Hollywood’s Intentional Ignorance of the Crimes of Communist and Muslim Regimes

by Norman Berdichevsky (February 2013)

Two of the most honestly gruesome films of barbaric atrocities in modern times ever made are the Russian film The Chekist and the Polish film Katyn.

The Chekist was directed by Aleksandr Rogozhkin (1992 Cannes Film Festival Award) but hardly rated mention anywhere in the United States. The unbelievable atrocities of torture and mass execution seen in the film were all confirmed by factual articles in Pravda itself in 1921-22.

Contrast this with the host of brilliant anti-Nazi films made during World War II that established Hollywood’s “patriotic reputation” and the naked fact that no serious major Hollywood feature film has dealt with the epic battle against totalitarian communism. The films with a major international political theme made before American entry into the war hardly touched on the Soviet Union except for a light comedy like Ninotchka (MGM 1939). Contrast magnificent films with the hundreds of World War II, spy, Spanish Civil War (For Whom the Bell tolls) and Holocaust films made since 1945 that continued to use the wartime anti-Nazi theme but never about any of the real life opponents of the Axis who were prominent in the anti-Nazi cause and Resistance yet were conservative even ‘Rightwing’ nationalist leaders such as Churchill, De Gaulle, Iannos Metaxas of Greece, Arne Sorensen of the rightwing group Dansk Samling and Engelbert Dollfuss of Austria (see my book The Left is Seldom Right, chapters 12-18).

During the period of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact in which the Nazis and Soviets were close allies, the Soviet attack against Finland in December 1939 provoked screenwriter Philip Dunne and actor Melvin Douglas to propose that the Motion Picture Democratic Committee, a group of activists identified with the Democratic Party, condemn the invasion. A hardcore insider group of Communist Party members using the organization as a congenial front insured the defeat of the resolution.

They were active in the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage employees) while the Communist party-backed CSU (Conference of Studio Unions) attempted to force the studios to deal only with them. Even in the private field of talent scout agencies working with the major studios such as the William Morris agency, the Party had managed to obtain sufficient influence to steer the scripts of Communist writers and directors such as Ring Lardner Jr. and Bernard Gordon on to the desks of producers while soft-pedaling the work of their non-communist clients.

An even braver and more unexpected attempt at truthfully portraying war crimes unflinchingly that would not be made today was the product of the Italian cinema. The film is Two Women (Italian: La ciociara, The Woman from Ciociaria), a 1960 film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a mother unable to protect her young daughter from the horrors of war and is based on the real experience of Italian women at the hands of the Goumiers (Moroccan Allied soldiers) serving in the Free French forces in 1943 and representing the worst Allied case of war crimes against civilians in World War II. The film stars Sophia Loren and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Why would it not be made today? The answer is obvious – it portrays Muslim soldiers running amok committing atrocities and is the ultimate in political heresy today.  Back then however, the American film industry was not so squeamish and awarded Sophia Loren the first ever Oscar to a non-American actress in a foreign language film for her role. She also received the Best Actress Award at Cannes and from the British Film Academy and the New York Film Critics Circle Award.

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