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Soviet Spy School- the movie
June 29, 2010 8:12 AM   Subscribe

Vaguely remembered Russian/Soviet spy school in a movie: perfect small town America in the 1950s, everyone going about their business on Main Street. Camera pulls away to reveal that it's a set inside a secret spy-training school. Anyone know the name of the movie?

Yesterday's events would seem to indicate that they have a more up-to-date version of such a school.
posted by mareli to media & arts (10 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
The Experts - John Travolta flick from the 80s?
posted by AzraelBrown at 8:16 AM on June 29, 2010


No, much older than that, probably made in the fifties or early sixties. The Experts might have been a remake, I never saw it.
posted by mareli at 8:23 AM on June 29, 2010


I'm voting for The Experts. The town was stuck in the 1950's at the beginning of the movie and John Travolta was kidnapped in order to bring their American Simulacrum up to current (1980's) levels of cool.
posted by jrishel at 8:57 AM on June 29, 2010


No, that's not it, I saw this long before then. It had nothing to do with cool. It had to do with passing as "regular" American, i.e. white, men in suits wearing hats, and "regular" American housewives baking apple pies or whatever. Very fifties.
posted by mareli at 9:02 AM on June 29, 2010


Red Nightmare (YouTube) (IMDB)
posted by artlung at 9:12 AM on June 29, 2010


Commentary on The Experts and Red Nightmare.
posted by artlung at 9:14 AM on June 29, 2010


Wow, I think I remember them showing us Red Nightmare in grade school back in the early 70s. Nothing like good American propaganda to indoctrinate us young-uns.
posted by JJ86 at 10:00 AM on June 29, 2010


I think Red Nightmare must be the one. Thank you!

I know they showed it on tv, that's where I saw it, probably in 1963, we lived in Europe until then.
posted by mareli at 10:21 AM on June 29, 2010


I don't see it mentioned here at a glance, but Nelson DeMille's Charm School is an excellent book about just such a place.
posted by circular at 1:19 PM on June 29, 2010


This was a pretty common theme in media during the cold war. Possibly predating Red Nightmare by at least a year there was an episode of Danger Man where the main character attepmtns to infiltrate an America town in the USSR. Mission Impossible did the same thing a couple years later.
posted by Ookseer at 7:19 PM on June 29, 2010


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