This is an unusual film for tonight’s offering. It’s blatantly a propaganda film against Communism, but like the best propaganda films of this time, 1949, and against this subject, it contains enough truth to make it watchable.

I discovered it recently and I was remarkably impressed. The storyline is about a former US serviceman who is down on his luck having been ripped off by a housing developer. He falls in, or rather is tempted in, to a Communist front group and gets involved in the politics of this organisation.

Over time, the new recruit becomes disillusioned by the Communists and started to see them as not protectors of the workers, but instead those who exploited workers grievances in order to advance the aims of the Party. The main protagonist, the newbie commie, sees how dissent in the party is dealt with by violence and how the values of Communism were antagonistic to the whole concept of freedom.

It’s a gripping film even though it is so obviously propaganda but on this occasion it was propaganda for the correct side, the side of freedom. If there was one bit of dialogue that really showed up why Communism is the opposite of freedom then it was an exchange between one character and another about Communism is the opposite of E Pluribus Unum, which means ‘out of many comes one’ which is the motto of the United States of America. The character who is critical of Communism says: ‘The Communist party sees you not as merelyAmericans with equal rights, but as different separate groups. They see you as black Americans, Jewish Americans and Irish Americans, it’s the opposite of E Pluribus Unum.’

The Red Menace is a odd if interesting film and I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.