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Still, the film did have an impact. In the context of its era, its message was
frightening. Instead of an external enemy, My Son John captured the heart of
conspiracy fears that the reach of conspiracy extended so far that it could
penetrate even an upstanding family from an idyllic village in rural America.
Movies such as these attempted to place the conspiracy theory theme in
familiar cinematic forms. These were often variations of the dramas and melo-
dramas that Hollywood was accustomed to making. At the height of Joseph
McCarthy s highly visible search for communists in America, however, some
films dropped such pretexts altogether. The results sometimes looked more
overtly like propaganda exercises.
The most blatant example of this impulse was the 1952 melodrama-fantasy
Invasion U.S.A. Another film that was rushed to the market in response to
the political hysteria of the time, its story starts at a New York bar, where
several people are being interviewed by a reporter. During the interview, the
dramatic announcement comes that enemy aircraft are headed for Alaska. The
scene shifts to a series of devastating events. Invading forces capture Alaska,
California is struck with a nuclear bomb, and the cities of Washington, DC,
and New York fall to the invaders.
The story then returns to the people who had been interviewed in the New
York bar. Some time has passed, and each of these people has returned home
to help with the defense. Unfortunately, the struggle does not go well for
them or their American compatriots. One by one, each member of the group
dies, by gunfire, by flood, or by some other calamity. It is clear that the nation
cannot repel the invasion.
But all is not as it seems. Abruptly, viewers learn that the invasion was an
illusion. One member of the original group had placed the others in a hypnotic
state to make the invasion story seem real. The hypnotist s purpose, it is
revealed, was to show how ill-prepared the country was and how susceptible
it was be to a foreign assumedly communist threat.
Invasion U.S.A. was not a major film. The Monthly Film Bulletin called it a
 shoddy little production featuring  a number of incoherent and sensational
happenings. 7 But its sensational interpretation of the communist menace
crystallized the more paranoid aspects of 1950s anticommunist fervor. It
showed external threat and suggested that the country was vulnerable. The
24 Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics
anxious climate it represented was one in which the fear of conspiracy could
continue to grow.
Hollywood continued to search for ways to explore, perhaps exploit, the
conspiracy theme that had so penetrated American culture of the era. Another
approach, taken in the 1953 movie Big Jim McLain, combined the conspiracy
theme with the tried and true detective story. The film featured Hollywood
star John Wayne as Jim McLain, a government agent in pursuit of communists
in Honolulu.
Wayne, who had been a major star since his leading role in the 1939 film
Stagecoach, was well suited for the lead role. At the time, he was the president
of Motion Picture Association for the Preservation of American Ideals, which
had worked with the House Un-American Activities Committee. He had
a strong business interest in seeing the movie succeed, as well. He was a
principal of Wayne-Fellows, the company that produced the film.
In the role of Jim McLain, Wayne brought the swagger he had used ef-
fectively in the Westerns that made him a star. The narrative combines ele-
ments of a detective story, a political message, and even a romantic subplot.
McLain methodically goes about the business of fighting communists while
taking a romantic interest in a young secretary working in the suspect s office.
Throughout McLain investigations, the detective element of the story has
the obvious political angle of promoting a strongly anticommunist message.
As the story unfolds, few opportunities are missed to make this point, which
makes for a very arduous viewing experience at times.
This is a very earnest film. It begins with a somber voice asking,  Neighbor,
how stands the Union? These words, quoted from Stephen Vincent Benet s
The Devil and Daniel Webster, are spoken as the screen fills with iconic Amer-
ican images, including the dome of the U.S. Capitol. Remarkably especially
for a work of fiction there then appears a testament to the members of
Congress, who are extolled for efforts to expose communists in America s
midst. Members of Congress are commended for continuing this work  un-
daunted by the vicious campaign of slander launched against them.
Even in 1952, this was a very unorthodox way to begin a movie. It did
not escape the notice of some film writers. Indeed, a review in The New York
Times offhandedly noted,  That sounds pretty serious, we would say. 8
In the main part of the film, Jim McLain, the ardent anticommunist, is
sent on a new mission with his partner, Max Baxter (played by James Arness,
later the popular star of CBS television s long-running Gunsmoke series). Their
assignment, code-named  Operation Pineapple, is to track down and destroy
a communist conspiracy that is trying to undermine America s participation
in the Korean War.
The unscrupulous leader of Honolulu s secret communist organization is
a man named Sturak (played by Alan Napier). He is a one-dimensionally evil
person. Although he has managed to assemble a group of co-conspirators,
The Red Menace and Its Discontents 25
it s hard to imagine that he could effectively recruit for the communist cause.
In fact, one of his most prominent characteristics is an eagerness to terminate
members of his own group, which he does whenever he doubts an associate s
loyalty. The other members of Sturak s communist group, meanwhile, are
shown to be incompetent tough guys and misfits. They are also prone to
focusing their violent tendencies on each other. For the modern viewer, there
is an unintended irony that can seem almost laughable: the film creates the
impression that communists are more a danger to themselves than to anyone
else.
Nonetheless, the agents zealously carry out their mission. Even the slight
romantic subplot touches on the movie s political agenda. At one point,
McLain explains to the secretary he is wooing that there was no use in trying
to figure out the communist enemy or why people would succumb to it.  I ve
heard all the jive, McLain explains.  This one s a commie because mama
wouldn t tuck him in at night; that one, because girls wouldn t welcome him
with open arms. It all added up to a picture of the communist threat as
an inscrutable evil. The film suggests that efforts to understand communists
were essentially pointless.
The heroes are mostly successful, of course. But the hero complains that
the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights (here in the specific form of the
Fifth Amendment) continue to be exploited by communists. McLain makes
it clear that in his view, such rights should not be afforded to anyone other [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]