Michael Winship, Moyers & Company - A 1947 FBI memorandum, part of a 13,533-page document, "Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture " [went after the movie, It's a Wonderful Life]
"According to Informants [REDACTED] in this picture the screen credits again fail to reflect the Communist support given to the screen writer. According to [REDACTED] the writers Frances Goodrick [sic] and Albert Hackett were very close to known Communists and on one occasion in the recent past while these two writers were doing a picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Goodrick [sic] and Hackett practically lived with known Communists and were observed eating luncheon daily with such Communists as Lester Cole, screen writer, and Earl Robinson, screen writer. Both of these individuals are identified in Section I of this memorandum as Communists."
The memo goes on to cast doubt on the movie's storyline, in which Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey and his struggling savings and loan fight on behalf of the good people of Bedford Falls against the avarice and power of banker and slumlord Henry Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore:
"With regard to the picture `It's A Wonderful Life', [REDACTED] stated in substance that the film represented a rather obvious attempt 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 had 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 Examiners 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.'"
This was part of an FBI evaluation of several Hollywood movies - others included "The Best Years of Our Lives" (which beat "It's a Wonderful Life" at the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director), "Pride of the Marines," and Abbott and Costello in "Buck Privates Come Home."
Wait - it gets nuttier. According to the media archival website Aphelis, "Among the group who produced the analytical tools that were used by the FBI in its analysis of `It's a Wonderful Life' was Ayn Rand."
"Abbott and Costello Meet Ayn Rand" - what a comedy horror picture that would have made, scarier and funnier than their encounters with Frankenstein or the Wolfman. Rand's group told the FBI:
"The purpose of the Communists in Hollywood is not the production of political movies openly advocating Communism. Their purpose is to corrupt non-political movies - by introducing small, casual bits of propaganda into innocent stories and to make people absorb the basic principles of Collectivism by indirection and implication. Few people would take Communism straight, but a constant stream of hints, lines, touches and suggestions battering the public from the screen will act like drops of water that split a rock if continued long enough. The rock that they are trying to split is Americanism."
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