Colpevole di tradimento

I had never heard of this one before coming across it (via the Alpha DVD) at a local rental outlet; though I had expressed interest in watching it at the time, I did not get hold of the film until acquiring the more renowned later version of the same events – THE PRISONER (1955) – but, then, am only checking out either in time for the pious Easter season. The film deals with the famous trial in which Josef Mindszenty, a Hungarian Cardinal played here by Charles Bickford, is victimized for daring to stand up against Communism. The narrative, however, also takes in the experiences of a number of people who become involved in his plight – chiefly a local girl (Bonita Granville who, in spite of her clandestine relationship with Soviet officer Richard Derr, ends up tortured and killed for her troubles) and a middle-aged American reporter (Paul Kelly, who suffers himself at the hands of a neo-Nazi group!). Ironically, given the obvious anti-Red stance being promoted, GUILTY OF TREASON is most comparable in its preachiness to Hollywood efforts with Marxist leanings such as THE MASTER RACE (1944). As was the case with that one, too, the film under review manages to balance heavy-going (albeit clearly impassioned) politics with a variety of Noir trappings: for instance, the trial sequence is depicted in a stylized fashion – with Bickford standing in a beam of light at the center of the room while his accusers remain in the shadows. Compelling, modestly impressive and extremely well-acted, this proved a very nice surprise indeed which, in retrospect, has been unjustly neglected over the years.

This movie came out 63 years before the release of "Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism," by Ronald Rychlak and Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa. The same points in this film which anti anti-communists and religious skeptics and bigots resent or deny have been more than confirmed by Pacepa's detailed and carefully constructed memoir. Pacepa, former acting chief of communist Romania's espionage service and senior person in the Soviet Union's "Dezinformatsiya" campaign, reveals what Communist disinformation accomplished and wrought. His account of Mindszenty's plight only substantiates the entire plot and dialogue of this movie. In fact, what we learn in this production is fact, as opposed to the highly fictionalized accounts of Che Guevara.

There was certainly no shortage of anti-Soviet films coming out of Hollywood in the 1950's and this one, directed by extremely capable 'B' director Felix E. Feist, has a sense of immediacy, partly based as it is upon the personal papers of Hungarian Cardinal József Mindszenty whose torture, show trial and imprisonment in 1949 were still fresh in the memory.

Alec Guinness played a character based upon Mindszenty in 'The Prisoner' from 1955 and apparently the Cardinal was none too keen on that actor's 'fictional' portrayal. We do not know what he thought of Charles Bickford's performance in this earlier film, the very nature of which requires a far less complex and far more one-dimensional interpretation. Mr. Pickford never disappoints of course but although his Cardinal symbolises strength of character and determination he somehow lacks spirituality. His is muscular Catholicism to be sure.

The film is co-produced by a Catholic and features his wife Bonita Granville as an idealistic schoolteacher who suffers a terrible price for her hopeless love for a Russian Colonel whose beliefs are diametrically opposed to hers. Leonard Maltin considers her miscast but the sincerity of her performance is beyond question. Perfectly cast is Paul Kelly as a no-nonsense investigative reporter. In the understandable absence of any Russian actors we have Americans Roland Winters as a glib and oily Commissar and Richard Derr as Colonel Melnikov is suitably expressionless as a Soviet automaton. There is a chilling turn by Morgan Farley as a 'doctor' entrusted with the task of breaking Mindszenty down and a pragmatic, mediocre Hungarian playwright is played by John Banner, a refugee from Hitler's Anschluss who is probably best known as Schultz in 'Hogan's Heroes'.

The film has the advantage of editing by Walter Thompson and owes its darkly atmospheric look to the superlative lighting cameraman John L. Russell, most renowned for his work on 'Psycho'.

Although low on budget it does not stint on the truth and makes no distinction between the twin evils of Communism and Nazism. As Paul Kelly's character observes, 'Liberty is everybody's business'.

In Guilty of Treason, reporter Tom Kelly (Paul Kelly) tells a group the story of Cardinal Josef Mindszenty.

Mindszenty was a Hungarian Catholic cardinal who was vocal against the German occupation during WorldWar II and later the country's Communist regime.

Though he was arrested and tortured, the Russians did not want to make him a martyr, so he was not killed. He moved into the US Embassy in Budapest and continued to speak out against the Russians.

This film was directed by Felix Feist, produced by Jack Wrather and featured his wife, Bonita Granville, as someone against the Communists, and the scenes showing her torture were graphic and horrible. The Russian colonel she is in love with (Richard Derr) is a party man and will not help her.

Mindszenty eventually moved to Vienna and died there in 1975 at the age of 82. He was named venerable by the Catholic Church in 2019.

Made in 1950, Kelly breaks the fourth wall at the end by saying either liberty is for everyone or there is no liberty. Given everything going on today this remains a sobering statement.

The most interesting thing about this film is that it was actually made only two years after the "1984" trial of Cardinal Mindszenty, condemning him to life imprisonment after careful preparation by medicinal, psychological, mental and physical brainwash with drugs for weeks. The film makes the effort to get something of the whole picture of this universally outrageous miscarriage of justice, entirely organised by the Russians under Stalin during his worst and last years. It does not entirely succeed, but it manages to get a fair idea by entering subordinate parts, like a Russian officer in love with a Hungarian music school teacher, who is very patriotic, while he has to be loyal to his Russian communist party. The American journalist Tom Kelly plays the most important part, risking his life for getting at the truth of the fall of Hungary under the communists and ends up in hospital for his efforts. The film is very realistic, and although it is painfully reminiscent of a propaganda film, it actually sticks to the truth. There were innumerable propaganda films against Hitler and the nazi empire during the war, and this film is like a continuation of that fierce exposure of the cruelty of dictatorships, but instead of attacking Hitler it now attacks Stalin and quite boldly, showing that bureaucracy from the inside, like "The Iron Curtain" with Dana Andrews two years earlier, which also was a true story. This film does not really penetrate the Soviet procedure of brainwashing, it only hints at its main principles of operation, but it is appalling enough. The film is most memorable for Charles Bickford's entirely convincing and realistic rendering of the personality of Cardinal Mindszenty.