It's time to talk about communism with everyone's favourite stoic American Jack Webb.
'Freedom and You' created in 1962 (alternative title Red Nightmare). I prefer the original as it create the rhyming scheme with the year it was created. however some sources indicate that it was created in 1957. I can't seem to find any definite proof on either of these years and quite frankly I stopped caring.
If the title was left up to me I'd a called it "It's a Red Life"
The second half of the film is a weird scenario where Jack Kelly's character wakes up and discovers that he is living in this strange american-sovietize town. Much in the vein of It's a Wonderful Life.
The American perception of communist life is both over exaggerated and surprisingly tame. For instance Kelly's character at the end is put on trial for committing crimes against the state. When in reality a nobody like him committing a very open crime in a museum (in this case vandalism and destruction of property)
In reality he would most likely have just gone to prison without any real trial, his name's struck-in from the record and forgotten to time. It's also possible that is his family would have joined him.
It's difficult to say given that it was the Khrushchev era and no one was entirely sure what was going on in the Soviet Union.
Then you have exaggerated scenarios where Kelly's talking to he's family and responding to him like a bunch of robots all lacking emotion and spouting out communist dribble. That's not to say that you didn't have people like that in this, there certainly were but they made up on minority. Real Soviet people still talks like human beings because (and this might come as a surprise to some) they were human beings. They all knew what kind of world they lived in they knew how crappy their system was and most of them speculated the Communist system would collapse at some point.
But then that's not the point of this propaganda. They're not here to tell you about the Soviet lifestyle they're here to convey to you that you are actions matter and that you should take an active role in your community to ensure the Liberties and freedom that your country (supposedly) enjoy so much.
I'm not against the simple message of being more responsible, having a more active lifestyle and making time for your family. The part that bothers me is the very end where they go on about needing a strong and determined military force.
As they go on to show a montage of all the American Military Tech and just what it can do. It shows you just how over-prepared the United States was getting for this war.
Funny thing about the Soviet Union, they lied a lot about their military capability.
for example they would have a video of one of their cities with what looks to be 50 planes flying over it. In reality they only had 10 planes and they copy and paste at those same planes over and over again. thus inflating their numbers. While the United States would look at this information and then say: "we need to build 70 planes to compete with their 50."*
now that's not to say that the Soviet Union wasn't a threat. They simply just weren't as big of fresh as people assumed they were. Especially the Americans. Really the people who should have been concerned were the Europeans. After all the Soviet Union may have a lot of problems but they still got that massive tank Army and they could take on just about anybody. And they're connected straight to Europe be very easy to conquer. The United States on the other hands across the ocean and the Soviet navy is the equivalent of a banana Cannon next to a Howitzer when it comes to comparing them to the United States Naval forces.
Then there's the atomic bomb that Mighty weapon that both sides had far too much of. And if ever came to a full-out war would most likely leave both countries of smoking crater. This was the one true fret the United States had to worry about with the Soviet Union even if their defensive capabilities against Atomic bombs were 30 years ahead of the Soviets (which they weren't.)
Ultimately none of it really mattered the arms race proved to be a giant waste of time, money and energy. Helping nobody and killing hundreds of thousands of others.
But then that's the beauty of hindsight we get to mock the past without fearing the consequences.
How is this propaganda documentary worth anyone's time. Not really, there's more interesting propaganda out there to watch and ones that even have better messages. I'd only recommend it to anybody that wants to see Jack Webb and then to set your expectations low because he only really pops up at the beginning in the end with occasional glimpses.
The most fun I had with the film was imagining the family's reaction as they look out the window and see Jack Webb standing outside their driveway talking to somebody. And having the lot of em think:
''What the heck is Jack Webb doing here? Oh no! Did one of us break the law? I don't want to be on Dragnet.''
There's an amusing part in the film where two kids are talking in a gymnasium, and I swear up and down that this is the exact same gymnasium that's featured in the Jack Webb ''D.I. Sargent'' film.
Unfortunately it's almost impossible to find a decent poster for this film. I know the exists because you can see little snapshots of them on the internet. But they're also low quality or croped in some weird way that I can't really use them. So instead we'll just have this stoic picture of Jack Webb staring at the camera.
*Now there are some that argued that the United States knew about these forgeries from the beginning and simply used it as an excuse to build more planes regardless. After all you've got to feed that military industrial complex.
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