(Some Spoilers) Over the top anti-Communist film that was so outrageous that even when it was released back in 1952 at the hight of the Communist Red Scare period that it bombed out in the box-office with its cast, with the exception of Robert Walker who died before its released, wishing that they never had anything to do with it.
There's the typical All-American family the Jeffersons who's two younger sons Chuck & Ben, Richard Jaeckel & James R. Young, are in the US Army and slated to go fight for their country against the Communist North Koreans and Red Chinese in the Korean War. There's also the oldest brother John the intellectual of the family, played by Robert Walker, about to give the commencement speech at his alma mater as well as receiving a honorable doctorate for his work in political science.
John always acting superior and like he knows it all John's father Dan, Dean Jagger, feels that there's something very strange and unpatriotic about him especially when he talks politics and religion. It's John's mom Lucille, Helen Hayes, who looks past her son's contrary views about the American way of life and religion, in the both Old & New testament, who totally overlooks his radical views about how things should be in the world.
As hard as he tried to hide his political feelings from his parents John's prissy intellectual shyster-like double-talk start to bring the dark side of him out into the open in him being not only a Commie sympathizer in his political views but actually a Commie spy in the people that he, back in Washington D.C, associates with! It's when Mr. Stedman, Van Hflin, who had earlier rear-ended their car showed up at the Jefferson home that the worst fears that his parents had about John became a reality. It turned out that Mr. Stedman was an FBI Agent investigating John's activities in D.C that involved him being a member of a underground Communist spy ring there!
Extremely dark, with the lights almost never turned on in the Jefferson home, and depressing film that has the slinking "Commie John" hidden in the shadows in almost every scene that he's in. It's as if John, like a cockroach, is afraid of the light being shined on him and exposing him for what he really is: A Godless unfeeling and anti-democratic and free world Commie! John's super patriotic father Dan who at first did had his number, in being an undercover Commie spy, later started to have second feelings about his sons very strange behavior. That's when Dan's wife Lucille convinced him that John's problems were because of a girl he was having an affair with not his love for the Communist system. It's later that Lucille found out from FBI Agent Stedman that the girl that John was involved with, who was arrested in an FBI bust, was the head of the Communist spy ring in D.C that he was a member of and was planning to overthrow, with the help of the Soviet Union, the United States Government!
***SPOILERS*** Feel good, if you can call it that, ending with John finally seeing the light in what a lowlife Commie swine he really is and then getting himself killed, by Commie agents, for it when he tried to turn himself over to the FBI. The fact that actor Robert Walker, who played John Jefferson, died before the film was finished the ending had to be changed with him getting killed off in the movie before he could make his public apology, for being a life-long Commie, at the commencement speech he was scheduled to give. To solve that very pressing problem the films writer & director Leo McCarey had John record his farewell address ahead of time and then having himself-McCarey-on the movie sound track give it to a stunned and shocked audience of graduate students at the collage!
P.S Helen Hayes who didn't make a movie for 17 years until she played Lucille Jefferson in the film was later reunited with her co-star in "My Son John" Van Haflin 18 years later in 1970 in the mega million dollar all star disaster epic "Airport".
There's the typical All-American family the Jeffersons who's two younger sons Chuck & Ben, Richard Jaeckel & James R. Young, are in the US Army and slated to go fight for their country against the Communist North Koreans and Red Chinese in the Korean War. There's also the oldest brother John the intellectual of the family, played by Robert Walker, about to give the commencement speech at his alma mater as well as receiving a honorable doctorate for his work in political science.
John always acting superior and like he knows it all John's father Dan, Dean Jagger, feels that there's something very strange and unpatriotic about him especially when he talks politics and religion. It's John's mom Lucille, Helen Hayes, who looks past her son's contrary views about the American way of life and religion, in the both Old & New testament, who totally overlooks his radical views about how things should be in the world.
As hard as he tried to hide his political feelings from his parents John's prissy intellectual shyster-like double-talk start to bring the dark side of him out into the open in him being not only a Commie sympathizer in his political views but actually a Commie spy in the people that he, back in Washington D.C, associates with! It's when Mr. Stedman, Van Hflin, who had earlier rear-ended their car showed up at the Jefferson home that the worst fears that his parents had about John became a reality. It turned out that Mr. Stedman was an FBI Agent investigating John's activities in D.C that involved him being a member of a underground Communist spy ring there!
Extremely dark, with the lights almost never turned on in the Jefferson home, and depressing film that has the slinking "Commie John" hidden in the shadows in almost every scene that he's in. It's as if John, like a cockroach, is afraid of the light being shined on him and exposing him for what he really is: A Godless unfeeling and anti-democratic and free world Commie! John's super patriotic father Dan who at first did had his number, in being an undercover Commie spy, later started to have second feelings about his sons very strange behavior. That's when Dan's wife Lucille convinced him that John's problems were because of a girl he was having an affair with not his love for the Communist system. It's later that Lucille found out from FBI Agent Stedman that the girl that John was involved with, who was arrested in an FBI bust, was the head of the Communist spy ring in D.C that he was a member of and was planning to overthrow, with the help of the Soviet Union, the United States Government!
***SPOILERS*** Feel good, if you can call it that, ending with John finally seeing the light in what a lowlife Commie swine he really is and then getting himself killed, by Commie agents, for it when he tried to turn himself over to the FBI. The fact that actor Robert Walker, who played John Jefferson, died before the film was finished the ending had to be changed with him getting killed off in the movie before he could make his public apology, for being a life-long Commie, at the commencement speech he was scheduled to give. To solve that very pressing problem the films writer & director Leo McCarey had John record his farewell address ahead of time and then having himself-McCarey-on the movie sound track give it to a stunned and shocked audience of graduate students at the collage!
P.S Helen Hayes who didn't make a movie for 17 years until she played Lucille Jefferson in the film was later reunited with her co-star in "My Son John" Van Haflin 18 years later in 1970 in the mega million dollar all star disaster epic "Airport".