Name that pre-McCarthy era Hollywood socialist-themed film!
May 15, 2011 11:45 PM Subscribe
Old Flick Filter: In the wee morning hours on weekends, Channel 13 and Channel 21 (the two PBS stations here in NYC) run classic films. One of these films, which I caught about three years ago, was a quite overtly socialist-themed flick about a group of out-of-work men and women, likely in the throes of the Great Depression, coming together and forming a farming collective and generally living communally right here in the soon-to-be exceedingly commie-paranoid USA. It had to be made sometime in the 1930's, pre-McCarthy/HUAC freakout. What was this film? Is it now in the public domain? Any other suggestions on pre-McCarthy American socialist-themed films I might delight in watching?
Maybe it's One More Spring. No farming collective that I remember, but there is some serious communal living. If it's not the one you're thinking of it's still worth watching because it's really weird in a great way and is definitely surprisingly socialist.
posted by MaddyRex at 12:23 AM on May 16, 2011
posted by MaddyRex at 12:23 AM on May 16, 2011
Here is the Internet Archive link for viewing Our Daily Bread. I love 1930s movies and am almost positive that is the one you saw.
posted by apartment dweller at 5:00 AM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by apartment dweller at 5:00 AM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
You should check out Salt of the Earth, not pre-McCarthy, but made by blacklisted filmmakers during the McCarthy era.
posted by ljshapiro at 9:25 AM on May 16, 2011
posted by ljshapiro at 9:25 AM on May 16, 2011
American films from the 1930s are really great, and often full of that socialist feeling.
Another one of King Vidor's films you might like is The Crowd. It's from 1928 (Wikipedia says it's actually something of a precursor to Our Daily Bread).
posted by bubukaba at 9:47 AM on May 16, 2011
Another one of King Vidor's films you might like is The Crowd. It's from 1928 (Wikipedia says it's actually something of a precursor to Our Daily Bread).
posted by bubukaba at 9:47 AM on May 16, 2011
Response by poster: Can I just say how much I appreciate that, having looked in vain for this film with all kinds of Google-y gusto for several years, I manage to get my answer in the VERY FIRST reply, at 3:14 am on a Monday morning, no less? AskMeFi folk, I *heart* you.
Milkrate, apartment dweller, it was indeed 'Our Daily Bread', thank you. Bonus points for the Internet Archive Link (the very site on which I was enjoying a Film Noir festival for one last night when I asked this question).
Damn, I'd mark this as 'resolved' but I'm hoping for more socialist film suggestions! Keep 'em coming.
posted by involution at 2:45 PM on May 16, 2011
Milkrate, apartment dweller, it was indeed 'Our Daily Bread', thank you. Bonus points for the Internet Archive Link (the very site on which I was enjoying a Film Noir festival for one last night when I asked this question).
Damn, I'd mark this as 'resolved' but I'm hoping for more socialist film suggestions! Keep 'em coming.
posted by involution at 2:45 PM on May 16, 2011
You probably know it already, but John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath fits this theme too.
Not quite socialist but still possibly acceptable in that they implicitly criticize capitalism, in one way or another:
Man's Castle (1933, Frank Borzage)
Little Man, What Now? (1934, Frank Borzage) - really more of an anti-Nazi film, but possibly fits the theme anyway
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937, Leo McCarey)
The Southerner (1945, Jean Renoir)
And if you want to see some real socialist films (I see you're in NYC), there's a Dziga Vertov retrospective at MoMA through the beginning of June.
posted by bubukaba at 5:40 PM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
Not quite socialist but still possibly acceptable in that they implicitly criticize capitalism, in one way or another:
Man's Castle (1933, Frank Borzage)
Little Man, What Now? (1934, Frank Borzage) - really more of an anti-Nazi film, but possibly fits the theme anyway
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937, Leo McCarey)
The Southerner (1945, Jean Renoir)
And if you want to see some real socialist films (I see you're in NYC), there's a Dziga Vertov retrospective at MoMA through the beginning of June.
posted by bubukaba at 5:40 PM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
And how about Sullivan's Travels, which gently and lovingly mocks these kinds of films, and is just awfully charming?
posted by mskyle at 8:49 PM on May 16, 2011
posted by mskyle at 8:49 PM on May 16, 2011
While not quite a socialist manifesto, the rom-com Mr. Deeds Goes to Town shows the title character performing all sorts of un-American and anti-capitalist activities, including giving away land to farmers and feeding the hungry.
If you want to make it a Gary Cooper double bill, Meet John Doe is also probably worth your attention as it depicts a man force to cry out about the social evils in the world.
posted by sardonyx at 9:03 PM on May 16, 2011
If you want to make it a Gary Cooper double bill, Meet John Doe is also probably worth your attention as it depicts a man force to cry out about the social evils in the world.
posted by sardonyx at 9:03 PM on May 16, 2011
Ace in the Hole/The Big Carnival falls on the bleaker side of the emotional scale than the Gary Cooper movies I posted earlier. The Billy Wilder/Kirk Douglas film takes a pretty hard look at the lengths people will go to forward their careers, their political futures and their economic well-being, all while discounting the safety and security of others.
posted by sardonyx at 9:16 PM on May 16, 2011
posted by sardonyx at 9:16 PM on May 16, 2011
I put the call for recommendations to my friend who knows about such things. He says,
"Hell's Highway, Quick Millions, and Blood Money - three films directed by Rowland Brown - are the closest Hollywood cinema ever came to a literal depiction of Labor vs. Capital in the 1930s. The subject is most explicit in Hell's Highway, where private contractors dictate government treatment of prisoners on a government contract, but the others are bristling with ideas too. Quick Millions is a gangster film where mob boss Spencer Tracey is never seen firing a gun; he rules the underworld through the board room.
Other good ones:
Fury and You Only Live Once, Fritz Lang's first two American features - indictments of the unjust American justice system.
Christmas in July - Preston Sturges comedy about the absurdity of success in the business world."
And one more from me: Howard Hawks's The Criminal Code.
posted by bubukaba at 9:24 PM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
"Hell's Highway, Quick Millions, and Blood Money - three films directed by Rowland Brown - are the closest Hollywood cinema ever came to a literal depiction of Labor vs. Capital in the 1930s. The subject is most explicit in Hell's Highway, where private contractors dictate government treatment of prisoners on a government contract, but the others are bristling with ideas too. Quick Millions is a gangster film where mob boss Spencer Tracey is never seen firing a gun; he rules the underworld through the board room.
Other good ones:
Fury and You Only Live Once, Fritz Lang's first two American features - indictments of the unjust American justice system.
Christmas in July - Preston Sturges comedy about the absurdity of success in the business world."
And one more from me: Howard Hawks's The Criminal Code.
posted by bubukaba at 9:24 PM on May 16, 2011 [1 favorite]
« Older Rules regarding sale of items with ivory trim in... | I'm obviously busy. Come back later. Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by milkrate at 12:14 AM on May 16, 2011