When ambitious young Republican Congressman Richard Nixon asked Hollywood execs in the 1940s why they didn’t produce more anti-Communist movies, they responded with plodding clunkers and B-Movies like The Red Menace.
Some were surprisingly successful, however, including 1949’s Conspirator, a tale about a traitorous Soviet spy with Liz Taylor in her first grown-up role. We’ve picked 10 must-watch spy films of the Red Scare genre including an unusual contender that became a wildly popular blockbuster!
Conspirator (1949)
An American-British film noir espionage film starring Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor as a newlywed who suspects her husband of being a Communist spy. The casting was interesting as Robert Taylor was under subpoena to testify at the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) investigating communism and Hollywood. Robert Taylor was actually the right-wing founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. (Free streaming on the Internet Archive)
I Married a Communist / The Woman on Pier 13 (1949)
Sometimes a movie is so bad it’s good. I Married a Communist, renamed The Woman on Pier 13 to make it more user-friendly, involves a San Francisco shipping executive haunted by his former communist ties. When an old girlfriend re-enters his life, he is blackmailed into rejoining the Communist Party which leads to violence. (Stream for free on Internet Archive)
The Red Menace (1949)
The Red Menace (reissued under the title Underground Spy) is a classic B-movie and anti-communist film noir drama starring Robert Rockwell and Hannelore Axman. An ex-GI becomes involved with the American Communist party, falls in love with his instructor, and they realize their mistake. If they leave, however, they risk assassination. (Stream for free on YouTube)
Ninotchka (1939)
Greta Garbo’s romantic comedy portrays Stalin’s Soviet Union as rigid and gray compared to free, sunny Paris. The plot revolves around three Russian trade agents planning to sell jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy during the Russian Revolution of 1917. A Count (now working as a waiter) overhears their plan and is determined to stop them. Ninotchka was a surprising hit - one of the few wildly popular anti-communist films ever produced - and remade in 1957 as a musical, Silk Stockings, with Fred Astaire. (Stream for free on YouTube)
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When ambitious young Republican Congressman Richard Nixon asked Hollywood execs in the 1940s why they didn’t produce more anti-Communist movies, they responded with plodding clunkers and B-Movies like The Red Menace.
Some were surprisingly successful, however, including 1949’s Conspirator, a tale about a traitorous Soviet spy with Liz Taylor in her first grown-up role. We’ve picked 10 must-watch spy films of the Red Scare genre including an unusual contender that became a wildly popular blockbuster!
Conspirator (1949)
An American-British film noir espionage film starring Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor as a newlywed who suspects her husband of being a Communist spy. The casting was interesting as Robert Taylor was under subpoena to testify at the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA) investigating communism and Hollywood. Robert Taylor was actually the right-wing founding member of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. (Free streaming on the Internet Archive)
I Married a Communist / The Woman on Pier 13 (1949)
Sometimes a movie is so bad it’s good. I Married a Communist, renamed The Woman on Pier 13 to make it more user-friendly, involves a San Francisco shipping executive haunted by his former communist ties. When an old girlfriend re-enters his life, he is blackmailed into rejoining the Communist Party which leads to violence. (Stream for free on Internet Archive)
The Red Menace (1949)
The Red Menace (reissued under the title Underground Spy) is a classic B-movie and anti-communist film noir drama starring Robert Rockwell and Hannelore Axman. An ex-GI becomes involved with the American Communist party, falls in love with his instructor, and they realize their mistake. If they leave, however, they risk assassination. (Stream for free on YouTube)
Ninotchka (1939)
Greta Garbo’s romantic comedy portrays Stalin’s Soviet Union as rigid and gray compared to free, sunny Paris. The plot revolves around three Russian trade agents planning to sell jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy during the Russian Revolution of 1917. A Count (now working as a waiter) overhears their plan and is determined to stop them. Ninotchka was a surprising hit - one of the few wildly popular anti-communist films ever produced - and remade in 1957 as a musical, Silk Stockings, with Fred Astaire. (Stream for free on YouTube)
This film makes the FBI look so incompetent director J. Edgar Hoover reportedly complained about it. Set in the Cold War at a California atomic research plant, it involves an FBI agent and a Scotland Yard inspector who join forces to eliminate a foreign atomic spy ring operating in the US and Britain. Featuring Louis Hayward, Dennis O'Keefe. (Stream for free onYouTube)
My Son John (1952)
Often cited as the most over-the-top, melodramatic movie of its genre, My Son John revolves around the Jeffersons, an all-American family in a small town who welcome home their son John after a long absence only to hear him spouting views that may be communist. (Stream for free on YouTube)
Diplomatic Courier (1952)
This Cold War spy thriller benefits from an excellent cast including Charles Bronson, Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, Lee Marvin, Patricia Neal, Hidegarde Neff (Knef), and Tyrone Power. The plot involves courier Mike Kells (Tyrone Power) who must retrieve a dispatch containing top-secret intelligence. Unfortunately his contact turns up dead and Kells must sort through his relationships with two women (Patricia Neal, Hildegarde Neff), while sidestepping subterfuge, sabotage, and spies. (Stream for free on YouTube)
Walk East on Beacon Street (1952)
The intriguing story of a Boston-based spy ring. The screenplay was inspired by a J. Edgar Hoover article, ‘The Crime of the Century: The Case of the A-Bomb Spies’ involving German physicist and atomic spy Klaus Fuchs. The real-life atomic spying is replaced with vague top-secret scientific programs with some of the footage shot in FBI laboratories. (Stream for free on YouTube)
Never Let Me Go (1953)
Clark Gable’s remake of Comrade X. The 1953 British adventure romance stars Clark Gable and Gene Tierney about a Moscow-based journalist who falls in love with a ballerina. One thing leads to another and he finds himself scheming to sail to Tallinn where the Bolshoi is scheduled to perform, in order to clandestinely leave with Marya during the Cold War. (Stream on YouTube)
The Commies Are Coming, the Commies are Coming / Red Nightmare (1962)
Now a cult classic, the movie involves an American man who awakens to find that communist forces have taken over the US. The film was produced by the US Department of Defense to shape public opinion against communism and later released on TV as an educational school film under the Red Nightmare title. Narrated by Jack Webb - Sgt. Joe Friday in the Dragnet series - it stars Jack Kelly and Jeanne Cooper. (Streaming on Roku)
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