over the movie's blonde bombshell. ("You be my woman now!" gurgles a stocky commie sleazeball) But rest easy.....our lovely flaxen-haired sweetheart, rather than submit to this monster from Moscow, hurls herself out the nearest window.
At this point, Mr. Ohman (remember him?) stops swishing his brandy and everybody at the bar wakes up.......sadder, wiser and more willing now to pitch in and help the U.S. of A. fight the relentless Reds. Lesson learned. (Personally, the BQ would have added a scene where after Mr.Ohman leaves the bar, everyone else discovers their wallets are missing.....)
With the Cuban missile crisis almost bringing us to the brink of extinction, Warner Brothers and the Defense Department joined forces with Red Nightmare (1962)....produced, according to the credits, under 'the personal supervision of Jack L.Warner'. Introduced and narrated by another Jack, the ever-monotoned Mr. Dragnet himself, Jack Webb, this 30 minute horror film opens in the appropriately perfect setting.......a Russian fake-Americana town used to train deep cover commie spies. Why, it looks just like Main Street , USA.....except for the barbed wire and guards at the end of the street...and everyone at the soda shoppe calling each other comrade while they sip their malteds.
The plot has an all-American family guy waking up one morning in this nightmarish imitation village......maybe he spent the previous night hoisting a few drinks with Mr. Ohman. He quickly learns hard brutal lessons about life in a communist dictatorship......he oldest daughter ships herself off to stack wheat on a collective farm, his wife and two young kids might turn him over to the KGB and worst of all, the town church now houses a museum where visitors can view the wonders of Soviet technology....like the telephone. Before you can say 'Nyet!', all-American Dad is seized, convicted of 'deviation' in a show trial and shot. Thank God our family guy wakes up......sadder, wiser and thrilled to be back in the U.S.A. Once again, lesson learned.....
Sure, we admit to enjoying these films as strange little artifacts of history......but they're not quite that funny if you realize that Russia is no less threatening now than it was then. They may no longer embrace idiotic ideology, but they're still run by a professional thug with assassins at his command. The only difference is the sophistication of their propaganda........in the 50's and 60's it was utter bullshit, Now it comes over the internet disguised as news......and enough people swallowed it to help the Russians elect their personal choice for U.S. President......
The vintage Red Scare movies are indeed silly and crude and we can only hand out 2 stars (**) to each of them. But laughable as those films are now......the Russians remain scary, dangerous, and never any friends of ours.......which hopefully may soon dawn on our so-called Chief Executive....
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