In effect, Eddie has created his version of a “Blacklist” mini-festival without explicitly naming it as such (that would be a bridge too far).
Consider the following individuals:
Robert Rossen, ALL THE KING’S MEN, named names at HUAC after being blacklisted
Cy Endfield, ARGYLE SECRETS, blacklisted
Edward Dymytryk, CROSSFIRE/THE SNIPER, before/after blacklisting & jail term, career salvaged by naming names
William Dieterle, THE ACCUSED, greylisted after making THE TURNING POINT*
Joseph Losey, THE PROWLER, blacklisted
Abraham Polonsky, ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW/FORCE OF EVIL, blacklisted
*probably not the prime reason why the film was selected
So eight of the twelve films in this series cover this area, while adding NO WAY OUT (race hatred) and OPEN SECRET (anti-Semitism), which continues Eddie’s bromance with Austrian emigré director Johann (John) Reinhardt, who did not otherwise traffic in socially conscious subject matter but did leave America in 1951.
I see this festival emerging from a series of tactical considerations that cropped up due to the lingering effects of the pandemic. Eddie was also a bit hamstrung in that several other films that could fit into a cut-down version of such a series—THE UNDERWORLD STORY (Endfield) and THE WELL (Rouse/Greene) had also been shown recently (2019) and four repeats of that type in a “mini-festival” would also be a bridge too far.
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