I Was a Communist for the F.B.I.

I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. (Gordon Douglas, 1951) In one of those instances of Oscar head-scratching that involves rules (rather than taste...or lack thereof) this drama based on a Saturday Evening Post series, was nominated for an Academy Award...for Best Documentary Feature. Okay, there's some stock footage used for a couple of minutes, but the rest of it is a noir-shaded (with not a damn hint of red!) B-movie with not a hint of a real person, but only D-list actors that no one would recognize...unless you saw The Sound of Fury.

 

But, then it was the 1950's. Hollywood was doing a lot of back-bending in order to prove to right-wing government-types that they weren't being infiltrated by Communists in the same way that the State Department, the Truman Administration, and the U.S. Army weren't being infiltrated by Communists.

 

Hey, it must have worked! By the mid-50's, there were just 5000 registered communists in the country—1500 of them were F.B.I. informants.

Much like Matt Cvetic (Frank Lovejoy, who—I gotta say—looks a lot like then anti-commie Senator Richard Nixon). For ten years, Pittsburgh steel factory supervisor Cvetic has served two masters—the FBI and the Communist Party. He's worked his way up in the Party ranks to become chief party organizer for Pittsburgh, where he uses his influence to promote party members to higher positions and recruit new Party members. It seems a natural fit as it's no different than being a Union organizer or the even more common Old White Boys Network...or The Elks. The only difference being that after recruiting or promoting, you don't find the nearest pay-phone (it's the 1950's, youngsters!) and alert the FBI.

Or do you?

Anyway, his case-runner at the local Fibby branch is Ken Crowley (Richard Webb) who lets him know that a big Communist mucky-muck Gerhardt Eisler (Konstantin Shayne) is coming to The Burgh and he really should attend. Cvetic says, sure, give him a call when the old boy shows up—he's gotta go see his Mom. 

The reception is chilly. Oh, Mom is happy to see her good boy...but the rest of the family? Well, they know that Matt is a "dirty red" and treat him with contempt...even his son, Dick (Ron Hagerthy) is conflicted—he's getting harassed about it at his private school. Lips are curled when Cvetic is called to the Party meeting, where Eisler is greeted in a grand hotel suite with champagne and caviar. Some are more equal than others, eh comrade? "Better get used to it—it's the way we're all gonna live once we take the country over..." "The workers, too?" "The workers will always be the workers. The trouble with you is you're a fanatic."

At the meeting, the strategies are formed based on the old "Divide and Conquer" rule. Set people against each other by exposing weaknesses in the system, recruit minorities and key positions—like teachers—to the Party line. Then, sit back and do a little fomenting, cackling all the way about the "useful idiots" who advance the cause. Disparaging those very minorities with racial slurs—"You mean "negroes", doncha, Jim?" "Only when I'm trying to sell 'em the party-line"—hoping for tension that they can exploit for fund-raising ("The Pittsburgh branch needs dough. We're always in the red." <chuckle>). Lest, the irony is lost on the audience, Cvetic is always there to clarify the dichotomy ("In other word, Jim, your speech tonight had a double purpose...?"). "Duh!"

But, nobody points out the obvious that we're watching two sides of the same red cent. There are good guys (The F.B.I.) and the bad guys (The Commies), but, curiously they employ the same techniques. Yeah, it's bad the Communist Party is infiltrating Unions and schools, but the F.B.I. is infiltrating the Party—a couple of moments of thought exposes I Was a Communist for the F.B.I. as the same moral quagmire exhibited in The Departed (and its inspiration Infernal Affairs). If the good guys become partners with the bad guys, don't they become bad guys? Yeah, it's bad that the Communists are micro-phoning their meeting places to use as blackmail, but the Feds are tapping those same systems...to use as evidence. 

But, nobody stands up and says "Golly, Lieutenant, aren't we doing the same things the Communists are? I mean, I LOVE my country, but I'd like it a lot less if it was a country of spies and snitches! What sort of freedom are we protecting, anyway?"

No one says it because then the F.B.I. employee would be fired and possibly investigated and there wouldn't be a movie. Actually, there would be...but not one that looks at the country unquestioningly.

The Stranger (1946)

The Stranger (Orson Welles, 1946) Fairly conventional film from Orson Welles, which means it's a surrealist experiment in style for everyone else. Welles did this one under a time-constraint (which might be why the thing looks lush and complicated at the beginning and a might skimpy towards the end). It's Welles' least favorite of his films and the only film he directed that turned a profit at the time of its release.

Here, Welles is having fun with the idea of a Nazi war criminal hiding in plain sight in a small American college town. He's become a professor—college prof's being allowed certain eccentricities, like a secret allegiance to Der Fuehrer—and he has wooed and become engaged to a Supreme Court Justice's daughter (Loretta Young with her "deer-in-the-headlights" look). But for Nazi's it's safety in numbers, usually in concentric patterns. So when another war criminal is allowed to escape as bait by a War Crimes Commission, he heads straight for Harper, Connecticut, picturesque in Fall, and his superior, Franz Kindler (Welles), hiding as Professor Charles Rankin, hoping to start a Fourth Reich. As the professor is a clock-hobbyist, Kindler's precise deceptions begin to ungear. His current project, the old school clock tower with its carouseling angels and demons in pursuit high above the town is his refuge.

He should be keeping his eyes on the ground and the dogged—one might say "pugged"—pursuit by War Crimes investigator Wilson (Edward G. Robinson, whose good "badness" is used to great effect). Welles and his screenwriters (with an assist by John Huston) have a lot of fun with the global affairs effecting a small town and its eccentric collection of rubes, who prove to be inconveniently adept at things: the busy-body checkers hustler has a good memory and the town gossips are good sources of information, especially when they're in the dark about what secrets they have. Pretty soon, suspicion is sewn and in a small town, word gets around.

Welles manages to make a propaganda film, a detective story, a woman-in-jeopardy tale, with elements of comedy, AND show concentration camp footage all in one story-line (filmed in 1946!), couched in a popular entertainment (for George Schaefer who brought Welles to Hollywood) and knock it out before heading to Rio De Janeiro to film The Lady from Shanghai.

It's lower-tier pulp Welles, which still puts it far above Hollywood's average.

Shadows of The Stranger

Loretta Young's shadow of a doubt about her new husband (Welles) who's just come home.

"Use Gym Equipment at Your Own Risk" says a sign.
Edward G. Robinson is about to get clocked with a ring.

An informant is faceless and anonymous.

A Nazi criminal is on the run, and gets his picture taken for a fake passport.

Welles' shadows turn that same Nazi...into Adolph Hitler?

But don't take my word for it! As The Stranger is in the Public Domain, you can watch it or download it here