Nazis and Commies in Noir

July/Aug 2008 Noir City Sentinel 3 NAZIS & COMMIES IN NOIR TAKING THE LOW ROAD OF CARICATURE AND OMISSION

By Marc Svetov Special to the Sentinel

irst, two questions: What did film noir Gordon Douglas’s I Was a Communist show of Nazism and Communism? for the FBI (1951), starring Frank Lovejoy, is F And what did Nazism and Com- a heavy-handed propaganda film, demon- munism stand for in these films? strating how a noir visual style could be tai- The paucity of both ideas and ideology lored to such a purpose. The story covers is immediately apparent. Most of these familiar territory—a band of criminals and movies portray a ring of conspirators spying gangsters—but they are more political than for either Germany or the Soviet Union. That Communists in other films. The Party lead- is the case with Ministry of Fear (1944), ers are so incredibly cynical about racism, Pickup on South Street (1953), Notorious union members, and anti-Semitism that it’s (1946), and The House on 92nd Street hard to see how they ever attracted follow- (1945). But these spies in action act no dif- ers. This is probably the point. Every time ferent than mobsters or common criminals. one sees the uncomfortably wooden “aver- And presenting Nazism and Communism age guy” Frank Lovejoy, thoughts stray without their underlying philosophies is like unwillingly to Richard Nixon (right down to portraying the Ku Klux Klan—see Storm the disturbingly similar hairline). Warning (1951)—without the racism. Not even a whiff of anticapitalist justi- The virulent, fervid Woman on Pier 13 fication survives in Shack Out on 101 (1949, a/k/a I Married a Communist) deals (1955), a low-rent production that is almost with Communism at home and gives a hint as Surrealist in execution, featuring the world’s to why the movement could be attractive as a most unlikely Communist agent: Lee Marvin Weltanschauung, especially to idealistic as “Slob.” young people longing for a more righteous There is a vast difference between society. It was especially seductive to those dealing with Nazis as war opponents and born on the wrong side of the tracks—like portraying Nazism as an ideology. Unlike Frank Johnson (Robert Ryan), for example, Communism, with its claim of struggling for who is now living under the name of Brad social justice, Nazism is ideologically unre- Collins, having been a radical and staunch deemable. Party member in the 1930s. In Witness to Murder (1954), Nazism Collins has changed sides. We see how plays a caricatured role. Slayer Albert he was unable to find a job in Depression Richter (George Sanders) justifies his deeds America, became angry at social and eco- via the ideology of the master race and a nomic conditions, and found a home in the bowdlerized Nietzscheanism. These ideas Party. But soon it becomes clear to him that play a pivotal role in the plot. They have The Stranger (1946) is by far the best Joseph Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler. striving for justice is only its cynical pre- since been regurgitated ad nauseam in crime film of this type, dealing with Nazism in a When he is finally captured, Kindler dissem- tense. Thomas Gomez plays Vanning, Party stories and films—the lone murderer feeling more fully dimensional way. Vital elements bles, as many high-ranking Nazis did: “It’s boss in San Francisco, who runs his empire superior to the anthill below. Here, though, of its plot touch on genocide, escaped mass not true, the things they say I did. It was all the way any gangster would and is after Sanders is a Nazi acting alone, without polit- murderers, war-crime trials, and anti- their idea. I followed orders.” Wilson coun- increased power on the docks. Unable to ically motivated cronies. Semitism. It is a true film noir with its ters with: “You gave the orders.” Here we dominate the unions by sheer numbers, the We get a hint of Nazi psychology expressionist lighting and camerawork by have accurate representations of actual Nazi Communists resort to illegitimate means to when Carl Esmond, playing Willi Hilfe in Russell Metty. And since it is directed by psychology and behavior. Welles even makes bend union politics their way. Their ruthless Fritz Lang’s Ministry of Fear, states that he Orson Welles, with his characteristic prefer- use of 1945 documentary material from the tactics are always at the expense of the union would not mind killing his own sister, to ence for baroque imagery, the visuals are Ohrdruf-Buchenwald concentration camp, in and the workers. whom he is quite close, if it will benefit the tightly linked to the film’s thematic elements. which the United States army shows the William Talman plays a cold-blooded “cause.” Later, of course, he actually Welles plays escaped Nazi master- press what they discovered when they liber- Party henchman and Paul E. Burns a attempts it. With Nazis, family relationships mind Franz Kindler. He is hiding under an ated the camp. Stalinist-style bureaucratic murderer and simply don’t count. alias: Charles Rankin, an American professor This is a singular event in Hollywood gofer. Under Vanning’s leadership, union In other spy-ring films, Nazis are por- in a small college town in New England. (It filmmaking, which was quickly overtaken by negotiations are subverted and people sus- trayed as particularly capable of cannibalis- is not explained how Kindler has managed to anti-Communist propaganda. Once the Cold pected of betraying the Party are simply tic ruthlessness, thinking nothing of dispos- lose his German accent!) We get several har- War became the dominant American ideolo- eliminated. The Party brainwashes young, ing of their own people. Claude Rains in rowing glimpses of Nazism’s aberrant psy- gy, Hollywood audiences would not be impressionable workers with lofty rhetoric Notorious—with its characteristic Hitch- chology as Rankin displays an alarming shown anything like this again. It would be and blackmails former members to coerce cockian MacGuffin of uranium ore hidden in degree of coldness—for instance when he nearly two decades before a sober, documen- subversive action that will consolidate their wine bottles—is more fearful of his Nazi disciplines the family dog “for its own tary approach emerged with Stanley power. At the film’s conclusion, Ryan kills coconspirators than he is of the Americans. good,” eventually killing it. Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). Vanning with a grappling hook, showing that Then there is his double-edged dinner- it is the working man who will take care of table talk. He seems to be making accusatory the Commies. remarks about the Germans, while in reality DREAMING (continued from pg. 2) Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South he is praising them. He justifies German Street tells us little about Communists other arrogance by claiming the German feels different eras, and an equally convincing trip than that they are a bunch of mobsters who, superior to “inferior people, inferior through the brainscape of Jun Nakayama. when crossed, do just what gangsters do. It is nations.” There’s also his matter-of-fact Especially rewarding is Revoyr’s decision to unclear what motivates them. But the com- repudiation of the idea that Germans might have the resolution of the mystery plot not plexity of lead character Skip McCoy long for social justice a la Karl Marx: “But the raison d’être of the narrative, but rather (Richard Widmark) sustains our interest. An Marx wasn’t a German. Marx was a Jew.” just a setup for the novel’s unexpected and FBI agent tries to appeal to Skip’s patriotism: This anti-Semitic remark gives him genuinely moving conclusion. “If you refuse to cooperate, you’ll be as away to Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson), Revoyr, daughter of a Japanese moth- guilty as the traitors who gave Stalin the an investigator for the Allied War Crimes er and a Polish American father, is also the A-bomb.” McCoy: “Are you waving the flag office who has tracked Kindler/Rankin author of Southland, a terrific Los Angeles at me?” FBI agent: “Do you know what trea- down. As for Germany itself, he coldly sug- noir novel also published by Akashic. She son is?” McCoy: “Who cares?” gests something akin to a final solution. In has clearly established herself as one of Skip turns patriotic only after Candy his mind there is no choice but “annihilation, Southern California’s most prominent new (Jean Peters) is beaten to a pulp by the to the last babe in arms,” which, of course, is voices. The Age of Dreaming is a deep, Communist agent Joey (Richard Kiley) and alarmingly similar to what the Germans actu- graceful, beautiful book—a gift to readers police informant Moe (Thelma Ritter) is ally tried to do. and movie lovers alike. —Eddie Muller murdered when she refuses to divulge Skip’s Loretta Young and Orson Welles in the Wilson informs the audience that whereabouts. often-underrated The Stranger. Kindler was no small fish, but on a par with