I was a Communist for the F.B.I. (

1951

) ½

Realism in film is grossly overrated. Just look at Neil deGrasse Tyson’s smug twitter posts about how unrealistic the latest blockbuster is, sure they get a lot of views but who is really thinking like that to themselves while they watch The Avengers (2012) or Pacific Rim (2013)? Really tedious people, that’s who. Most of us understand, at least subconsciously, the value of escapism and fantasy. We watch movies to spend a couple of hours not thinking about the project we’re doing for work, or the bills we have to pay, or the fact that our friend is back in rehab. It’s a vacation from all the annoying logistics and personal tragedies of everyday life. Good filmmakers understands this, and as a result the movies that come out of commercial studios are mostly aimed at taking us to a world that is deliberately not realistic. Spy films have been particularly affected by this phenomenon. In real life, spying is tedious, boring work that involves a lot of code-breaking and sifting through mounds of minutia. Sure there is the occasional assassination or double agent but they are the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, virtually every modern spy movie has opted to follow the James Bond path and make their films continent-spanning adventures full of frenetic action sequences, sexy women, and colorfully absurd villains. Tellingly, when a film comes along like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011) that shows a realistic depiction of the spying profession, it seems downright odd.

However, the James Bond formula for spy movies is only as old as Casino Royale, Ian Flemming’s first novel featuring the archetypal spy. Before 1953, filmmakers had no idea how to add an element of excitement or drama into the otherwise turgid profession. Sure, you could set your film in a period of tumultuous upheaval like revolutionary Russia as was the case with Knight without Armor (1937). Filmmakers during WWII had plenty of opportunities to depict the exciting and dangerous adventures of spies penetrating behind the Axis lines, but by the early 1950s, this was only an option for filmmakers interested in making a period piece. Other filmmakers had some success cross-breeding the spy movie with noirs, as was the case with Pickup on South Street (1953). Yet for today’s film that wasn’t really an option either. Noir is an inherently scummy genre, full of corrupt officials and cynical heroes. The “morality” of the good guys is inherently suspect and the baddies are usually no better except in the cases where they are complete monsters instead. It’s entertaining sure, but not really the kind of aesthetic you want to evoke when you’re making a propaganda film under the aegis of a prude no less legendary than J. Edgar Hoover himself. So prepare yourself for an opening mostly of hushed conversations, guys tailing other guys, spies reporting to their handlers, and a healthy dose of propaganda. That said, this movie picks up considerably in its last act with a showdown in stockyards and a conclusion before a body no less august than The House Committee on Un-American Activities!

As you can probably guess from the title of today’s film, this is a genuine piece of red-baiting, FBI praising, Hollywood propaganda. Now, those who read my reviews religiously (in that case you’re most likely either my wife or my mother and I would like to take this parenthetical to tell you that I love you) will know that my stance on the red scare of the 1950s is somewhat unconventional. Sure, it was a witch-hunt, and of course, being such, more than a few innocent bystanders had their lives and careers derailed by the self-appointed witch-finder generals. Yet I think it’s important to note that communist infiltration, subversion, and espionage was a very real problem in 1940s and 50s America. These spies were routinely aided and abetted by American members of the Communist party. To pretend otherwise, as some historians on the subject are apt to do, is to do one’s readers an injustice. The hysteria that catapulted Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon to the limelight was not some unfounded paranoia, but rather a completely understandable response to the situation on the ground. Pretending that its all so much nonsense or right-wing propaganda is just bad history, and a poor understanding of history inevitably leads to repeating the same errors and catastrophes of the past. Those with a genuine desire to prevent another Red Scare owe it to themselves to honestly asses why the Red Scare of the 1950s played out the way it did.

The film tells the story of Matt Cvetic, a high-ranking member of the communist party in Pittsburg. On the surface, he is every inch the typical communist agitator, unquestioning in his dedication to the party and approaching his mission with an almost religious zeal. In truth, he's a two-faced fink. For the last decade, he has pretended to be a communist, gradually working his way up the ranks of the party until he’s near the top of the local party machine. Now he’s in position to keep tabs on some top men, and even keep an eye out for the foreign agents who invariably make up the upper echelons of the party’s command structure. Everything he finds he reports back to his handlers at the FBI. The job is important, both to The Bureau and to Matt personally. He hates the dirty reds and sees his counter-espionage work as nothing less than his patriotic duty. This goes some way towards explaining why he keeps at it despite the fact that it is alienating him from all the people he’s closest to. His family, in particular, his brother, hates the fact that they have a known red as a relation. Matt’s son, in turn, is in denial and gets into endless fights at school whenever any of the other kids tell him that his dad is a commie. When Matt tells his son that he is, in fact, a member of the communist party, and has been for some time, the boy can barely look his dad in the eye.

The film's depiction of the communist party is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, the film captures the tactics and techniques of the party exceedingly well. We see the communist party exploit racial tensions to further their own goals. The communists in this film, like the communists in real life, also skillfully manipulate unions with a mixture of dogged persistence (dragging out meetings so long the non-communists go home and then calling a vote) and outright violence. The party leadership is utterly subservient to foreign agents and directives from Moscow and rife with paranoia. Every promotion that Matt gets comes attached with more commies tailing him and greater suspicion from his peers. All this is a fairly pretty realistic depiction of the communist party, as it existed in the 40s and 50s. Doubtlessly all the accurate details are a consequence of the film’s source material, the real-life memoirs of Matt Cvetic as published in the Saturday Evening Post.

Yet the film fails to capture the earnestness with which real-life communists conducted their affairs. The leadership of I was a Communist for the F.B.I.’s communist party is composed of nothing but cynical schemers who see their ideals as nothing more than an avenue for accumulating power. In real life it was often quite the opposite, the foreign agents might have more than a few cynics in their ranks (their direct boss, after all, was the legendarily pragmatic Lavrentiy Beria), but the American communists were mostly true believers in the cause. This is most telling when the film deals with race. Outside of the black community itself, there were precious few political organizations that wanted to help black Americans. The Democratic party was still the party of slavery and segregation, and the Republican party despite being marginally better was hardly willing to take any risks for the downtrodden minorities. Indeed, it was the communist party’s willingness to tackle racism that drew many bleeding hearts and useful idiots to its banner. To show the American leaders of the communist party sneering at the “niggers” is patently absurd. The Communist Party of this era did enough to condemn itself to scorn and infamy; we don’t have to make up things to make it come across as loathsome.