Jacques Tourneur's The Fearmakers and J Hoberman's Cold War

There are a few critics these days that when they put out books, I must buy them immediately:  Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chris Fujiwara, and J. Hoberman.  


The latter has a new book just out, An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War which is coming out on March 15th.  Hoberman seems to be doing a reverse history if we start with his The Dream Life: Movies, Media, And The Mythology Of The Sixties


In anticipation, I have been reading about the book online and the series of films that Hoberman programmed at BAM to celebrate the books publication.  


One of my own favorites from this period that is not included in the Hoberman show is Jacques Tourneur's the Fearmakers.


Coming at the tail end of the "commie scare films" (Woman on Pier 13, My Son John) Tourneur did this as a favor to star Dana Andrews, who refused to star unless Tourneur directed.


There are films where we as an audience have to do more work to find the frequency that the film is emitting its particular waves of radiation.  Films where perhaps the acting is a bit more stiff, the sets a little cheaper, the production a little rushed.   We have to look past the plot to see what the film is actually about. 

What makes this film fascinating to me is how little it has to do about communism.  Tourneur actually directed a proto pro-socialist movie during WWII, Days of Glory,  as well as one of the last Hollywood films with a communist hero in Berlin Express and his politics hd always been left leaning.  Here the communism takes a backseat to a pretty scathing indictment of post war consumerism and late period capitalism.

It is cheap and quick with a mis en scene that is scattered.  Andrews was perhaps at the apex of his alcholism and his performance is sweaty, nervous and expressive.  There are a couple of "Tournean" moments under the title credits and during a nightmare sequence.  

In the Facets class discussion linked below, we go into the particular reasons this might be the case and how it leads to an alternate reading of the film.  And it is still a fascinating film that tells us quite a bit, if sometimes inadvertently, about America in 1958.

Let me share a good quote.  French critic Jacques Lourcelles, who praises the movie, writes: "the true subject of the movie is fatigue, the wear of the main character, and, through it, the wear of democracy itself"

Here is a link to our Facets class discussion about the film:


And here is an excellent interview with Hoberman at indiewire.