Screen Is Red

<The Screen Is Red is a portrait of Hollywood's ambivalence toward the former Soviet Union before during and after the Cold War. In the 1930s communism was seen as an alternative to fascism both of which would have undermined the capitalist system on which the movie industry was founded. Hollywood portrayed fascism as the greater threat and communism as an aberration embraced by young idealists unaware of its dark side. In Ninotchka all a female commissar needs is a trip to Paris to convert her to capitalism and the luxuries it can offer. The scenario changed when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 making Russia a short-lived ally then quickly glorified in such films as Song of Russia The North Star Mission to Moscow Days of Glory and Counter-Attack. But once the iron curtain fell on Eastern Europe the scenario changed again. America was now swarming with Soviet agents attempting to steal some crucial piece of microfilm. On screen the atomic detonations in the Southwest produced mutations in ants locusts and spiders and revived long-dead monsters from their watery habitats. The movies did not blame the bomb specifically but showed what it could produce besides the iconic mushroom cloud. Through the lens of Hollywood a nuclear war could leave a handful of survivors (Five) none (On the Beach Dr. Strangelove) or cities in ruins (Fail-Safe). Today the threat is no longer the Soviet Union but international terrorism. Author Bernard F. Dick however argues that the Soviet Union has not lost its appeal as evident from the popular and critically acclaimed television series The Americans. More than eighty years later the screen is still red.