Words, Music & Pictures

I’d like to thank the City of Los Angeles.  Really?  The city that, in the time I’ve lived here, has ignored traffic gridlock, rising crime and out of control homelessness?  Well, occasionally they do something right.  In this case, it’s the new expansion of the bike path on the South side of the “beautiful” Los Angeles River (aka drainage ditch).  Because of this I can now ride my bike all the way from Owensmouth Avenue to Tampa Avenue three miles, uninterrupted by traffic, stoplights or, for the moment, homeless encampments.  The cost?  Only $6 million, and since I was the only rider on the path this morning I’ll gladly accept the city’s generous donation to my health and happiness.  04.29.22.

In doing my research for my project Dreamland I’ve spent a lot of time investigating the era of the so-called Red Scare, the era (1930s – 1940s) in which the principles of Communism were being spread by the propaganda arm of Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union known as the Communist International (the Comintern).  One of the sentiments you often hear about this era is that “no Communist propaganda ever really entered American films.”  Well… not exactly.   There were quite a few films that were blatantly pro-Soviet, one of which I had the experience of viewing recently on TCM.  

The North Star tells the story of the Nazi invasion of Ukraine in 1941 and is particularly interesting in the light of the current Russian invasion.  Imagine a film set in Ukraine seven years from now in which people live happily (post invasion) as Putin’s Soviet citizens working on their bountiful collective farm.  Everyone is prosperous, smiling and happily call each other “comrade” as they dance and sing at their village gathering. 

That’s even harder to imagine when you consider that the treatment of Ukraine by Stalin in the 1930s was considerably worse than what Putin is doing to the country now -- believe it or not.  In 1934 Stalin took away (aka “collectivized”) all the food produced by the Ukrainian people, redistributing it in Russia, resulting in the death by starvation of 3 - 6 million Ukrainians in what’s known as the Holodomor.  Yeah, I didn't learn about that in school either.  

And yet, here in The North Star village of Ukraine are Anne Baxter and Farley Granger, (among other joyous young comrades) well fed and in love just seven years after the mass starvation of their people.   This slice of CommieProp was written by Lillian Hellman, a writer who called Stalin’s purges (in which he executed former friends like Zinoviev, Bukharin, Radek and many others) “anti-Soviet propaganda.”  British historian Paul Johnson said of her, “there are lies, damned lies, and Lillian Hellman.”  There are a lot of lies in this film as well as other Comintern products from Hollywood like Mission to Moscow, Song of Russia, and Action in the North Atlantic.  

The Red Scare was not a fantasy.  Just ask Ukrainians.  

For the true story of Stalin's invasion of Ukraine see my recent Blog post on the film, Mr. Jones.    

04.03.22 

Since my Facebook account was hacked and I lost access to my Writers’ Group, I’ve decided not to go back.  For the record, Facebook was absolutely no help whatsoever in restoring my account.  If you ever want to feel like a non-entity, write to Facebook support.  They won’t write back.  They have millions of dollars to give to political campaigns, but apparently not enough money to hire people to service their subscribers.  

So I've decided to do the Writers' Group here as a BLOG.  I’ll pretty much write about the same things that I did on the Facebook Writers’ Group, but since it’s public, I may not be quite as vocal about lousy films and TV shows I’ve seen.  We’ll see what happens.  

If you want to receive emails, just subscribe on the BLOG page. 

Click HERE to go there, or use the navigation link at the top. 03.19.22