I Was a Communist for the F.B.I.

I'm tired of people coming up with the idea of communism being a harmless little flirtation.

It was a serious threat to America and our way of life for many years. I spent many years of my life to defeat it. To minimilize the threat of communism is nothing but sophistry and needs to be called such.

The movie needs to be seen as such, as did the TV series which I remember from my younger years.

Is communism good? Look at what it has done ... it builds walls to keep people in. There are only two countries that still practice it ... China and Cuba. Does that say anything?

Slickly produced propaganda film from Warner Bros. Stong-jawed, stone-faced Frank Lovejoy is perfectly cast as true-blue undercover agent for the FBI, Matt Cvetic. Loosely based on Cvetic's book, the movie shows him penetrating upper echelons of the American communist party. Produced in 1951 at the height of the McCarthy purges, the movie's one-dimensional content should surprise no one.

A couple aspects, however, did surprise me. First, the visuals don't really underscore the propaganda content. Communists are not framed in usual low-key shadowy lighting, e.g. The Iron Curtain (1948), which would emphasize their sinister nature. Instead everyone gets the benefit of bright light framing. Also, the commies are just as nice looking, Hollywood style, as the FBI. That's really surprising, given the industry's habit of uglifying baddies. Thus, each aspect tends to humanize the Cold War enemy in unexpected ways, at least visually. Second, note how all the men are clothed in spiffy suits whether workers in union halls or whoever. No proletarian shirts and dungarees here. My guess is the producers wanted a prosperous looking working class no different in dress than their bosses. I doubt that uniform costuming like this happens by accident.

That this Hollywood creation could actually win an Oscar as best documentary is a kind of sick joke and a telling product of its time. My general point is that viewers should be on utmost guard when taking either historical or political wisdom from a Hollywood commercial product. Just because we don't have a ministry of truth doesn't mean our leading institutions don't act in concert when their common interests (here it's private capital) are threatened. And that goes for any developed country, whether communist or capitalist.

Anyway, the movie's now little more than an obscure artifact. Still, for thoughtful folks, it remains a good object lesson in America's 1951 version of Pravda.

Yes, it is over the top.

Yes, it is one-sided.

But for people to deny that Communists were infiltrating positions of influence is just wrong headed revisionism.

Cvetic was a real person. He did infiltrate the CPUSA. He did testify against the CP. It is hard to know just what is true and what isn't because BOTH sides, Hoover's FBI and the Liberal revisionists keep spinning their own version.

But after the fall of the USSR, the KGB files affirmed that there were many successful infiltrations and manipulations of the media and govt. It's just straight facts.

Klaus Fuchs, The Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss are just a few examples.

It is terrifying how the younger generations are ignorant or misinformed about the past. What will they say about 9-11 in 50 years?

****SPOILERS**** Living in the shadows despised and hated by his family and friends Matt Cvetic, Frank Lovejoy, made the ultimate sacrifice in the war against the Communist menace that threatened America and the free world back in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Matt became a Communist but a Communist for the FBI.

Based on the true story of undercover agent Matt Cvetic the movie is about a Pittsburgh steel worker and union representative and member of the Communist party. Matt risked his life and safety as well as the lives and safety of his friends and family for nine years to get the goods on the Communist party and put them behind bars for a long long time. Yet for all that time Matt was not only a man without a country but a man without a soul as well.

Matt working undercover gets the evidence on his commie cohorts but not after he's involved in killing two commies who tried to kill him and his girlfriend Eva; as well as him being charged with the murder of an FBI agent. An FBI man That the commies, that Matt killed in self-defense, really murdered. Matt's also provided in the movie with a fellow traveler love-interest Eve Merrick, Dorothy Heart, who's a teacher, undermining the American youth, in Matt's son's Dick, Ron Hegerthy, high school.

You at first think that Eve is an undercover agent like Matt is when he accidentally drops his wallet, when Matt's brother Joe(Paul Picerni) slugs him for having the nerve to attend their mother's funeral. Matt's wallet has a letter to his son telling him the truth about himself that Eve picked up. You later realize that Eve really was a commie but saw the light and got religious after seeing just how low those rotten Reds can go to achieve their wretched aims.

Watching the Communists in action in the movie shows how their only really interested in creating chaos hatred and destruction among the working-class people. The Commies have not the least interest at all in getting the people to love and respect each other or to help them economically. This is the usual Commie trick that they always like to pull, in helping the working class, like they kept boasting over and over in the movie but to only use them to farther their goals.

The Commies are so cold and unfeeling, even to each other, and were more then willing to rat out and even have fellow members murdered for the slightest infraction against "The Movement". These back-stabbing actions on their part made you wonder why anyone normal would want to join such a sleazy organization in the first place? Even Matt as hard as he tried had trouble convincing people in the movie, as well as the movie audience,that he was really a Communist! Matt acted so forced and phony as a slimly and in your face fanatical Communist that he looked almost embarrassed in his efforts in trying to be one.

It was good to see in the end of the movie Matt get a couple of good licks in by belting his commie comrade boss Blandon, James Millican, who attacked him in the courthouse after exposing him and his Commie organization. It was also good to see Matt put the rest of Baldon's rotten Commie crew away with his undercover testimony as well. And most of all it was also very rewarding for Matt to have his friends and family finally realize just what a really great American he was. In Matt letting them on that he was a Commie only to get the Commies that he was involved with, who were trying to undermine and destroy America, their just reward.

Obviously " I was a Communist for the FBI" is an over-the-top movie about Communism in America back during the Cold War. Yet at the time of it's release, 1951, there was a Hot War going on in Korea not just against the Communist North Koreans but the Communist Chinese. It was the Red Chinese who provided the manpower for the North Korean Communists to the point were they were over 80% of the ground forces fighting the US troops there. There was also USSR, the Evil Cummmunist Empire, also providing the North Koreans with experienced jet-pilots, who shot down hundreds of USAF combat planes and helicopters. Knowing all this one can easily forgive the extreme dislike and antipathy shown against the Communist in the film back in those days.

Frank Lovejoy starred in two classics: he had a minor part in "House of Wax" and was one of the main characters in Ida Lupino's film noir "The Hitch-Hiker". In "I Was A Communist For The FBI" he plays Matt Cvetic, a Slovenian last name which makes it all the more likely that Cvetic would turn into a communist. Well, that's at least what the film tries to tell you.

It is 1951 and McCarthy has started the war on the new enemy, the communists. It was a 'war' that would mark lots of 50s movies. Some movies had subtle criticism (e.g. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), some were overtly against communism: in "Invaders from Mars" the communists were evil aliens, in "I Was A Communist For The FBI" they were just evil. The communists wanted to start riots which would lead to Americans fighting other Americans according to this movie by Gordon Douglas (who is also the director of the Frank Sinatra thriller "The Lady in Cement" and the giant ants movie "Them!"). Why? Well, if everyone would fight, one would applaud communism for being the new order that would have brought peace to the streets of America. Well, if they say so.

The movie is so anti-communism that at times you are feeling you are watching a parody. Well, it isn't, all is meant with a straight face. We follow the life of Matt Cvetic, an FBI agent who pretends to be a communist. We see how he is despised by his family (even his son) and how he can't tell anyone of the Great Mission he is on. He cannot tell them he is risking his neck to save the country.

As ridiculous as all this might seem, if you can ignore the propaganda of this movie, you are left with a fairly decent movie. It may be difficult to watch this film nowadays and think lots of people believed the message of this movie, but it's even more difficult that this movie was nominated for an Oscar in 1952. The category? Best Documentary. Really.