Los Angeles. Before this a few films were released like Song of Russia that displayed the soviets in a decent light. After 1947 though Hollywood, according to Whitfield, became almost a propaganda machine against the evil, joyless Russians that were portrayed in film. And any action taken against the unfair portrayal of Russian people was scoffed at and dismissed, like the author Ayn Rands argument against Hollywood. Filmmakers on the most part found it much easier to direct films with no political connotations whatsoever to avoid the close scrutiny of HUAC and other agencies. There were a few totally anti-Communist films released during this era, and the pinnacle of their time was 1952 when twelve staunch anti-Communist films were released. These films were made with poor taste portraying all communists as the same hate filled thugs who showed disdain for everything that we believed in. Whitfeild feels that the most reflective film of cold war political culture is My Son John that intelligently uses the red scare theme as the antagonist in this story about a family being torn apart because of the political upheaval. A single left wing, independent film that did manage to get out, Salt of the Earth, met an unbelievable amount of criticism and even violence. Whitfeild feels that one of the largest affects on the culture of the movies at this time was the blacklist and how it kept some talented people from doing their jobs. People did get around this and their talents flourished. Such as Carl Foreman, a scenarist who was blacklisted yet managed to help make two American classics, High Noon and The Bridge Over the River Kwai.The situation known as the cold war was directly coinciding with the birth of a great new medium of our culture, television. This magic box aided in killing some of the previous culture by shutting down movie theaters, hurting radio ratings, shrinking literature circulation, and so on. Television became one of, if no...
