The Red Menace (1949) User Reviews

Better Than Average Commie Flick - The Red Menace

[arthur_tafero · 6/10 · 1 October 2019]

OK, the acting, direction and production values are below average. But the writing is above average and that is why this film gets a 6. I have seen several commie movies from the fifties, and most of them have better production values. However, the scripts for these often entertaining films is usually the same; the commies are the bad guys and the American government officials are the good guys; a simple case of black and white. Unfortunately, most of the things in life are not simple black and white issues. There is no pancake so flat that it does not have two sides. Instead of using stereotypes with predictable plot development and a pat ending, this film, at least, avoided half of those shortcomings. It is an intelligent look at the motives of members of the communist party in the US. The characters are complex and realistic, not cartoonish black and white characters portrayed in the vast majority of red scare films of the fifties. Even though the film had a weak conclusion, the rest of the film was very entertaining.

This is the United States not a Police State!

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 16 December 2014]

***SPOILERS*** Over the top anti-communist movie has the members of the US Communists Party or "Commies" as they were called then made out to be far worst and dangerous then their fellow travelers in Moscow as well as Eastern Europe. Were made to believe that the "Commies" in the USA were so brazen and out in the open not hiding in the dark like rats and cockroaches by going so far as murdering any member of the party that has second thoughts about how great their objectives, in creating a workers paradise in America, really is or better yet isn't.

There's the just discharged from the US Army Bill Jones, Robert Rockwell, who feels he's getting a raw deal from the government by allowing him to get screwed by a real-estate agent who robbed him out of his life savings. It's not long that Bill ends up gravitating, but not quite joining, the US Communist Party that offers him as well as his fellow returning from WWII GI's a better life. It's Communist honcho Nina Petrovka, Hanna Axman, who serves as Bill's controller showing him just how great the ideas of Marx Lennon & Stalin are for the working class in America. It's doesn't take long for Nina not Bill, who seems to have trouble grasping reality, to see what a bunch of lowlife and lying creeps these "Commies" really are.

It's no surprise that both Bill, who finally gets the message, and Nina checked out of the party and are seen running for their lives, by car, to Arizona to escape being murdered by their fellow Communist party members. That's what happened to Tony Roachi, Norman Budd, who in trying to quite the party, in seeing what it really stands for, was beaten to death by a couple of "Commie" goons and made into a martyr in blaming those against Communism, like the John Burke Society, for his murder. There's also the sad case of Commie poet laureate Henry Solomon, Shepard Menken, who tried to be honest in his writings about 20th century world history and the Communist part in it, which was anything but enlightening, that had him kicked out of the party and blackmailed in not being able, despite his talents as an excellent writer, to find a good paying job. The last straw for Solomon was when his fellow Communist Party member and lover Mollie O'Flaherty, Barbara Fuller, career as a Communist agitator ended because of her associating with him getting the pink slip, from the party,and ended up on poverty row in her not being able to get a job that pushed Henry off the edge. The edge of a the ledge of a five story building, at the Communist Party headquarters, where he jumped head first through the window to his death.

It was the FBI and US Justice Department to finally put an end to the Communists in the movie by using their own feelings of invincibility against them. And it was big mouth Communist fanatic Greta Block, Betty Lou Greson, who when exposed as being really Communist instigator Yvonne Kraus who in fact murdered her, and stole Greta's identity, along with her Commie cohorts in Mexico City ten years ago that put an end to her and the Communist party that she so fanatically served. As for Bill & Nina they got a free pass in given a second chance in getting their act or lives together by the US Government and become loyal American citizens; Something that they by being disloyal to the Communist Party in the USSR would have ended up them being put in front of a firing squad or sent on a life long stay to a Gulag in far off Siberia.

equality and justice is communism - jaussa!

[karlericsson · 5/10 · 6 September 2015]

When I grew up, the Iron Curtain existed. The Soviet Union was a Place that did not allow its Citizen to travel freely. And so it was easy to renounce the Place and look for no further explanations.

At the same time, communism stood for equality and class warfare, allowing for only one class, the working class, since allowing for different classes of people was just Another Word for inequality and injustice.

Now, if you could therefore renounce equality and justice by renouncing the Soviet Union, which, through communism, stood for these qualities, why, then you could defend the injustices and inequalities you wanted to keep by Calling every wish for equality and justice to be the same as a wish for communism and that is just what has been done in the USA for the last 70 years, which this film bears witness to.

The Soviet Union was a failed system but that has Little to do with communism because, although the SU called itself "communist" it was not a system of equality and justice and instead just a dictatorship ensuring that a Little Group of people had all the wealth and all the Power just like in the USA, where the same was ensured by somewhat different means.

How to achieve equality and justice is still a problem to be solved but it will never be solved by simply Writing these qualities off by Calling them "communism".

This film illustrates the propaganda being used against the American Citizen and is helpful to understand the brainwash that Americans seem to suffer from. I therefore give it 5 stars.

But Awful is what makes it a cult classic....

[BudsNephew · 1/10 · 19 November 2007]

My uncle told me this was the WORST film he ever directed. He was a contract director and the studio wanted him to make a movie about Communism. "This McCarthy thing seems to be catching on," he said they told him, "and we need a film quick." They gave him six weeks and $100,000 budget - an unheard-of pittance for a feature film, even in 1949. He didn't have a cast, a crew, a script, or even a story line. So he called friends who had very little screen time, knowing no "Name" actor would commit to a project like this. Besides, most of Uncle Gordon's actor friends were Western stars, like Roy Rogers.

Gordon got a writer from the studio to pen the script, but he quit half-way through filming. So he and another actor had to complete the script, adding to it as they went. At the start of each day's filming, they had no idea what they were going to do.

But, as promised, Uncle Gordon got this movie made on time and on budget.

It saddened him a little, knowing that with all his directing credits, he would probably be most remembered for the worst film he ever made. He was proud of the rest of his filmography, and enjoyed directing well into his 70's.

As for me, well, I think its kinda cool that my Great Uncle had a lot to do with the making of a cult classic. Its no Rocky Horror, Reefer Madness, or even Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but in the genre of ridiculously bad films, Red Menace can hold its celluloid head high.

Just remember, Bud Springsteen had to work under extreme conditions to churn out a film this bad.

It ain't exactly subtle....but it IS entertaining.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 25 February 2017]

"The Red Menace" is a super-cheap exposé on Communists in America who were working towards the destruction of the country back in 1949. None of the actors in this Republic B-movie are folks you'll recognize...which shows what confidence the studio had in this movie!

The film begins with a couple driving from California into Arizona. The lady, in particular, is very nervous and you learn via a LONG flashback what it's all about and why she's worried. Bill Jones (Robert Rockwell) is an angry WWII vet. His bitterness attracts the attention of a Communist recruiter who gets him hooked up with folks who seduce him gradually into embracing Communism...and they use women to do this gentle 'guidance'. However, while Bill soon becomes a full-fledged Commie, some of the women working to convert him towards this system are beginning to have their doubts...particularly when they see how vicious their superiors are in dealing with dissent. Bill, too, begins to see how the Party is filled with jerks...folks who couldn't care less about truth or equality.

So is this film any good? Well, yes and no. As a history teacher, I must point out that there was a Communist Party USA and many of their tactics shown in the film are pretty realistic...despite how we tend to look on the Red Scare as almost comical today. This would especially be true of the Party just before WWII--when folks went from being lionized to demonized by them. But it also comes off as a bit over- earnest...a bit too trite as well---especially at the barf-inducing ending. Subtle, it sure isn't...but it is entertaining. So, despite low production values, it does keep your interest.

I noticed one review compared this to "Reefer Madness". Well, that's their opinion, but I felt "The Red Menace" had much, much better production values and isn't even close to being as schlocky as "Reefer Madness" or "Sex Madness" (by the same production company). This film is much slicker by comparison...though I gotta admit that speech at the INS office near the end of the film was amazingly over the top...and a bit reminiscent of the guy playing the piano in "Reefer Madness".

Slightly above verage Red Scare stuff.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 4 August 2023]

During the late forties and early fifties, there was the Witch Hunt in USA, war hunt against communists anywhere. And In Hollywood in particular. This one is good, tense, but without any subtle element of any kind. It is very very didactic, especially the scene in the class room when a "student" asks his teacher what doesn mean democracy in a political system where there is the dictatorship of proletariat. It is too heavy loaded in terms of propaganda. However it remains a good film in line of BIG JIM MC LAIN or I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI. Good tough directing and acting too. But this one is slightly better than the two, I think.

The grandpa of absurd Anti-Communist melodramas.

[mark.waltz · 2/10 · 10 September 2013]

This horribly written propaganda piece was obviously intended to be a scare tactic to warn America's rebellious young the dangers awaiting them if they joined the Communist party. Using the cynical Robert Rockwell as the story's protagonist and sap manipulated into joining the party, the film immediately shows its disgust with its topic by a Crime Does Not Pay style of narration where you often can't tell if it is the narrator speaking or a character on the other side of the camera.

One dimensional characters show signs of insanity, evidenced by the sudden breakdown of the tough female commander played by Betty Lou Gerson, best known for her voice of Cruella de Ville. Future Ed Wood star Barbara Fuller plays a party member whose bible thumping mother compares her to Mary Magdelene. She had better material when she handed Wood her sweater in "Glen or Glenda". Her character's plight involves aiding her poet boyfriend who becomes persona non grata when his latest work offends party leaders. "Bullwinkle's" Boris and Natasha must have had a field day watching this.

Second Thoughts

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 8 November 2017]

For the most part it seems that it was the small studios that made the worst of the anti-Communist films from post World War II. In this case it was Republic Pictures of Herbert J. Yates home of the B western cowboy heroes who inflicted this one on the American public.

The Red Menace has the future object Our Miss Brooks's affection Robert Rockwell as a disillusioned GI who just got rooked by some sharpie real estate crooks over a plot of land to build a house. The lack of housing for returning veterans was a major domestic issue in the Truman years, no less a conservative than Robert A. Taft sponsored a government program to aid in housing construction.

An equally sharp talent scout for the US Communist Party spots Rockwell making a complaint and recruits him into the party. He's enthusiastic at first but then sees that this crowd really intrudes on every aspect and thought one might have. Getting also disillusioned is Hannah Axman as they see one by one people who deviate get dealt with severely.

It's not even that some of what is put forth here is completely untrue. It was that in 1949 some reactionary politicians usually belonging to the GOP saw the Russian spy scandals as a chance to stamp out liberal thought to the left of Walter Winchell. So we had the HUAC hearings and a year later Joe McCarthy looking for an issue to hang his re- election to the Senate on discovered The Red Menace.

Two of the supporting players in the cast really stand out. First Lester Luther as the top commissar in the USA comes off like a poor man's Edward Arnold. Secondly Betty Lou Gerson when her alias is exposed by Immigration goes full blown mad in a scene that Bette Davis might have done in a better picture.

For a good anti-Communist film I recommend Trial which starred Glenn Ford and Arthur Kennedy. The Red Menace is about as menacing as Dennis.

You Can't Trust Them Commies

[boblipton · 5/10 · 2 February 2024]

World War Two vet Robert Rockwell finds himself rooked by lying land developers, and falls in with some communists, particularly pretty Hanna Axmann-Rezzori. Meanwhile, Shepherd Menken finds himself in trouble with the Party because a poem of his noted that Marx had historical antecedents.

It seems to be a rule of Hollywood movies that no pretty woman remains a communist when loved by a handsome leading man, and that's pretty much what happens here. Meanwhile, in ideology land, the multi-racial, tolerant views of the party begin to shred in the presence of individual thought and sympathy.

It's one of the many virulently anti-Communist movies made in Hollywood in this period in an effort to avoid losing the entire studio to the Blacklist -- just the highly priced writers and directors. The script by Albert Demond and Gerald Geraghty makes a play at intellectual fairness by noting the CPUSA work in unionization and civil rights. Having done that, it goes off the rails in a manner that Red Channels would approve of.

Will be hated just because it's anti-communist

[morrisonhimself · 8/10 · 16 February 2022]

Most of the other reviews here fall into two groups: anti-communists like it, to one degree or another; pro-communists or anti-anti-communists hate it.

One, from a supposed relative of that excellent director, R. G. Springsteen, sneers at it, claiming the director called it his worst film. If Mr. Springsteen hated it, then he would not have done his best on it.

In fact, despite the actors not being well known, they -- most of them -- gave very good performances.

Nathan Scott, credited with the music, gets my respect for his use of "The Internationale" sprinkled suitably throughout the film.

The writers also did generally good work, though I have one hesitation: The leaders of the Communist Party, U. S. A., were shown to be very cynical, not very strong or honest believers in their party.

Some years ago, I worked at university radio station, and our manager, Tom Duval, was like that: He would go out to some individuals or groups to raise money, then come back and laugh at the suckers who gave.

But I can't help thinking members and leaders of the Communist Party were as sincere as members of other political parties -- even though the CPUSA was, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the CPUSSR, getting its orders and much of its money from Moscow.

(The CPUSA was, it is important to remember, also used for espionage and sabotage, as well, especially in Hollywood, to propagandize. Look at, for example, how its "keep out of the European conflict" changed, literally over night, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Then the CPUSA was "this is a people's war and we need to fight.")

Some of the Hollywood people who joined the CPUSA, especially the ones who quit and who testified before the congressional committee, said the party seemed to offer solutions to such problems as poverty and unemployment.

In fact, just as did Al Capone, the CPUSA set up soup kitchens for the hungry.

Of course it intended to recruit members. And maybe that was a bit cynical. But advocates of even the most evil systems, including Nazism and communism, were probably as sincere, were probably true believers, as members of other parties and advocates of other causes.

Just not very clear-eyed.

Well, some want to make fun of the ending, of course, but I like it. It seems very Texan to me. At least for 1950.

"The Red Menace" must be viewed in the context of its times. If I were the president of Republic, I would make some changes, though relatively minor changes. As it is, I give it a recommendation, with that caveat: Remember the times, and that the Soviet Union and its alleged communist belief system was the imperialist enemy of these United States. And, in fact, of the peace and freedom of all Earth.

There is a too-dark print at YouTube.

The "Reefer Madness" of Cold War films

[RickeyMooney · 10/10 · 26 March 2003]

And throw in a touch of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and you've got the idea. The commies are using sex and booze to lure all-American boys to do ... just what isn't exactly clear, but the ultimate goal is to promote atheism and destroy freedom. Meanwhile, all they seem to be doing is killing their own members when not turning them in to the INS. An added treat for 50's TV fans is that the dimwitted hero is played by Robert Rockwell, who later portrayed Mr. Boynton, the suspiciously uninterested biology teacher eternally pursued by Eve Arden in "Our Miss Brooks"

A sobering account of Communist Party life, chillingly presented.

[h_palka · 8/10 · 17 August 2006]

In view of what the Soviet archives revealed about the U. S. Communist Party(thank you, Gorby), this movie hits the nail right on the head. All the tactics Communists used to gain members, such as having female members sleep with prospective male members, as well as the means they used to create trouble, are shown in this movie. My father-in-law was once a Communist. He told me that the CPUSA would take up a collection for African-Americans on trial somewhere and keep the money for themselves. If a man quit the party, not only would he be shunned, but other members' kids would be expected to bully his kids! All this is shown in the movie, including even the beatings administered to wayward members. See this film and learned what we narrowly escaped from ending up as.

underappreciated warning

[Nostrama · 10/10 · 8 January 2024]

Although the movie is 70 years old, its message rings ever more true now in the 2020s, as the evils it warned against then, are more thoroughly entwined into current day politics and society

communism demanding slavelike servitude and obedience, and wilfully encouraging historical revisionism are an ever present threat as even today our history is under threat by people who seek to push a mandela effect on people and gaslight away truth, and act violently towards anyone who dares question it or seek to maintain truth

of all movies that need a remake to keep the message alive, THIS is one badly in need to be revisited.