Red Nightmare is the best-known title of the 1962 Armed Forces Information Film (AFIF) 120, Freedom and You.[1] Produced for and financed by the Department of Defense, the short film served as an anti-communist informational piece during the Cold War. It was later released on American television and distributed to schools under the title Red Nightmare.[2]
The Cold War has been described as a battle for the hearts and minds of American citizens, and cinema played a significant role in shaping the narrative.[4] Propaganda films were a “weapon” used by the government during the Cold War to influence public perception and ideology. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union both feared an actual war on a nuclear scale due to the devastation and mass casualties that would result.[5] No matter which Superpower started a nuclear war, it would invariably fail because the other side would retaliate by using its nuclear weapons, and both sides would end up being destroyed.[4] In this era of nuclear deterrence due to Mutual assured destruction, nuclear weapons were wielded for their deterrent purpose, not for actual use.[4]
In propaganda films such as Red Nightmare, American democracy, liberty, and prosperity are depicted as desirable ideals, contrasted with negative portrayals of the Soviet Union and Communism.[5]
Plot
In a typical American town, barbed wire, barricades and soldiers in Soviet uniforms are shown. NarratorJack Webb explains that there are several places behind the Iron Curtain used for training Soviet espionage and sabotage forces prior to infiltrating America.
The Donovans are a typical American family consisting of father Jerry, mother Helen and daughter Linda, whose boyfriend Bill has been invited to dinner. Jerry is missing a PTA meeting to go bowling, and he intends to skip his Army Reserve training, which upsets Helen. Linda and Bill inform Jerry and Helen that they wish to marry, but Jerry replies they are too young and should wait five years.
Jerry awakens to find meetings in the public square about infiltrating America to bring down capitalism. He returns home to find his daughter going to a farm collective escorted by Bill, who is now in a Soviet Army uniform. Helen informs Jerry that he will have to address the PTA on the glories of communism, which Jerry refuses to do, but his wife says that he has no choice. At work, Jerry's foreman tells him that he has not met his quota and must work through the lunch break to meet it.
On Sunday morning, Jerry wakes to find his two youngest children being sent to a state-run communist school against his wishes. He insists that the children attend Sunday school and takes them to their church, which has been converted into a museum glorifying the Soviet Union, including many inventions made by Americans that the Soviets claim to have invented. Jerry knocks the exhibits over and is arrested by troops led by a commissar.
Jerry is brought to trial at a Soviet tribunal, where there is no jury nor defense attorney. Jerry demands to know the charge against him. After condemning testimony from several witnesses, including his own wife, Jerry is convicted and sentenced to death. When he is strapped into the execution chair, Jerry makes a speech about the Soviet people awakening one day to overthrow communism before he is shot in the head by the commissar (offscreen).
Jerry wakes to his freedoms and apologizes to Bill and Linda. Bill says that Jerry was right about waiting to get married and that he and Linda will do so after he finishes his enlistment in the United States Army.
Themes
The central themes in Red Nightmare include fears of a communist takeover in the United States and negative portrayals of the Soviet Union.[3] The film suggests that American freedoms are vulnerable if citizens become complacent, framing communism as an immediate threat to the American way of life.
Red Nightmare presents American democratic values, such as liberty and civic responsibility in positive terms and incorporates themes of espionage, betrayal, political paranoia, and concerns about communist infiltration.[3]
Webb described the nightmare part of the film as the dramatization of a variety of stories told by refugees from Eastern Europe who fled the Soviet expansion following World War II.[7]
Red Nightmare had similarities to a November 1962 episode of the Webb-hosted television series GE True, entitled "The Last Day", although episodes of the television series were presented as representing actual events. While some sources state that Red Nightmare itself was broadcast on GE True,[8] no contemporary reporting or television listings indicated such a crossover.
Video releases
Rhino Video released the film on videocassette in 1985 under the title The Commies Are Coming, the Commies Are Coming.[9]
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