Reel History and the Cold War

Ronald Briley

Reprinted from the OAH Magazine of History
8 (Winter 1994). ISSN 0882-228X
Copyright (c) 1994, Organization of American Historians

Many teachers who are products of the baby boom face a perplexing situation in teaching the Cold War. We find it strange to confront a classroom of students for whom the Cold War has little historical meaning beyond the apprehension that their parents may lose defense-related jobs as peace breaks out. In contrast to our students, many of us spent our youth investigating bomb shelters, participating in duck and cover drills, worrying about the Cuban Missile Crisis, observing the constriction of political debate, and agonizing over the Vietnam War. It is almost incomprehensible that a generation-shaping conflict is so quickly fading from modern memory. How can we convey to our students the fears, insecurities, heroic actions, political opportunism, excitement, despair, and hope of this crucial era?

One answer lies in the medium of film. Examining the ways in which movies have treated the Cold War and been influenced by it will appeal to the students of today, who are accustomed to visual learning. If we want students to examine the values and ideological orientation of everyday Americans, what better tool than the popular art form of film? Although this proposal may be somewhat surprising, it in fact builds upon a tried and true, popular pedagogical technique. Many history teachers have successfully used popular novels to investigate the concerns and daily lives of Americans in the past. The same can be done with Hollywood films that have tried to address the fears and aspirations of the American citizenry, while also attempting to turn a profit. Fortunately, the videocassette revolution has made films much more accessible and affordable for the classroom teacher. Since students are inevitably going to view video, teachers should ensure that they are equipped with techniques for visual literacy. They can do this by assigning reading and writing exercises that place film within a historical and cultural context.

The following overview will attempt to provide an outline of how Hollywood films might be used to provide insights into the social, political, and economic impact of the Cold War upon American society. The essay will cover the period from the end of World War II to the present, but the primary focus will be upon the 1950s when the ideology of anticommunism was formulated.

Although teachers have an intimidating range of relevant movies from which to choose, a course dedicated solely to the Cold War is not required in order to effectively implement the proposals below. Those teaching broader surveys might use clips from a number of films or select two or three representative works to convey popular attitudes of the Cold War era. Do not expect Hollywood to be a good historian, however, in regard to historical accuracy and chronology. That will usually remain the domain of the instructor, although occasionally movies will be surprisingly accurate. Critic Nora Sayre has written that since the Cold War era was "a time when fictions and delusions were accepted as facts, some of the movies may be almost as informative as the FBI's files--and probably more accurate about the mentalities of many Americans who were amused or repelled or touched or unnerved by what they saw on the screen."

Following World War II, many Americans feared that the nation would fall back into the grip of economic depression. Hollywood filmmakers responded by producing a number of "social problem films" which mirrored these insecurities and which enjoyed success at the box-office. The Oscar-winning The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) focused upon the economic and social readjustment of returning veterans. Films such as Crossfire (1947) and Gentleman's Agreement (1947) examined antisemitism in America, while Pinky (1949) and Intruder in the Dust (1949) raised the issue of racism.

However, Hollywood's emphasis on social problems did not extend into the 1950s. In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) came to Hollywood and accused many filmmakers of harboring subversives and manufacturing films that were not reflective of American values. (Interestingly enough, the same charge is leveled against contemporary filmmakers by critic Michael Medved in his controversial book Hollywood vs. America, and his ideas could be used to elicit classroom discussion). HUAC specifically cited Mission to Moscow (1943) and Song of Russia (1944), films that in the view of the committee promoted Soviet ideology. Mission to Moscow was based upon the memoirs of U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies, and included rationalizations for the Stalin-ist purges of the 1930s. Song of Russia featured Robert Taylor as an American conductor who marries a Russian peasant. One must remember that these films were made when the Soviets were wartime allies of the U.S. and were some of the first casualties of the Cold War.

The film industry responded to HUAC's allegations by creating a blacklist of suspect performers, writers, and directors. Several other factors also contributed to Hollywood's decision. The American Legion was threatening a boycott, the "Hollywood Ten" had been convicted for refusing to answer HUAC's questions, and the growing television industry was starting to cut in on profits. In addition to the blacklist, Hollywood attempted to prove its dedication to the anti-communist crusade by turning out a rather undistinguished series of films. Big Jim McClain (1952) featured John Wayne as an investigator for the House Un-American Activities Committee uncovering communist subversion in Hawaii. In My Son John (1952), Dean Jagger and Helen Hayes have to denounce their Ivy League-educated son, played by Robert Walker, for being duped by the communists.

These films and others such as The Red Menace (1949) and I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951) often trumpeted the same stock themes. Intellectualism is suspect, all communists are agents of the Soviet Union, and anyone attempting to leave the party will be murdered by communists who are both inept and omnipotent.

Many World War II-era films played on American xenophobic apprehensions of the enemy within. Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), Saboteur (1942), and The House on 92nd St. (1945) appealed to fears of Nazi and Japanese-American subversion, which eventually proved to have little or no basis in fact. Only in the late 1940s and early 1950s did evil communists replace the Germans and Japanese. Meanwhile, political figures such as Joseph McCarthy pointed to the cases of the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss to justify these anxieties. However, Hollywood's forays into the anti-communist genre did not prove particularly lucrative. In the future, allegories would provide a safer avenue--both politically and financially--to examine the insecurities of the Cold War.

In the context of the pressure put on Hollywood by HUAC to "name names" and implicate associates who may have been involved in left wing causes, films began to explore the theme of informing. One such example, On the Waterfront (1954), was directed by Elia Kazan, who had earlier decided to cooperate with HUAC. The decision by longshoreman Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) to expose the fraudulent activities of the union, led by Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), may be perceived as justification for Kazan's denouncing of a corrupt Stalinist Communist party. On the other hand, Carl Foreman's script for High Noon, which John Wayne called un-American, can be read as a condemnation of Hollywood's failure to take a stand against political censorship. In this allegory, the Miller gang represents HUAC, while Marshal Will Kane stands for the Hollywood Ten deserted by the townspeople and the liberals respectively. Foreman's success with High Noon earned Oscar nominations for the film, but the screenwriter was placed on the blacklist. In the end, this western reveals little about the history of the frontier, but a great deal regarding the ideological and political fallout from the Cold War.

While the allegorical devices used in On the Waterfront and High Noon were obvious to the Hollywood community, they were often lost on film audiences for whom the insecurities of the Cold War were better addressed in science-fiction films. The Thing (1951), Invaders from Mars (1953), Them (1954), and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) were among the most popular films of the decade. In them, scientists unlock forces of nature that they are unable to control, expressing apprehension regarding nuclear war, the role of atomic energy, alien subversion, and the role of women in society. Of this genre, perhaps the most interesting is director Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). In this allegory of communist subversion, Doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns from a vacation to find the residents of Santa Mira, California acting strangely. They do not seem to be themselves. Dr. Bennell eventually discovers that while asleep, the bodies of the townspeople have been taken over by aliens who promise a collective lifestyle free from the individual pains of love, relationships, and ambition. When even his girlfriend Becky succumbs to the alien force, Bennell calls for the FBI and flees Santa Mira. The allegorical message of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is that we must be ever vigilant. Anyone--a teacher, politician, friend, or minister--could be part of the communist conspiracy.

In this desire to be vigilant, Hollywood turned out films during the 1950s reinforcing traditional values and supporting a consensus centering upon family, religion, work, anticommunism, and a sense that the American system would bring about gradual rational change and a slice of the economic pie for all Americans. Thus, in the ostensibly rebellious film Rebel without a Cause (1956), James Stark (James Dean) is not challenging the system. Instead, his delinquency is the product of a dysfunctional family, and Stark, with the aid of the therapeutic state symbolized by his probation officer Ray, merely needs his family to assume traditional gender models. In 12 Angry Men (1958), liberal architect Henry Fonda forms a consensus from a jury of archetypes, and a minority youth is acquitted because there is reasonable doubt. The system works and there is no room for bigotry at the jury table, but there is also no space made for women or African-Americans who must depend upon the good will of white liberal males.

With the advent of the civil rights movement, near nuclear war in the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of John Kennedy, war in Vietnam, and the rise of a counter-culture, many films of the 1960s began to question the assumptions of the Cold War, anticommunism, and consensus values. In Dr. Strangelove (1964), director Stanley Kubrick suggests that the emperor wears no clothes, and that the establishment is not only irrational but leading us to destruction. According to the films of the 1950s, anticommunism would protect us against subversion, but in Dr. Strangelove the communist paranoia of General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) destroys America and the world. This dark satire censured right wing generals and liberal presidents, while foreshadowing many of the themes prevalent in later antiestablishment films of the 1960s.

Freed from the political restrictions of the 1950s, Hollywood films of the 1960s glorified youthful rebellion in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), alienation in The Graduate (1967), and the counter-culture in Easy Rider (1969). During the late 1960s, the blacklist also was at last broken, and in Martin Ritt's The Front starring Woody Allen, many former blacklisted performers and writers exact their revenge upon those who had named names. Meanwhile, in films such as The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming (1966), the Soviets are portrayed not as evil incarnate, but just bungling average guys who are lost and in need of a little assistance. Even in a more liberal climate, Hollywood was still reluctant to confront the issue of Vietnam, however. Robert Altman's 1970 production of M*A*S*H attacked the military and war, but in the more removed locale of Korea. Films questioning the Vietnam War, such as Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), and Full Metal Jacket (1987) were made years after the war ended. Furthermore, in their concentration upon the individual experiences of American soldiers, these films shed little light on the Cold War historical context and the policy of containment which led America into that conflict. Nevertheless, these films reflect a cynicism toward the military and war which are a far cry from the films of the World War II and early Cold War years.

Several films from the 1970s and 1980s proved, however, that the Cold War and the passions associated with it had not died. As early as 1968, John Wayne's The Green Berets portrayed the Vietnam War as a reflection of the domino theory. The film biography Patton earned best picture honors in 1970, and enjoyed the dubious honor of allegedly having been screened by President Nixon at the White House shortly before his invasion of Cambodia. When speaking of the turnaround that occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, however, the most obvious examples are the string of movies featuring James Bond, Rambo, and Chuck Norris. Time and time again, these three figures took on missions against seemingly overwhelming odds and kept the flame of anticommunism alive.

The anti-communist genre reached its climax with the release of Red Dawn in 1984. Reflective of the Reagan defense buildup and evil empire rhetoric, this John Milius-directed picture tells the story of a Soviet invasion of the United States and the resistance of a band of teens who call themselves "The Wolverines." The rush of historical events, however, quickly dated the Milius film. Gorbachev, glasnost, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the Soviet Union reduced America's former adversary, in Hollywood's eyes, to defecting Russian sailors in The Hunt for Red October (1990) and comic relief in Red Heat (1988). In the latter movie, Chicago policeman James Belushi teams up with Soviet counterpart Arnold Schwarzenegger. With the Soviet threat apparently removed by the early 1990s, Hollywood sought new villains. In JFK (1991), Oliver Stone claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy by the military industrial complex, a creation of the Cold War. In the summer of 1993, scientists experimenting this time with genetics rather than atomic energy were censured in Jurassic Park, and the World War II fears of Japan were resurrected in Rising Sun. Nevertheless, these concerns lacked the sense of urgency and insecurity captured by the science fiction films of the 1950s and events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis.(Both of thse events were lampooned effectively in the overlooked Matinee (1993) featuring John Goodman)

This broad survey of movies that convey the mood of Americans during the Cold War years is by no means exhaustive and leaves out many fascinating examples such as the Manchurian Candidate (1963). With so many from which to choose, the Hollywood movie remains an accessible primary source for visual learners. When used in conjunction with more traditional sources, the movie will help bring the history of the Cold War alive to our students who will have to grapple with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as the economic, political, and environmental ramifications of this ideological struggle.

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