Films during the Cold War - Maya Rosenfield

INTERVIEW INTRODUCTION:
My topic was about films during the Cold War. I interviewed three people and they talked about blacklisting, movie themes, movie genres, the overall plot summary of movies, the affect of movies on societies, and the affect of movies on their personal life. I wanted to see how Hollywood was coping with the Cold War.

First Interview for Research Paper

What is your name?
My name is David Rosenfield.

How are you connected to the cold war?
I was born and raised during the cold war. I was impacted by the cold war as the cold war was always around. From the impact of blacklisting, to the Cuban missile crisis, proxy wars (specifically Vietnam), nuclear arms race, the red scare, the space race or the fear of communism. Everyone at the time would continuously talk about these issues and so I find myself today, with a lot of knowledge about the cold war. I also traveled to “behind the iron curtain” to East Berlin, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union. I was also impacted by the media that was prevalent at the time. I have taguth college level classes about mass communication and films in the 1980’s which therefore relates to the Cold War.

What films, that dealt with the Cold War, had an impact on you specifically?
First there were films that I was shown in school, that dealt with “duck and cover” which was to teach children how to survive a nuclear attack which presumably be started by the Soviet Union. And that film used an animated turtle to show the crowds how you can “duck and cover” like the turtle. Then we would act this out in class.
There were other films that portrayed the “red menace” showing how the communists were infiltrating US life. And I remember one of them had an actor who portrayed a good US soldier who was informing people about the red menace. I found it interesting because he also played the father in a situation comedy called Leave it to Beaver.
An other film that had an impact on me was The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming which was a comedy that had Allan Arkin. That film was about a Russian submarine that become stranded near a small coastal town near New England. During the course of that film, the citizens go from being extremely scared of the Russians to becoming friendly as they get to know them.
The third film that had an impact on me was Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. That film used satire to portray the over zealous anti-Soviet fears of the US military and government while dealing with the possibility for military lunatics to start a nuclear war. It also had great acting with Peter Sellers portraying several roles. It was both entertaining and a comedy about serious issues.
The next film was Fail Safe also dealt with an inadvertent start of a nuclear war. This was the original version by the way. The fail safe was that incase there was an incident, there is so little time to respond to a threat from the Russians before launching a counter attack. I’m a little bit cloudy but I think that at the end, the American president and the Russian President are talking on the Hot Line to let each other know that it was a mistake to launch the missiles. In the middle the line goes dead.

How would you say the films dealing with the Cold War had an impact on society?
I think that they dealt with the issues of mutually assured destruction and the fears of the Soviet Union and communism in general. And at least for me, it added to my sense that the experts in the military industrial complex didn’t know what they were talking about and were fairly crazy. Because even as a youngster I knew that the “duck and cover” stuff was pretty dumb. I also realized that the majority of Americans continued to have a real fear of communists and the Soviet Union and “Red China” as evidenced by the long Vietnam war, support for military build up, and anti-communist legislators and presidents.

Based of the films you saw, what was your impression of the Soviet Union?
I guess I didn’t see that many films that showed the Soviet Union realistically at all. Though I did have an opportunity to see some films that were made in the Soviet Union in the 1960’s such as the six hour long Russian version of War and Peace. Though this didn’t deal with Soviet era Russia, it was a grand spectacle and portrayed Russians in a favorable light.
Dr. Zhivargo shows Russia during the revolutionary period of the Soviet Union. Its about the revolutionary period but made during the Cold War. This movie showed how the régime contained self serving hypocrites and true believers who persecuted innocence as well as the aristocracy. It basically showed that the rhetoric of the Soviet regime was not always implemented in a just or humanist manor. And besides being a great love story, showed how individuals could be persecuted by the Soviets. It’s looking back on Soviet history and examining to negative aspects of the Soviet regime.
For the most the part the American film industry portrayed the communist as evil especially in films about the Korean War.

How did your impression of the Cold War change from the late 50’s and early 60’s to the 70’s and 80’s? Also what was the impact of films on affecting this transition?
I saw Point of Order in the late 60’s. This documentary vividly related the hypocrisy and evil of McCarthyism. I had an opportunity to travel for four weeks “behind the Iron Curtain” in 1972 and saw Russian and Eastern Europeans films. These films were propaganda supporting the Soviet View point and though I was not a fan of the Soviet Union, I also wasn’t a fan of the policies of the US government during the Vietnam War.
Some films from the 50’s showed the red menace while a mid 70’s film, like The Front showed the damage that people experienced as a result of unjustified blacklisting. Other films like Apocalypse Now showed the wrong headedness of the US military in Vietnam and questioned US militarism. This was a film from the late 70’s.

Based on the movies you saw, what was the country’s view on communism?
Many popular films portrayed anti-communist heroes battling the communist “bad guys.” Rambo and A Green Beret are examples.

What emotions did the movies you saw evoke?
As I got into my teens, I felt anger at US policies while recognizing the fallacies of the Soviet regime. They generally made me suspect of right wing or totalitarian regimes. I have to admit I was not influenced by films like Rambo or Green Barete other than reinforcing the cartoon nature of a lot of main stream Hollywood rhetoric.

Second Interview for Research Paper

What is your name?
My name is Edward Rosenfield.

How are you connected to the cold war?
I am connected to the Cold War by age and generation. At the time that I was growing up, everything on the news, everything people talked about, everything in the world, and everything in my classroom was all about the Cold War. The Cold War talk was unavoidable.

Were there any films that dealt with the cold war? If so how did these films portray the issues at hand?
There were a lot of films at the time that dealt with the Cold War. Hollywood was making a lot of political films at the time. In the 1930’s many films started to be about Russia and after WWII, many films turned to Russia and the United States. The movies were about espionage and spies. There were also comedies about the Cold War such as Billy Wielder’s film, One Two Three. This movie was a spoof about the Cold War which was filmed in the 1960’s. During the 1960’s there were also many films about the potential assassination of the president. The movies portrayed many harsh divides between the USSR and the US. Many movies that the US had were against the reds or the commies.

What films, that dealt with the Cold War, had an impact on you specifically?
Dr. Strangelove, by Stanley Coubreck, was a very important film. It dealt with the nuclear arms race. One Two Three also impacted my life as it dealt with exposing the differences. I was greatly impacted by the espionage films which portrayed the communists as the bad guys and the Americans as the good guys. This was a major theme and genre of movies in the 1950’s.

How would you say the films dealing with the Cold War had an impact on society?
At the time, a lot of people went to the movies for entertainment. As people were watching these Cold War films, they got the wide spread idea that the communists were bad and that the Americans were good. This lasted from the late 40’s to the late 80’s. Rambo goes to Afghanistan for example was a film in the later era of the Cold War as it was an extension to Cold War films. This movie depicts the communists as bad.

Based of the films you saw, what was your impression of the Soviet Union?
Like I said before, the movies usually depicted the Soviet Union as the bad guys, or the evil enemy. The motion pictures at the time were a very powerful tool. The movies were capable of swaying one’s perception about issues during the Cold War. As people started to travel to Soviet or communist countries however, they realized that unlike the films portrayed them as, people are just people now matter where they live.

How did your impression of the Cold War change from the late 50’s and early 60’s to the 70’s and 80’s? Also what was the impact of films on affecting this transition?
In the Early 50’s and 60’s most of the information about the Cold War was retained from the paper. The issues would be very black and white, politically. In the 70’s and 80’s, the movies became a little bit more cloudy or grey. There were still the good and the bad but sometimes the Russians would be bad and other times the US would be the bad guys.

Based on the movies you saw, what was the country’s view on communism?
The political view of the US really shinned throw in their movies. The communists would be the bad guys. They would be harsh and cruel towards people. This was often believed and perceived by the common people in our country at the time.

What emotions did the movies you saw evoke?
Many movies that I saw had a taunting reinforcement. Blacklisting was defiantly feared in the 1950’s. A sense of fear was felt all across the nation. The McCarthyism and Blacklisting was showed in a documentary called Point of Order. This was a very important film which evoked many mixed emotions while viewing it.

Are there any specific films that related to the issues of the Cold War, that you can vividly remember?
• Point of Order
• Doctor Strangelove
• One Two Three
• Madam X
• Rambo

Third Interview for Research Paper

What is your name and age?
My Name is George Nelson. I am 89 years old.

Have you had an occupation that related to the film industry? If so what was it and around what time period did you hold this position?
Yea I had two jobs that related to the film industry in some way. For one of the jobs I was working as a publicist at United Artist. This was in the 60’s through 80’s. Before this job I had been working as a vice president for Warner Brothers. I had this job in the 50’s.

Do you know any people who were blacklisted? Could you briefly tell me their circumstances and why they were blacklisted?

My wife and I knew John Garfield. He was blacklisted because if his so called political view. It was really sad because he had many heart failures after he was blacklisted. Many believe that that stress and disappointment from being blacklisting gave way to his heart. Many at the time of the Cold War were blacklisted for their political views. The ones that were blacklisted were often writers, actors, and directors. Everyone in the film industry working at Hollywood had some chance that they would be blacklisted. After people were blacklisted, they were unable to find any job as they lost their job in Hollywood. Many moved to New York, where I live, to try and find jobs here. Most of them tried to get jobs in the radio, on Broadway, and many wrote screen plays under cover. These screen plays would then go abroad to countries such as Britain, France, and Mexico.

Did blacklisting affect your career? If so could you tell me why or how?
I was lucky that blacklisting didn’t affect my career at all.