gjackson-22326 Any anti-communist film is guaranteed to bring forth accusations of promoting or defending the 'red scare'. These accusations invariably come from historical illiterates.These deep thinking leftist critics are so well informed that they do not even know that the release of the Venona Papers largely vindicated the McCarthy investigations. These sneering historical illiterates need to learn about large-scale communist aggression that the West was facing at the time. For example, the communists insurgencies in Greece and Malaya, both backed by the Soviets. Then there was the takeover of Eastern Europe followed by imprisonment, torture and execution of opponents. Then there was the 1948 Berlin Blockade, the Korean War, the Berlin uprising in 1953 and the 1956 Hungarian uprising that the Soviets ruthlessly crushed.The Cold War was anything but cold and was the creation of an aggressive Soviet Union. Before any more mal-educated leftists decide to start sneering at anti-communist movies perhaps they will tell us why they choose to ignore the 100,000,000, people that communist regimes murdered. ("The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression", Harvard University Press,1999). Read this book and you might start thinking that anti-communist movies were not too far out after all and that the left's cry of 'red scare' is as phony as a $3 bill, and every freedom-loving person had every reason to fear communism.Like all movies "The Fearmakers' has its flaws. However, its portrayal of communism is nothing to be ashamed of nor is it something that deserves mockery.

moonspinner55 Dana Andrews is quite congenial playing a former Army Captain, returning to Washington, D.C. after being held two years in a Chinese prison camp, discovering that the public relations firm he and his business partner founded has been sold to a reprehensible lout who peddles in prejudice and poison. Plainly-drawn, low-budget melodrama with then-topical undercurrents of Communism and anti-semitism does have an interesting group of characters, but it could stand a bit of levity to lighten its load. There's an early scene in a plane with Andrews and a talkative scientist that is never fully explained, and the one main female character (a secretary played by the curious Marilee Earle) is disheartening--she's there to lend a hand and feign a romance, yet the role itself is an unsurprising cliché. Director Jacques Tourneur is crafty at times, but mostly heavy-handed; he sets up a heated finale, but then muffs it with square-jawed heroics and patriotic gestures. More mystery and gloss was required. **1/2 from ****

bmacv The Fearmakers stands as one of the stragglers in the Red-Scare cycle, which ran from the late 1940s pretty much until 1962, when John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate blew it to smithereens. (The studios, running scared, churned them out but the public shunned them in droves.) This one benefits from the talents of director Jacques Tourneur (The Cat People, Out of the Past) and noir icon Dana Andrews; it also features a young Mel Torme as a pusillanimous lackey who relies too much on stage business (mopping his brow, fiddling with his glasses). The movie is somewhat elevated, too, by working with themes that resonate today: How polls and focus groups can be manipulated by well-heeled special interest lobbies -- how, in fact, they can be made to say absolutely anything. Here, it's the disarmament movement, viewed of course as nothing more than a Commie plot. Inevitably, The Fearmakers degenerates into stereotypes as simple as Veda Ann Borg's big round puss.

John Seal In the late 1950s, The Fearmakers was a late entry in the Red Scare cycle. By the late 1960s it would have looked like a bizarre and ancient relic. Now in the 21st century, the film looks almost prophetic--if you can overlook the fact that it's basically a pro-nuclear war film. What gives the film resonance for a contemporary audience is its accurate portrayal of 'public relations', polling and advertising, and their ability to sway public opinion. In the 1950s this thesis no doubt took a back seat to the usual Commie-bashing, but now--in the era of push polls, straw polls, and exit polls-- it looks frighteningly accurate. Dana Andrews is excellent as usual. Sadly he is paired up with Marilee Earle as his love interest, and Ms. Earle gives a wooden performance of truly Redwoodian proportions. This was the last film of her brief career.