The Red Menace Films of the 1950s

Most people are aware of at least one version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and it is to be hoped that the version they are most aware of is the original. Less famous at this point, but quite well known at the time and among those who get a kick out of hysterical red menace propaganda films is a TV special titled "Red Nightmare".

Red Nightmare was created and narrated by Jack Webb of Dragnet; a man nearly as bonkers on the subject of commie infiltration as Joe McCarthy. That Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a more artistically satisfying film than Red Nightmare when it comes to representing a communist invasion should not be surprising since the latter is pure propaganda intended to present an ideological message while the former was intended to make money. Despite the lack of an artistic articulation on the part of the makers of Red Nightmare, however, it is the similarities between the two movies that is more striking than the contrasts.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is, realistically, not exactly a red menace film; the film is famous for being read equally as an allegory of the communist threat as well as the threat of fascistic McCarthyism, although it is quite obvious that the intent was an indictment not against the ridiculous lengths to which Joseph McCarthy wanted to go, but an indictment again McCarthy's concept of communist zombies. Read strictly as a warning about the red menace, Body Snatchers differs from Red Nightmare only in terms of subtlety. Both films open in a small town America that may or may not have ever actually existed; they are overwhelming white, middle class, safe and happy. The point seems to be to naturalize this portrait of America as the ideal. Into this security is dropped pods or commies and overnight the security of the family unit is threatened by a lack of imagination and personality. Americans who were warm and welcoming and thoughtful prior to the invasion suddenly turn into automatons; the central concept being that communism deadens the desire for "American" values like individuality.