my son john

January 28 movie: My Son John. I had heard about this movie and had never been able to see it before. It's an extreme example of early 50s anti-communist hysteria, a cautionary tale about a simple, salt-of-the-earth older couple (Helen Hayes and Dean Jagger) who realize that their son (Robert Walker) is a communist. Walker eventually confesses to being a traitor, although he's never accused of any actual wrongdoing. According to the movie, his crimes include:

• moving to the big city,
• not going to church anymore,
• using "two dollar words,"
• not playing football in high school,
• saying things like "our only hope is to learn to live with our fellow man. The globe is getting smaller. We must tear down our spite fences and love our neighbors," and "I love humanity. I love the downtrodden, the helpless minorities."
• wanting a "lasting peace,"
• having the apartment key of a woman who is arrested for being a communist.

The movie presents a world where all virtue resides in small towns, where people who don't fit in are suspect, where college is a recruitment ground for communism, where intellect and education are anti-American values which true patriots avoid. Early on the father tells Walker, "They tell us to be alert, and you talk like the people we're supposed to be alert against." And in the world of My Son John, the father is right. Walker is a bookish man with a dry sense of humor who doesn't like sports. Obviously he's a communist.

This movie made me sad. Not just because there are too many people who still think this way. Even worse, Robert Walker died during production of this movie. They had to piece his final scenes together with footage from other movies, mainly Strangers on a Train. Walker had real talent, and it's a damn shame that this is how his career ended.

My Son John is worth watching to understand the political climate of the early 50s -- a politician who said "Americans need to watch what they say and watch what they do" wouldn't have been condemned -- though I didn't enjoy the experience. And I strongly advise against reading the comments on IMDB, unless you're interested in lengthy discussions of whether disliking this movie makes you a pinko.