First Red Scare - Film

Film

America's film industry reflected and exploited every aspect of the public's fascination with and fear of Bolshevism. The German Curse in Russia dramatized the German instigation of Russia's October Revolution. The Soviet nationalization of women was central to the plot of The New Moon, in which women between the ages of 23 and 32 are the property of the state and the heroine, Norma Talmadge, is a Russian princess posing as a peasant during the Russian Revolution. Similarly, in The World and Its Woman starring Geraldine Farrar, the daughter of an American engineer working in Russia becomes an opera star and has to fend off attempts to "nationalize" her.

Several films used labor troubles as their setting, with an idealistic American hero and heroine struggling to outwit manipulative left-wing agitators. Dangerous Hours tells the story of an attempted Russian infiltration of American industry. College graduate John King is sympathetic to the left in a general way. Then he is seduced, both romantically and politically, by Sophia Guerni, a female agitator. Her superior is the Bolshevik Boris Blotchi, who has a "wild dream of planting the scarlet seed of terrorism in American soil." Sofia and Boris turn their attention to the Weston shipyards that are managed by John's childhood sweetheart, May. The workers have valid grievances, but the Bolsheviks set out to manipulate the situation. They are "the dangerous element following in the wake of labor as riffraff and ghouls follow an army." When they threaten May, John has an epiphany and renounces revolutionary doctrine.

A reviewer in Picture Play protested the film's stew of radical beliefs and strategies: "Please, oh please, look up the meaning of the words 'bolshevik' and 'soviet.' Neither of them mean 'anarchist,' 'scoundrel' or 'murderer' – really they don't!"

Some films just used Bolsheviks for comic relief, where they are easily seduced (The Perfect Woman) or easily inebriated (Help Yourself). In Bullin the Bullsehviks an American named Lotta Nerve outwits Trotsky. New York State Senator Clayton R. Lusk spoke at the film's New York premiere in October 1919. Other films used one feature or another of radical philosophy as the key plot point: anarchist violence (The Burning Question), assassination and devotion to the red flag (The Volcano), utopian vision (Bolshevism on Trial).

The advertising for Bolshevism on Trial called it "the timeliest picture ever filmed" and reviews were good. "Powerful, well-knit with indubitably true and biting satire," said Photoplay. As a promotion device, the April 15, 1919, issue of Moving Picture World suggested staging a mock radical demonstration by hanging red flags around town and then have actors in military uniforms storm in to tear them down. The promoter was then to distribute handbills to the confused and curious crowds to reassure them that Bolshevism on Trial takes a stand against Bolshevism and "you will not only clean up but will profit by future business." When this publicity technique came to the attention of U.S. Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson, he expressed his dismay to the press: "This publication proposes by deceptive methods of advertising to stir every community in the United States into riotous demonstrations for the purpose of making profits for the moving picture business ..." He hoped to ban movies treating Bolshevism and Socialism.