“It’s a Wonderful Life” was considered by the FBI to be a piece of communist propaganda

[kpete]

Capra Was A Commie Simp

by digby

The other day I wrote an indignant post about Glenn Beck appropriating "It's A Wonderful Life" for his bizarroworld capitalist philosophy, but I didn't realize that the FBI had determined that the movie was a subversive Commie plot:

To: The Director

D.M. Ladd

COMMUNIST INFILTRATION OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

(RUNNING MEMORANDUM)

There is submitted herewith the running memorandum concerning Communist infiltration of the motion picture industry which has been brought up to date as of May 26, 1947....

With regard to the picture "It's a Wonderful Life", stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a "scrooge-type" so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists.

In addition, (redacted) stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters. (redacted) related that if he made this picture portraying the banker, he would have shown this individual to have been following the rules as laid down by the State Bank Examiner in connection with making loans. Further, (redacted) stated that the scene wouldn't have "suffered at all" in portraying the banker as a man who was protecting funds put in his care by private individuals and adhering to the rules governing the loan of that money rather than portraying the part as it was shown. In summary, (redacted) stated that it was not necessary to make the banker such a mean character and "I would never have done it that way."

(redacted) recalled that approximately 15 years ago, the picture entitled "The Letter" was made in Russia and was later shown in this country. He recalled that in this Russian picture, an individual who had lost his self-respect as well as that of his friends and neighbors because of drunkenness, was given one last chance to redeem himself by going to the bank to get some money to pay off a debt. The old man was a sympathetic character and was so pleased at his opportunity that he was extremely nervous, inferring he might lose the letter of credit or the money itself. In summary, the old man made the journey of several days duration to the bank and with no mishap until he fell asleep on the homeward journey because of his determination to succeed. On this occasion the package of money dropped out of his pocket. Upon arriving home, the old man was so chagrined he hung himself. The next day someone returned the package of money to his wife saying it had been found. draws a parallel of this scene and that of the picture previously discussed, showing that Thomas Mitchell who played the part of the man losing the money in the Capra picture suffered the same consequences as the man in the Russian picture in that Mitchell was too old a man to go out and make money to pay off his debt to the banker.

I suppose this is common knowledge, but it escaped my notice until now. Some things never change.
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/capra-was-commie-simp.html

...the FBI thought Life smeared American values such as wealth and free enterprise while glorifying anti-American values such as the triumph of the common man.
http://www.wisebread.com/fbi-considered-its-a-wonderful-life-communist-propaganda

[Octafish]

1. ''...this picture deliberately maligned the upper class...''

With good reason.

K&R for Capra and kpete.

[Mist]

7. "Rich" and "bad guys" should never be equated! What nonsense. nt

[defendandprotect]

44. It was an FBI rule that movies could never show that crime paid ....

but we all know, "Behind every great wealth is great crime!" ---

:)

[DeSwiss]

48. ....

"Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié , parce qu' il a été proprement fait." ~Honor de Balzac
{The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a forgotten crime, because it was done properly}

[molly77]

77. Only in a fascist country. FBI, CIA work for corporations

[drm604]

2. The FBI investigating popular entertainment.

I know it happened. I know it even happened in my lifetime. I know that it's likely still happening; that it's probably happening as I'm typing this.

But it's still shocking to me that our government acts in such an unAmerican and anti-Constitutional way. They don't arrest or bring charges but they do harass and blacklist and that's nearly as chilling of free speech.

[Warpy]

3. I think Hoover was certifiable, a lifetime in the closet

leading to raging paranoia. People say he'd been a decent cop in his youth, during the gangster era in the 20s. He'd certainly left that all far behind by the time he headed the FBI.

[Mist]

6. Agreed--a paranoic nut job.

[liberation]

68. Not really...

... Hoover was many things, and concentrating on his personal faults once again leads people to miss the forest from the trees.

Hoover was not the disease but a symptom. The issues are far more systemic to think that they were just the musings a deranged sexually repressed paranoid schizophrenic. Institutions like the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA among others are woefully unconstitutional because their ultimate consequence is that they act as a de facto praetorian guard for the executive branch, and thus they end up voiding the system of checks and balances which is fundamental for our form of democracy to work properly.


Focusing on Hoover's personality, leads a lot of people to miss the larger picture. The FBI has done far worse and more extensive acts against the American public even when Hoover was not in charge.

[BrklynLiberal]

55. Exactly!!! Sort of an Idi Amin wannabe....totally insane

[niyad]

4. it is beyond amazing some days how incredibly fear-driven this govt has been, and continues to be.

[TBF]

8. They should be afraid with the way they treat us.

There are many more of us than them, and they realize it.

[blindpig]

24. It is that.....

which beyond all of their lame and nonsensical excuses is the motivation for the closing jaws of the police state. They know what they are doing to us and are owing us with his 'resistance is futile' bullshit, which it never is.

[Uncle Joe]

5. It's A Wonderful Life's true sin was its' underlying message of opposing monopolists and

the corrupting influence of monopolies as a direct repudiation of what Old Man Potter was trying to do, take over everything in town.

Old Man Potter didn't steal the $8,000 because he was a banker, he stole it because he wanted to the ruin the Savings and Loan eliminating the last vestige of financial/political opposition.

The movie wasn't anti-wealth, as George Bailey's close friend Sam Wainwright was portrayed in a positive fashion, even coming to Bailey's rescue at the end wiring him up to $25,000.

I imagine some of the same forces; wanting to own everything in that day were the true power behind the McCarthy Era witch hunts and the message of corrupting monopolies and trusts threatening democratic establishments holds just as true today as it did then.

Thanks for the thread, kpete.

[KittyWampus]

15. My father's observation rings true- for some it's a game of unrelenting acquisition

or perhaps compulsion is the appropriate word. It becomes an addiction and anything that resists you is anathema.

[Enthusiast]

70. The 'well off' that I know are consumed with

the desire to get more. I think your father's observation was true.

[WolverineDG]

34. Technically, he didn't "steal" it

Uncle Billy left it somewhere, Potter found it, then sat on it while he called in the Bank Examiners.

dg

[Uncle Joe]

36. Uncle Billy accidentally left it in the folded newspaper which he handed to Potter.

Potter was a board member of the Savings and Loan, he realized right away where the money came from but he didn't give the money back to the institution which he was a part of, indeed he covered up the error, keeping the money and framing George Bailey.

Whether he premeditatedly took the money or received it by accident and then covered it up, doesn't change the fact that he stole it.

UJ

[suffragette]

69. Similar to the megabanks like BOA and the megamarts

like Walmart, the first swallowing up other financial institutions and the latter driving family owned businesses under.

Nicely stated, Uncle Joe.

[sendero]

9. I watched it again just a couple nights ago

... and it remains, along with To Kill A Mockingbird, one of my favorite movies of all time.

[HughBeaumont]

10. Hoover's FBI could see "COMM'NISM!" in Winnie the Pooh, FFS.

It was because of that bitch and his extreme distrust of spies that my Grandpa was a "Pearl Harbor Survivor" . . . many of his shipmates weren't as lucky.

[DeadEyeDyck]

57. Eyore seems suspect to me n/t

[Smarmie Doofus]

11. J Edgar Hoover was a warped, frustrated old man. nt

[WiffenPoof]

12. Nice Reference...

...to the movie itself....LOL

-PLA

[Smarmie Doofus]

23. In the whole vast configuration of things...... n/t

[defendandprotect]

46. Hoover was one of the most hated men in America in his own time ... hated and feared....

Frank Capra is one of the most loved --

Still love the movie -- still think Hoover was a real disturbed human being

and that this country would have been much better off without Hoover and without

his FBI "Gestapo."

[leveymg]

13. Mr. Potter is one of the all-time worst film villains. Regretably, the USA is now Pottersville.

Ronnie Reagan, J. Edgar and Wall Street won. The rest of us lost - Bedford Falls and small-town America are gone.

[defendandprotect]

45. Potterville = GOPs Third World America -- !!

[leveymg]

58. Precisely. It's Palin's America. The very thing that J. Edgar wanted.

Completely corrupt thus completely controllable. Bedford Falls, not so much.

[Enthusiast]

72. Exactly! nt

[Major Hogwash]

61. Cheney based his attitude towards Democrats on the Potter character.

He even told Senator Leahy to "fuck off" on the Senate floor!

[raouldukelives]

14. We could use another Capra about now

Glad we have Michael Moore and the Coens though.

[EC]

16. "The Grapes of Wrath" also

GW once complained that he had to read "that commie book" as one of his Yale profs said...

[MindPilot]

17. You can transpose the words "communist" & "terrorist"

You can substitute the words "terrorist" for "communist" in any of these paranoid rants and nothing else has changed.

America just can't function without something to be afraid of.

[bobthedrummer]

18. K&R, it's much worse today, isn't it kpete-everyone is now someone's "terrorist"

The Pike Committee (OP related archived DU thread started 3-11-08)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2990965

[Raschel]

19. That damn George Bailey should have pulled himself up by his bootstraps.

[pauldp]

28. Damn right. He should not have taken the handout money the town gave him.

A lazy un-american loser.

[War Horse]

20. I've told some of my more right-leaning friends

to read the works of Dickens, as a way to explain what it basically means to me to be a leftist/Social Democrat, and why I support a welfare state. Some of them have actually gotten the point...

[mrs_p]

21. funny - the fam and i were just talking the other

day about how american this movie is - pushing the dream that every one who works hard deserves a home. and that potter is the real anti-american - trying to bring back a feudal state. all a matter of perspective, i guess....

[Joanne98]

22. NATCH!

[Missy Vixen]

25. It's my favorite movie

I wonder if the FBI's activities had something to do with what happened when "It's a Wonderful Life" was initially released - the movie died at the box office. It became successful when it (temporarily) passed out of copyright and was shown on TV during the holiday season.

I also wonder to myself how many casual viewers see any parallel between the story and what's currently happening in the USA, or how many notice the uncanny resemblance between the actor portraying Potter and Dick Cheney...

[jtown1123]

39. This movie is extremely relevant to what's going on today. George's

speech about having a trustworthy neighborhood loan institution where people didn't have to "crawl" to Potter for a chance at a roof over their heads resonated very strongly with me...considering all the shit that has been going down in recent years. Sad.

[hulka38]

52. The Cheney-Potter resemblance was freaky even

before the Inauguration when Cheney was getting wheeled around in his chair.

[leveymg]

59. Yes. I noticed that. too.

[upi402]

26. The FBI has a file on one; Jesus H Christ

...and it's a doozie!
:eyes:

I wonder what Obama is doing to protect us, and our rights.

[pauldp]

27. K&R !!

[madamesilverspurs]

29. Speaking of...

A couple in a neighboring town has purchased the car driven by Jimmy Stewart in the movie:
http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20101224/NEWS/712249976/1051&parentprofile=1001

-

[sulphurdunn]

30. So, where shall we live,

Bedford Falls or Pottersville?

[Brickbat]

31. This looks funny, but the point is, this is the kind of thought that's been running the world for

the past 60 years. It's embarrassing.

[Hannah Bell]

33. longer than 60 years.

[Brickbat]

60. Yeah -- I had something specific in mind, but you're right.

[fascisthunter]

32. who would characterize helping each other as being a bad thing?

think about that for a second? A Sociopath or criminal would say so because when people help each other it gets harder for those who are bad folks to take advantage of good folks. Together we are strong... they don't want that.

[Enthusiast]

73. Hey, it's the new and improved Fascism.

And it's wonderful.

[MicaelS]

35. So who was the redacted dirtbag? n/t

[kath]

51. That's a very interesting question -- any Hollywood history buffs here??

[Roy Rolling]

37. villains

I'm sure if Potter had been a poor black man from the ghetto that would have been alright. God forbid that a fictional movie story have a banker character that is not worshipped like a god to poor underclass. If it was a Communist plot, it didn't work---the greedy rich capitalist is now the dominant character in US politics.

[earth mom]

38. It's a Wonderful Life is one of my all time favorite movies.

Love it and love others like it like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Dickens movies, Chaplin movies and so many others from Hollywood back in the day.

Those values and ideals are being systematically destroyed in this country not just by the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, but by the politicians in Washington DC, corporate america, bankster gangsters, the corporate media whores and religious right whackjobs like O'Lielly, Limbagh, Beck, Palin, Rick Warren and all the other assholes who wouldn't recognize Jezus if he introduced himself to them and told them to fuck off! :puke:

[kimmerspixelated]

43. Me, too!

Only true nutcases could read anything evil into that movie. It was just stating truth about corrupt systems, but mostly it was about what money CANT buy!

[mkultra]

40. Cleary we have moved way to the right since then

lol

[LaPera]

41. Yes the republicans see caring, helping & giving to others as a threat to their profits structure

They want people to be greedy selfish out only for themselves, divide & conquer, keep people from receiving any help from, especially from the government, our taxes, republicans simply do not want to pay a single nickel in taxes nor do they care or want to help out the less fortunate.

However, republicans love government money going to themselves, the rich and their corporations...So they label progressive ideals for a caring giving helping society as "socialism or communism"!

[pitohui]

42. the fbi of that era considered anything of merit to be commie agit-prop

capra was hardly singled out here...what movie of the time that's still remembered today DIDN'T make the commie agit-prop list???

[Smarmie Doofus]

47. "Well, working class, you're worth more dead than you are alive." n/t

[DeSwiss]

49. K&R n/t

[backscatter712]

50. I don't have any respect for the FBI anymore - America's most crooked cops.

They were founded during Prohibition to bust the balls of people trying to get a fucking drink.

Then J. Edgar Hoover came in, and led the FBI through fifty years of anti-Communist witch-hunts, anti-drug reefer madness, COINTELPRO and countless other illegal abuses of power.

Today, it's the same shit. Still on the reefer-madness kick, still on COINTELPRO style thuggery and intimidation of anti-war and Middle-East peace groups, only replacing "anti-Communist" with "anti-terrorist" to justify their latest illegal thuggery against law-abiding citizens.

I'm sure the pig-lovers are gonna piss all over this thread in 3...2...1...

[Raine]

53. It's Wonderful Life shows how one person can make a difference

something that I'm sure throws the RWnutz into absolute terror. :scared: :evilgrin:

I LOVE this movie! :bounce:

[EndElectoral]

54. People sacrifice to save George, but Potter gets $8000 free w/o prosecution

[Hassin Bin Sober]

64. Obviously you have never seen the "lost" ending:

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/its-a-wonderful-life-lost-ending/2731/

[HEyHEY]

56. I always knew it!

That little girl looked like a total Maoist

[Canuckistanian]

62. George Bailey and his father were BANKERS, too

So I don't see how this movie wants "to make the banker such a mean character".

The movie made the point that there were different ideas about banking.

Interesting that Reagan ultimately got rid of the "Savings and Loan" banks that the film championed.

[Festivito]

63. I think the Peter Principle amplifies astronomically under the oxymoron: military intelligence.

'nuff said.

[JoseGaspar]

65. The irony here is that Capra was no kind of left-winger.

He was a Republican, a Hollywood red-baiter and, in his later years, a dedicated anti-abortion guy. He hated FDR and the New Deal.

Then as now, apparently the FBI couldn't tell their subversives without a scorecard.

Idiots...

[thanks_imjustlurking]

66. kpete, I love you. nt

[verges]

67. Casting Lionel Barrymore was a communist trick? nt

[DemoTex]

76. What about Brig. Gen. Jimmy Stewart, too?

Commie plot, indeed!

[Enthusiast]

71. K&R Read this, people!

We are up against the same sort of sentiment today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_pN2IPAw6E&feature=related

[DailyGrind51]

74. What did they say about the Book of James, New Testament?

The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2000.

The General Epistle of James
5

Warning to the Rich
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Mt. 6.19
4 Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sab'a-oth. Deut. 24.14, 15
5 Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
6 Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

[Wednesdays]

75. Well, dunno about communist, but certainly pro-FDR

2 years ago, I pointed out the pro-New Deal aspects of the movie:
http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4682241

The theme of the whole film is, "If everybody sticks together and helps each other out, we'll make it through." The main character, George Bailey, spends his whole life sacrificing for others, and at the end we find he's instilled this attitude in nearly everyone in the town, and they come together to help him out in his time of need.

Contrast that with Potter, the villain, who is the embodiment of selfishness and greed. It's no accident that Potter is cast as an old man, for he symbolizes a bygone era (Hoover). In the scene where Bedford Falls has been taken over by Potter and re-named "Potterville," we see the results of "every man for himself": massive corruption, widespread unemployment, vice, and civil unrest. It's a world where George's wife becomes a spinster librarian; pure, yes, but very unhappy.

Hardly surprised that someone like Hoover (both the FBI guy as well as the former president) would hate this kind of film.

K&R

[NewJeffCT]

78. So, rich movie producers were maligning a rich banker?

and that made the film commie propaganda? If I'm not mistaken, Jimmy Stewart's character was a small town banker himself, no?

:eyes: :wtf: