Red Nightmare

This slice of Hollywood paranoia, never actually released, dates from the Red Scare period following the Cuban missile crisis, and was 'personally supervised' by Jack L Warner for the Department of Defence, to remind every American not taking sufficient interest in their local PTA that 'responsibilities are a privilege'. With an omnipresent Jack Webb acting as thought-control personified, the film hilariously scuttles its own thesis all the way down the line. The uniformed Reds who actually turn up in some poor Mid-Town Joe's dream not only take over his community, but turn his family into automatons, march his daughter off to work farm, close the Sunday School, up his piecework quota, and - final straw - claim to have invented the telephone! Tantrums inevitably lead to a show trial and a quick bullet. Awakening, on the other hand, brings everyday American sweetness and light - and just as inevitably, another cautionary lecture from Webb. Hysterical, indeed.