Original entitled Freedom and You, Red
Nightmare is vintage US propaganda ala the Twilight Zone — only instead of Rod
Serling, you get Jack Webb.
Made for the US government by Warner Bros,
Red
Nightmare stars a then-cast of TV Who's Who (most now unknown to the average millennial)
and was directed by George Waggner (7 Sept 1894 – 11 Dec 1984), an early actor
(his film debut was alongside some guy named Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik [1921
/ full film])
who ended his years as a TV director; somewhere in between, he also directed
such movies as Man Made Monster (1941 / trailer / full movie),
Horror Island (1941 / trailer
/ full film),
the classic The Wolf Man (1941 / trailer)
and, The Climax (1944 / trailer),
a Karloff film featuring Turhan Bey.
The plot, as given by Through the ShatteredLens:
"Jerry Donavon (Jack Kelly of Cult
of the Cobra [1955 / trailer], Forbidden
Planet [1956 / trailer],
She Devil [1957 / full film])
and The Human Tornado [1976 / trailer)
takes his freedom for granted. So, Jack Webb shows up and casts a magic
spell, which causes Jerry to have a dream about what it would be like to live
in a communist society. In fact, you could even say that Jack Webb gives
Jerry a red nightmare! [...] A histrionic but sincere time capsule of what was
going on in the psyche of 1962 America."
Scriptwriter Vincent Fotre (14 Feb 1901 – 20
Dec 1975), who had previously conscripted the classic non-classic Missile to
the Moon (1958 / trailer),
went on to write to the stories cult favs Baron Blood (1972 / trailer)
and Night of the Witches (1970 / trailer).
Red Nightmare:
One can't help but wonder what the
Russian-fearing conservatives of yesterday would think about having a
Conservative president helped into the White House by Russia. (They'd probably
tweet "Sad!" — or maybe, like our Dad, leave the Republican Party
after over 60 years.)
For your reading pleasure —
not from the movie:
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