Reviews

This movies is very good on several levels.

It shows that even the highest ideals get corrupted with the insanity of war and killing. Killing other human beings do not leave you better but with a wound that can never be healed. I remember another Milius production (Rough Riders) and during the training of Arizona Militia, they used an Apache. The first question they asked "Have you ever killed a man", if the answer was yes, the Apache would look into the respondents eyes and verify if it were true. The point is you see the visible change in Robert, from an innocent teenager, to a stone killer. You also see this in all the characters, except Danny who was simply there by chance but did fight and later survived.

Red Dawn showed that weakness invites attack from enemies.

Red Dawn showed the Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Russians as enemy of freedom. This was not a popular concept in 1984 among the Hollywood elite, but they have always loved Communism for some reason, even though if I had a gun with 4 bullets and Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Marx, and Mao stood before me: I would not shoot Hitler. This is because the other 4 are more evil. Nazis are not right wing: they became right wing because the MSM called them right wing after they attacked the Soviet Union. I personally would have destroyed Communism before Nazism.

Red Dawn showed what would happen if Communism took over the United States: book burning, concentration camps, political executions, and barbarism. Taken in context of 1984, the Soviet Union was the enemy and they were expanding with great abandon. Soviets in 1984 were in Angola, Somalia, Ethiopia, Namibia, Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao, Yemen, El Salvador (advisers to the insurgency). Or to put it plainly, most of the world lived under Communism and Red Dawn merely showed the same thing happening in the US that happened in other countries occupied by Communism! Soviet tactics were ruthless and they were never concerned about the "well being" of civilians.

There was very good attention to detail in Red Dawn showing the "Wolverines" as young people from an rural background. City kids just don't have much fight in them usually. For those who scoff at teen-aged American kids organizing and fighting a competent insurgency against trained, professional Russian soldiers: let me remind you that the Viet Cong were uneducated farmers that raised a lot of havoc with trained and superior equipped American Soldiers. Also, the average age of the continental soldier in Washington's army was 16. Another point that Red Dawn shows, Russian Troops were never that good a fact proved in Afghanistan and Chechniya.

All in all, the movie is entertaining, patriotic, and as realistic as Hollywood can get about any subject. But more it does show deeper truths. Some would make patriotism as a negative, think about what level of brainwashing would create that attitude. I would suggest if you are a film student in college doing research, get some Conservative commentaries about the USSR as well as Liberal, then watch this movie. It is a good period piece.

"Blood Alley" details the story of a Chinese village trying to escape Maoist oppression during the 1950's. It is definitely anti-Communist in its theme and pro-West (United States) in showing the very common desire by those under Communist rule to escape that rule. The performances were okay, not memorable. The chemistry between Bacall and Wayne was okay, but not like Maureen O'Hara (whenever you saw Wayne and Ohara you honestly thought there was something between them). But there was chemistry, also shown later when Wayne starred opposite Bacall in "The Shootist". Basically, this is one of those movies where John Wayne played "John Wayne" – a remark Travolta made in "Get Shorty" referring to "El Dorado" and "Rio Bravo" about John Wayne movies. In some John Wayne movies, John Wayne showed his acting depth ('The Cowboys", "True Grit", "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon", "Fort Apache", "Stage Coach", "Red River"), some he just played "himself". This was one of them. That was not necessarily a bad thing: because the "himself" character was the stereotypical American Ideal of manhood, who is strong, independent, flawed, a man that loves liberty, and will fight to the death for the weak. That is the type of character that "Tom Wilder" played by Wayne in "Blood Alley".

Since "Blood Alley"'s main theme is escape from a communist state: Communism is the "bad guy". So the movie must take the early portions of it to illustrate how bad the "Bad Guy" is. Once the escape takes place, then it is a classic chase movie with some good moments of suspense with rescue in the nick of time. The movie is uplifting and of course has a happy ending.

The things that leave this movie open to criticism should be taken in context with 1955. Casting Paul Fix, Mike Mazurki, and Anita Ekburg as Chinese would be unthinkable today in the "uptight" period that we live in: I call it leftist Puritanism. But we must remember, there were not a lot of Asian leading men or women- and certainly not that many Chinese – as a matter of fact there are very few today if you think about it. So it is not strange to have Caucasians playing Chinese. One might laugh at having Anita Ekberg playing one, blond hair and all. What people also don't realize is not all Chinese nationals have the typical features that we consider Asian (the epicanthal folds or "slanted eyes"). I lived in China for many years, there are a large number of ethnic Russians from Inner Mongolia and they get extremely insulted if you call attention to the fact that they don't "look" Chinese. Furthermore, to the Chinese: casting a Japanese as a Chinese is far more offensive. Just ask a Mainland Chinese what they think of the Japanese. Casting based on the eyes is ignorance and arrogance of the American "thought police" who enforce this correctness. These "technical" issues with the movie that I saw are understandable and I place them with Derek Jacoby fulfilling the role of narrator in his cashmere ensemble right out of GQ in Henry V (Kenneth Branaugh).

"Blood Alley" is a very good period piece to understand the fear and lines drawn between Communism and the Liberty found in the United States. To understand what really happened reading/watching histories that are produced 50 years later after never illustrates why people did what they did. This movie is not right-wing because Lauren Bacall was extremely liberal, but like most Democrats of the 1950's she was extremely ANTI-COMMUNIST and was a patriot like John Wayne: she wanted America to win. It was propaganda, like all movies are propaganda, because it tries to lead the viewer to a certain conclusion. If the director can't do this, he is a lousy story-teller.

"Blood Alley" makes the following points:

1 Communism is bad. 2 Communists oppress their populations: True 3.People desired to leave Communism: True 4. Communists murder those who won't conform: True.

The fact that you want the Chinese village to get away means William Wellman is good.

"Blood Alley" was also allegorical. Because at this time, Hungary was in revolt and thousands of Hungarians were making their escape using the bridge at Andau. You really could not make a movie about escaping over a bridge because it would be boring. So "Blood Alley" was a morale building movie reminiscent of the movies made during World War 2 where Hollywood cooperated in the war against Nazism and all its evil. This movie was made during the Cold War with Hollywood at that time divided between avid Anti-Communists and Communist apologists. I have always been intrigued by the hypocrisy of liberals that wholeheartedly fought Nazism which was not really a threat against the United States, they really only threatened Europe, but dismissed Communism that was openly and passionately trying to overthrow the republican (not party) system of government in the United States and replace it with a socialistic Marxist/Leninist System. Communists had shown their willingness to be the aggressor already in Korea, Hungary, and Viet Nam. This movie was raising alarm bells. Strangely for all those who have this neutral view toward Communism, Communist countries had to put walls up to keep their people within their borders and employ trusted guards to shoot anyone trying to escape. But still with this reality, people tried to escape, because the value of freedom was worth the risk of death. They wanted freedom, and that meant leaving one political system to live under another – the American System. With the current political climate in the US where we have those who would like to change that system of Liberty to a Socialistic system with Marxist undertones, we should ponder the legacy of those people commemorated in "Blood Alley". "Better Dead than Red" was not just a cliché to some during the 1950's and now in the early 21st Century.