I became familiar with "I Was A Communist For The FBI" through listening to some of the old radio episodes of the show (of the same name) broadcast over satellite radio. I've always found the radio show interesting, and when I stumbled upon a movie based on the same story there was never any doubt in my mind that I wanted to watch it. It's the story of Matt Cvetic, an FBI operative who infiltrates the Pittsburgh branch of the United States Communist Party during World War II and remains as an FBI mole for almost 10 years - at the beginning of the Cold War, when the Red Scare was taking possession of America.
It's obvious - as you'd expect - that this movie seeks to portray communists and communism in a bad light. That becomes clear right from the start. A meeting of the party leaders is held in a fancy hotel, where they indulge in wine and caviar and other luxuries. The proletariat? Workers of the world unite, indeed! The point is made there by one of the leaders that once the communists take over America this is how the leaders will always live. And, as for the workers, well - "they'll always be workers." So much for communist idealism! The point is also made that the communist leaders are racists, using the "n-word" to refer to black workers and seeing them only as useful pawns but of little real importance. The communists portrayed here are basically rabble-rousers, wanting to spark illegal strikes and riots, and fiercely loyal to and controlled by Stalin and the Soviet Union (toasts are offered to both.) They're suspicious of each other, and ruthless toward those they suspect of betraying them - which obviously makes Cvetic's life a perilous one. He rises (in the movie) to a significant position of leadership in the Party - always vaguely under suspicion (but it seems that every communist was vaguely suspicious of every other communist, so no big deal, really) but nothing ever gets pinned on him. In the meantime, having to live publicly as a "red" he's alienated from his own family (his son and brothers can't stand to be in the same room with him) and he has basically no friends. It's a lonely life. Cvetic is torn between his loyalty to his country and his desire to live a normal life. Things really start to be torn apart when he discovers that his son's teacher Eve (Dorothy Hart) is a fellow communist, who becomes something of a love interest for him. (As an aside, I thought it interesting that Eve revealed that there were a lot of communist teachers - so the right- wing suspicion of teachers being out to subvert rather than educate American youth goes back at least to the Red Scare.) The movie also portrays the communists as a much bigger threat than they really were - infiltrating every aspect of American society, with tentacles stretching across the country and the world. It is most certainly a product of the Red Scare.
I thought Frank Lovejoy did a decent if unspectacular job as Cvetic, and I don't doubt that Cvetic's life undercover must have been difficult. Having said that, the movie (and the earlier radio show) grossly exaggerates things. The reality is that there's no real evidence that Cvetic rose as high in the communist hierarchy as this suggests. Once he came out from his undercover role he did testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he did name lots of people as communists, but in spite of that he wasn't considered a particularly reliable or effective witness, and was even considered a bit of a loose cannon. The very wide liberties that the story takes with Cvetic's life make it a bit funny (and perhaps say something about the anti-communist hysteria of the time) to realize that "I Was A Communist For The FBI" was actually nominated for an Oscar - for Best Documentary! It's a decent if not especially exciting red scare cloak and dagger type film, but there's nothing Oscar-worthy about it - and it's certainly not a documentary! The movie ends not in documentary style, but with straight emotional propaganda, as the strains of "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" play, and the camera zeroes in to a closeup of a bust of Abraham Lincoln.
As for Cvetic, after testifying against the communists he tried to enter politics as a Republican, but failed, and spent the rest of his life (he died in 1962) involved in various ways with the anti- communist movement. (6/10)
It's obvious - as you'd expect - that this movie seeks to portray communists and communism in a bad light. That becomes clear right from the start. A meeting of the party leaders is held in a fancy hotel, where they indulge in wine and caviar and other luxuries. The proletariat? Workers of the world unite, indeed! The point is made there by one of the leaders that once the communists take over America this is how the leaders will always live. And, as for the workers, well - "they'll always be workers." So much for communist idealism! The point is also made that the communist leaders are racists, using the "n-word" to refer to black workers and seeing them only as useful pawns but of little real importance. The communists portrayed here are basically rabble-rousers, wanting to spark illegal strikes and riots, and fiercely loyal to and controlled by Stalin and the Soviet Union (toasts are offered to both.) They're suspicious of each other, and ruthless toward those they suspect of betraying them - which obviously makes Cvetic's life a perilous one. He rises (in the movie) to a significant position of leadership in the Party - always vaguely under suspicion (but it seems that every communist was vaguely suspicious of every other communist, so no big deal, really) but nothing ever gets pinned on him. In the meantime, having to live publicly as a "red" he's alienated from his own family (his son and brothers can't stand to be in the same room with him) and he has basically no friends. It's a lonely life. Cvetic is torn between his loyalty to his country and his desire to live a normal life. Things really start to be torn apart when he discovers that his son's teacher Eve (Dorothy Hart) is a fellow communist, who becomes something of a love interest for him. (As an aside, I thought it interesting that Eve revealed that there were a lot of communist teachers - so the right- wing suspicion of teachers being out to subvert rather than educate American youth goes back at least to the Red Scare.) The movie also portrays the communists as a much bigger threat than they really were - infiltrating every aspect of American society, with tentacles stretching across the country and the world. It is most certainly a product of the Red Scare.
I thought Frank Lovejoy did a decent if unspectacular job as Cvetic, and I don't doubt that Cvetic's life undercover must have been difficult. Having said that, the movie (and the earlier radio show) grossly exaggerates things. The reality is that there's no real evidence that Cvetic rose as high in the communist hierarchy as this suggests. Once he came out from his undercover role he did testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he did name lots of people as communists, but in spite of that he wasn't considered a particularly reliable or effective witness, and was even considered a bit of a loose cannon. The very wide liberties that the story takes with Cvetic's life make it a bit funny (and perhaps say something about the anti-communist hysteria of the time) to realize that "I Was A Communist For The FBI" was actually nominated for an Oscar - for Best Documentary! It's a decent if not especially exciting red scare cloak and dagger type film, but there's nothing Oscar-worthy about it - and it's certainly not a documentary! The movie ends not in documentary style, but with straight emotional propaganda, as the strains of "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" play, and the camera zeroes in to a closeup of a bust of Abraham Lincoln.
As for Cvetic, after testifying against the communists he tried to enter politics as a Republican, but failed, and spent the rest of his life (he died in 1962) involved in various ways with the anti- communist movement. (6/10)