Cold War Cinema (Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas)

Join hosts Jason, Anthony, and Tim as they discuss Cy Endfield’s Try and Get Me!, also know as The Sound of Fury, a 1950 crime film that critic Thom Andersen includes on his list of film gris movies, or socially conscious crime cinema during the film noir years (1940s through the 1950s). Endfield was blacklisted in 1951 after his name was mentioned during the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings. He subsequently relocated to London, where he went on to make a number of celebrated films, including Hell Drivers (1957) and Zulu (1964). In this episode we cite an essay by the Chicago critic Jonathan Rosenbaum that is included in his excellent 1997 book Movies as Politics. We hope you enjoy!

Join hosts Jason and Tony, as well as a new guest, Felicia Maroni, for the finale of Season One. On this episode we discuss Zoltán Korda's 1951 drama Cry, the Beloved Country, a film shot on location in South Africa, starring Canada Lee and Sidney Poitier, which aimed to critique the brutal apartheid system just three years after it was codified into law. The film was based on a novel of the same name by Alan Paton, a white South African, and adapted to the screen by Paton and the blacklisted writer John Howard Lawson, who went uncredited. 

Felicia is the host of the wondeful film podcast Seeing Faces in the Movies, which focuses on either a director or cinemtagrapher and how their aesthetic approach changes (or doesn't) across their ouevre. You can follow Felicia on social media at these sites: 

Join hosts Jason, Tony, and our new co-host, Paul, on Episode One of Season Two! On this episode we discuss Sergei Eisenstein's epic two-part Soviet masterpiece Ivan the Terrible, released in 1945 and 1958 respectively. The films were commissioned by Joseph Stalin in 1941 as a means to rehabilitate Ivan the Terrible's image for a contemporary Soviet audience. Stalin celebrated Part 1, but the state banned Part 2. A third part had been in the works, but was abandoned by Eisenstein after the suppression of the second part. Our discussion touches on this history and many other topics, including Soviet montage, dialectical art construction, Eisenstein's queerness, his fraught relationship with Stalin, and more. 

This is the first episode of a new format in which we take book or movie recommendations from each of us, which are found below: 

Tony's book recommendations:

1. Sergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict by Ronald Bergan (2016)
2. Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology, edited by Philip Rosen (1986)
3. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory by Sergei Eisenstein (1949)

Paul's book and film recommendations:

1. This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible in Stalinist Russia by Joan Neuberger (2019)
2. Ivan the Terrible by Joan Neuberger 
3. Battleship Potemkin (1925; dir. Sergei Eisenstein)

Jason's movie recommendations:

1. Come and See (1985; dir. Elem Klimov)
2.  The Ascent (1977; dir. Larisa Shepitko) 
3. Wings (1966; dir. Larisa Shepitko) 

Please subscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave a review!

Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonAChristian and Anthony at @tonyjballas; follow Paul on BlueSky at @ptklein.com. Paul writes about movies at www.howtoreadmovies.com. Paul's handle on Letterboxd is https://letterboxd.com/ptklein/; Jason's is https://letterboxd.com/exilemagic/. 

Our logo is by Jason Christian 

The theme music for this episode and all forthcoming episodes is by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 

Please drop us a line anytime at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com.

Happy listening!

Grab your sandals and sword and get philosophical with Jason, Tony, and our guest Paul Klein, as we unpack the wonders of Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (1960). The film was adapted from Howard Fast's novel of the same title by Dalton Trumbo, and it is considered a major step in the end of the notorious Hollywood blacklist. The film is also read as an allegory for civil rights stuggles, the HUAC hearings, and "Third World" struggles. All of this and more is discussed in the episode. 

Books and articles mentioned:

• Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War by Frances Stonor Saunders
• The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten by Gerald Horne
• Aesthetic Theory by Theodor Adorno
• “Fascinating Fascism” by Susan Sontag

As always, please suscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave a review! And follow Jason on Twitter (X) at @JasonAChristian, Anthony at @tonyjballas, and Paul at @ptklein, and the same handles at BlueSky. Paul's handle on Letterboxd is https://letterboxd.com/ptklein/; Jason's is https://letterboxd.com/exilemagic/.

Our logo is by Jason Christian 

The theme music for this episode and all forthcoming episodes is by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). 

Please drop us a line at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com.

Happy listening!

Join hosts Jason, Anthony, and Tim as they discuss Joseph Losey’s 1950 crime film The Lawless, an underseen and somewhat uneven example of what the filmmaker and critic Thom Andersen calls film gris, or socially conscious crime cinema during the film noir years (1940s through the 1950s). Losey was blacklisted in 1952, after his name was mentioned during the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings. He subsequently relocated to London, where he had a second (and admittedly more artistically accomplished) life as a film director, collaborating, mostly notably, with the Nobel Prize–winning playwright and screenwriter, Harold Pinter.

Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Tim Jones as they discuss the celebrated socially conscious Hollywood director, Martin Ritt (1914–1990). Ritt is known for a number of critically aclaimed movies, among them Paris Blues (1961), Hud (1963), and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965). In this episode, we focus on four of Ritt's explicitly pro-worker films: The Molly Maguires (1970), Sounder (1972), The Front (1976), and Norma Rae (1979). Ritt was never brought before HUAC, but he nevertheless blacklisted after his name was mentioned in the right-wing anticommunist newsletter Counterattack, along with 150 of other Hollywood workers. These experiences were satirized in The Front, the first film that confronts the blacklist era directly. 

Sally Field, the star of Norma Rae, once wrote of Ritt that "he felt it was important to stand for something, to have a moral point of view—especially if you work in the arts." That committment to justice is present all through Ritt's work. He boldly tackled labor issues and racism in a number of films, going as far as critiquing the all-white suburbian "utopias" in the overlooked gem No Down Payment (1957). 

As always, please suscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review! Drop us a line at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com Happy listening!

Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Tim Jones as they discuss Abraham Polonsky’s debut film Force of Evil, a 1948 crime picture starring John Garfield, Beatrice Pearson, and Thomas Gomez. Force of Evil is one of thirteen movies the critic and filmmaker Thom Andersen identifies as film gris, or socially conscious crime cinema made from 1947 to 1951, during the height of the notorious House Un-American Activities hearings. In 1951, Polonsky refused to testify before his own HUAC hearing, and was subsequently blacklisted. He only directed two other films, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) and Romance of a Horsethief (1971), and remained a committed marxist all his life. We hope you enjoy this episode!

Join hosts Jason, Anthony, and Tim as they discuss John Berry's He Ran All the Way, a 1951 crime drama in the film noir and film gris traditions. The film stars John Garfield, who was shortly thereafter blacklisted and died of a heart attack at age 39. The screenplay is written by Hugo Butler and Dalton Trumbo, both blacklisted, as was the director, John Berry. 

We also discuss Berry's short documentary The Hollywood Ten (1950), a fundarising agitprop documentary about the ten Hollywood personnel jailed in federal prison for contempt of congress in 1050. Here are their names: 

• Alvah Bessie, screenwriter
• Herbert Biberman, screenwriter and director
• Lester Cole, screenwriter
• Edward Dmytryk, director
• Ring Lardner Jr., screenwriter
• John Howard Lawson, screenwriter
• Albert Maltz, screenwriter
• Samuel Ornitz, screenwriter
• Adrian Scott, producer and screenwriter
• Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter

For more inormation on the 1945 "Black Friday" Hollywood strike that Tony references in the episode, check out this article he co-wrote with Gerald Horne! 

We hope you enjoy!

Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Tim Jones as they discuss Irving Pichel's 1950 crime thriller Quicksand, starring Mickey Rooney, Peter Lorre, Jeanne Cagney, and Barbara Bates. The film's plot revolves around Rooney's character making one bad decision after another, shattering his moral compass along the way. The implicit message, heavy-handed in its delivery, is that poverty breeds crime. Pichel was one of the so-called "unfriendly nineteen" brought before HUAC hearings in 1947. That group was whittled down to ten and later dubbed the Hollywood Ten. Pichel was  blacklisted along with the others who refused to testify. 

We hope you enjoy this episode. Please subscribe and rate the show if you feel so inclined. And if you have any comments, recomendations, or questions, feel free to email them to us at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. Happy listening!

Join hosts Jason, Anthony, and Tim as they discuss Bernard Vorhaus's So Young, So Bad, a 1950 drama about a girls' reform school. The film dares to imagine therapy instead of punishment as a tool to "cure" antisocial behavior. Vorhaus was blacklisted in 1951 after his name was mentioned during the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings. He subsequently relocated to England, where he lived the rest of his life. The opening clip was taken from a fascinating interview of Vorhaus by Ira Gellen in which Vorhaus reflects on his life and career. We hope you enjoy!

Join hosts Jason, Anthony, and Tim as they discuss Jules Dassin’s 1950 crime film Night and the City, a celebrated film noir picture (and film gris) shot on location in London. Like all of the directors discussed this season, Dassin was blacklisted during the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings. The director subsequently relocated to Paris, where he made his groundbreaking heist film Rififi (1955), and later settled in Greece, where he lived the rest of his life. Dassin remained embittered about the blacklist and the Second Red Scare and never shied from speaking publicly about it. This history and a thorough analysis of the film are discussed at length in this episode. For further reading about Dassin, and especially his film Rififi, co-host Jason Christian wrote an essay, and it's found here. 

We hope you enjoy it! 

Join us for our first ever interview with the Australian writer and scholar, Andrew Nette, who, along with the film historian Samm Deighan, co-edited the new book Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960–1990, published by PM Press. 

Nette is an author of fiction and nonfiction. He is coeditor of three previous books for PM Press, Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980; Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980; and Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985. His writing on film, books, and culture has appeared in a variety of print and online publications. He has also contributed video and print essays and commentaries to a number of DVD/Blu-ray releases. He writes a regular newsletter under his name on Substack. Follow him on Twitter (X), Instagram, and Bluesky: @pulpcurry. Nette is also on Letterboxd, and he made a list of all 353 films mentioned in Revolution in 35mm. 

As always please subscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review! Send us tips or ideas or anything else at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. We hope you enjoy!

Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Tim Jones as they discuss Herbert J. Biberman's iconic independent masterpiece Salt of the Earth (1954). The film is based on the real-life Empire Zinc strike in 1951 in Grant County, New Mexico, and was self-financed and made entirely outside the studio system using mostly non-professional actors, many of them actual miners playing versions of themselves. Jason compares the the film to Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 masterpiece The Battle of Algiers in terms of its scrappy production, dialectical sctructure, and Marxist themes. (You can hear him gush about that film on another podcast, linked here.) Biberman was one of the Hollywood Ten and he was blacklisted, as were the screenwriter, Michael Wilson, and the producer, Paul Jarrico. The Hollywood apparatus and law enforcement attempted to sabotage the production of Salt of the Earth on numerous occasions, going as far as getting the lead actress, Rosaura Revueltas, deported to Mexico on trumped up charges. Although she was from a prominent family of artists and writers, she was blacklisted and never acted in another Mexican film. 

As always please suscribe to the podcast if you like what you hear, and don't forget to leave us a review! Happy listening!

Join hosts Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas, as well as a new guest, Paul Klein, as they discuss the iconic actor and director Charlie Chaplin and his late talkie masterpiece Monsieur Verdoux (1947). Paul is a film scholar who writes at the intersection of film and history. His research focuses on the cultural, political, and technological aspects of Hollywood and American filmgoing practices. He also write about how and why movies matter at Reading Movies (howtoreadmovies.com)

As for Chaplin, he hardly needs an introduction, but many people don't realize that he was a victim of Red Scare harrassment from the media and feds and was eventually exiled from the United States. Monsieur Verdoux is a bold film in that it asks a viewer, just two years after the end of WWII, to consider state-sponsored mass murder (e.g. war) and what Engels calls "social murder" (murder by deprivation), as opposed to individual crimes, which are easier to identify and denounce.  It's also a Chaplin film full of his signiture gags. The combination of these two registers, deadly serious and comical, makes for a fascinating but jarring cinematic experience. 

As always, please suscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review!

Follow Jason on Twitter (X) at @JasonAChristian, Anthony at @tonyjballas, and Paul at @ptklein, the latter two are also on BlueSky. 

Please drop us a line anytime at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com.

Happy listening!

This episode is a slight departure for this season—and we had fun with it. Rather than taking on a film directed by a blacklisted director, as usual, we're discussing a groundbreaking video essay about blacklisted directors. Thom Andersen's Red Hollywood (1996) discusses several of the directors and films we've discuss so far on the podcast. Andersen's goal in the film is to curate a list of overlooked films and demonstrate the bold themes that many of these directors were attempting to inject into some of them, much of which was later used as evidence against them in future HUAC hearings. The film features interviews with Abraham Polonsky, Ring Larnder, Jr., Paul Jarrico, and Alfred Levitt. Andersen (b. 1943) is the originator of the term "film gris," or socially conscious crime pictures from 1947 to 1952. He is perhaps most renowned for his experimental video essay Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003).   

*Fact checking ourselves:

—Tim implies that Kafka (yes, Kafka) is Germany, but in fact he only wrote in German. He was from Prague of course. 

—Jason says that he lived in communes for 15 years, but actually it was about ten (oops). 

We hope you enjoy!

Join hosts Jason, Anthony, and Tim as they discuss Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul, a 1947 boxing film that critic Thom Andersen categorizes as film gris, or socially conscious crime cinema during the film noir years (1940s through the 1950s). Rossen testified at a HUAC hearing in 1951, pleaded the Fifth Amendment, and was blacklisted. Two years later, he testified again and this time he named 57 names and was given his career back in Hollywood. Rossen went on to direct several more features, including the celebrated pool epic The Hustler (1961) and Lilith (1964), starring Warren Beatty and Jean Seberg. We hope you enjoy!

Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Tim Jones as they discuss Michael Gordon's 1951 drama I Can Get It for You Wholesale, a film that explores the cutthroat fashion industry in New York City's garment district. It was written by Abraham Polonsky and Vera Caspary and stars Susan Hayward, Dan Dailey, and George Sanders. Gordon and Polonsky were blacklisted during the infamous HUAC anti-communist hearings. After the blacklist lifted, Gordon returned to Hollywood to direct several light-hearted comedies. We hope you enjoy this episode and, as always, please subscribe and rate the show if you feel so inclined!