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I Was a Communist for the FBI (1951)


Cast:

Frank Lovejoy is Matt Cvetic
Dorothy Hart is Eve Merrick
Philip Carey is Mason
James Millican is Jim Blandon
Richard Webb is Ken Crowley (FBI chief)


What the IMDB says:

The FBI infiltrates one of their agents in the US Communist Party. This causes big problems in the normal life of the agent. Nobody knows that he is with the FBI, neither his family.


Plot:

Agents are on the watch for Commies. Gerhard Eisler is being watched.

Matt Czetic goes to see his mother. His brother isn't happy with Commie Matt who gets a call to see Eisler. It turns out that Matt is an undercover agent spying on the Commies for the FBI.


My refrigerator is running. So I need to go out and catch it...
At the meeting, Matt gets promoted to party organizer for the city. The communists want to raise riots and organize social unrests for divide and conquer.

Later, Matt reports to the FBI how the communists want to start race riots.

Steel mill, commies injury non-party guys so more party guys can join. Matt gets a call about his son, Dick. Dick has been getting into fights because his dad's a commie. Dick can't tolerate a commie father.


What do you do when you're not feeling patriotic enough?

That night, Matt writes a letter for his son just in case happens to him. Eve Merick, Dick's teacher, knows Matt and apparently is also a communist.


You have to be on the look. There are actually some card-carrying commies around...

Commies want to cripple steel mills. Matt has bugged the meeting. The FBI overhears and learns that Eve is to watch Matt.

Matt learns than his mother is getting sicker. Unfortunately, too late, he doesn't get to her before she passes away. His brother gets into a fight after the funeral.

Matt learns the letter is gone, and Eve took it and read it. She has been having a crisis of conscience. She keeps from reporting Matt to the commie leaders.

Matt wants to get out his cover. The FBI can't clear him yet. They play a recording where he learns that Eve kept from reporting him.


G-Men are known to dominate others by whoever has the largest piece of hankerchief on their ears.

Commies are planning a strike to get the steel workers strike and riot. When, Joe, Matt's brother, tries to cross the line, the fight ensues.


Tastes great!! LESS Filling!!


Where's the Maltese Falcon?
Afterwards, Matt learns about Eve's growing morals. She decides to report who she knows are commies. Matt talks with her to get out of Philadelphia before the leaders want her exterminated with extreme prejudice.

One of the killer commies shoot an FBI agent when they miss Eve.

Train station, the commies are still after Eve. Matt comes to her rescue.

The commies want to insult the House Un-American Activities Committee and raise money through fascism.


Somehow paintings of Stalin and Lincoln side by side seem strange...
When North Korea invades South Korea that war will scare people. The leaders question Matt and start beating him when cops run to grab Matt on suspicion of murder of a FBI agent.

In the car, they tell Matt how he'll finally testify in court about the communist leaders.

Before the trail, the attorneys are keeping Matt undercover for now... He's called and admits that he was working for the FBI and the evils of communism and the Soviet Union. Joe and Dick are so proud that Matt was never a commie.


What I say:

Can't think of any other reviewed movie that was based on stories from the Saturday Evening Post which got turned into a best-selling books and a radio series, too. This movie was nominated for an Oscar? For Best Documentary? Sometimes the real world can be so much stranger than fiction...The early 1950s had the Red Scare from the House on Un-American Activities which I'll let my Ten of fans to research McCarthyism on their own.

Titles with "Vampires, Werewolves, Frankenstein" do help give a title some class. However, what makes a title really classy? ACTION...At least a sentence...I Was a Communist for the FBI. The 1950s had a few of the greatest movie titles of all: Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, Earth Vs the Flying Saucers, andI Married a Monster From Outer Space. The 1960s and 1970s also had some like the Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave and Werewolf Vs Vampire Women.

Propaganda. These are communists spreading fascism and racism. How could these communists not tie damsels to train tracks and twirl their mustaches? That's the deep mystery. The 1930s and 1940s had a number of movies with evil 5th columnists of Nazi spies All Through the Night which had gangster Humphrey Bogart versus spies to Edward G. Robinson in Confessions of a Nazi Spy

The hero has infilitrated a communist group for years and endures his family and especially his son who can't stand communism. With such a movie title, it's no big shock about him working undercover. However, the end tries to get him to be a 2-fisted spy-smasher with his family proud of him for commie-spying.

Typically, I check the IMDB to see if the director is somewhat recognizable. At this time, even with a number of big-name directors, a lot of them were more the B-movie type. The director, Gordon Douglas, has to be known for one of the great 1950s sci-fi movies: Them. Best giant killer ant movie of all. He may be more known for some other movies Viva Knievell, Zombies on Broadway, and They Call Me MISTER TIBBS!!!



3 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"You slimy, red!"
"It's good to meet a fanatic now and then..."
"Baseballs an American game."
"Put up your hands, you dirty no-good Red!"


Morals of the Story

Communists launder money for their own nefarious purposes.
Communists love room service.
Communists must carry memebership cards with them.
Communists scream like little girls when run over by trains.


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