FBI Investigated "It's a Wonderful Life" for Portraying Bankers as "Evil"

[elehhhhna]

'It's a Wonderful Life' is a Christmas classic - adored by families and praised by critics as one of the best American movies ever made.

But in 1946, when the movie came out, the FBI labeled it as subversive - a vessel for communist propaganda.

During the Red Scare after World War II, FBI informants claimed the film's portrayal of wealthy banker Mr Potter as a greedy villain was a sure sign of communist influence.

Recently-published FBI documents also reveal that investigators had their eye on 'It's a Wonderful Life' and screenwriters Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, a husband and wife duo who were accused of associating with known communists.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2528752/Was-Its-Wonderful-Life-really-communist-propaganda-FBI-investigated-classic-Christmas-film.html#ixzz3DAVGxJB2

[shenmue]

1. I love that movie

[VanillaRhapsody]

2. Same as it ever was....there really is nothing new under the sun....you know?

Wealth seeks slave labor....if you don't give it to them....they destroy your economy! The American Govt was actually formed out of seeking to escape that....because the Corporation of the day....was the East India Trading Company.....and King George was indebted to them...."at their service" so to speak....taking out tariffs on all tea that WASN'T East India Trading brand.....it was painfully obvious who was pulling the strings....we have always been at war with Big Corporation.

[BlindTiresias]

3. Sadly

Big Corporation won. So where do we escape to next?

[VanillaRhapsody]

5. And people expect a single Presidential Candidate winning is going to change the situation

the war is being won and the people are barely fighting back....what only 40% even vote during a Presidential cycle......

Sadly indeed.

[BlindTiresias]

11. To be fair

There is no way to win.

[WestCoastLib]

4. And we all live in Pottersville now

[Uncle Joe]

6. Here is another interesting piece of trivia regarding "It's a Wonderful Life"

The director and producer of that film, Frank Capra would go on to produce this film in 1958, they knew global warming could/would be a threat even back then.

As for Jay Edgar Hoover, Ayn Rand, Joe McCarthy and their ilk; they were flat out evil.


Thanks for the thread, elehhhhna.

[Duppers]

10. Thanks, Uncle Joe!

I was unaware of this film.

But I was a fan of Paul Ehrlich's Zero Population Growth movement and, by chance, just recently found this Life cover from 1970 in my storage! That's a long time to drag old things around.





I am profoundly saddened by the apathy most people have toward the devastation of the planet's life today. Never, in the history of mankind, have we been in such danger. We are fiddling while Earth burns. And, except for my spouse, my proselytizing has always fallen on deaf ears.





Edited to add that I couldn't agree more that Hoover, Ayn Rand, Joe McCarthy and their ilk were flat out evil, as are most willfully ignorant Republicans today.

[Octafish]

15. Thanks, Uncle Joe! Never seen that fillum.

Imagine what a different world this could be...

[Purveyor]

7. Steinbeck's 'Grapes of Wrath", one of my favorites, was also quite controversial.

I rewatch it every couple of years or so...

From wiki...

Critical reception

Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman sums up the book's impact: "The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel – in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms – of 20th century American literature."[9] The Grapes of Wrath is referred to as a Great American Novel.[12][13]

At the time of publication, Steinbeck's novel "was a phenomenon on the scale of a national event. It was publicly banned and burned by citizens, it was debated on national talk radio; but above all, it was read."[14] According to The New York Times it was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940.[2] In that month it won the National Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.[2] Soon it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[3]

Part of its impact stemmed from its passionate depiction of the plight of the poor, and in fact, many of Steinbeck's contemporaries attacked his social and political views. Bryan Cordyack writes, "Steinbeck was attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book's depiction of California farmers' attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a 'pack of lies' and labeled it 'communist propaganda'.[9] Some accused Steinbeck of exaggerating camp conditions to make a political point. Steinbeck had visited the camps well before publication of the novel[15] and argued their inhumane nature destroyed the settlers' spirit.

[grahamhgreen]

16. Grateful Dead song "Jack Straw" is based on Grapes of Wrath

[graegoyle]

8. The truth hurts.

[Sherman A1]

12. Precisely

You hit the nail on the head.

[jtuck004]

9. The way to make money is to buy when blood is running in the streets. John D. Rockefeller

Not all the plutocrats fear the pitchforks of the ignorant. Some see it as a well-deserved opportunity to take money from the cable-educated masses, which masses proudly deliver up on a platter.

[Martin Eden]

13. If this scene from the movie is Un-American, then so am I:

http://www.upworthy.com/a-classic-scene-from-its-a-wonderful-life-that-is-just-as-relevant-today-5

[Octafish]

14. Everyone knows Banksters are good people.

That's why they never go to jail, no matter how much they steal, how many millions get kicked out of their homes, or how many trillions they launder and move offshore.

[hifiguy]

17. Whe the FSM was passing out paranoia

Hoover went through the line five times. The last two times to deny he had ever been there in the first place.

[bullwinkle428]

18. J. Edgar Hoover was a fucking piece of work, wasn't he?

[niyad]

19. unless I missed something, they are treating this as new information. have known this for years.