PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2021-12-22 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Did the FBI Once Deem 'It's a Wonderful Life' Communist Propaganda? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • During the 2021 holiday season, internet users enthusiastically shared articles and posts that described a fascinating episode from the history of a classic American Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life. On Dec. 21, for example, the London Independent reported that: 'It's a Wonderful Life' was once considered communist propaganda by the FBI, while various outlets shared their own accounts of the story. Those accounts were broadly accurate, and based on high-quality primary documentary evidence. Although the FBI did not ever formally, as an institution, declare It's a Wonderful Life to be communist propaganda, FBI agents and informants investigated the movie, and the people behind it, as such. As part of a sweeping investigation ordered by bureau director J. Edgar Hoover, a special agent in 1949 included the film in a list of motion pictures disclosing communist propaganda therein. We are issuing a rating of Mostly True. That description of the movie, which was released in December 1946, can be found in an archived and redacted copy of the FBI report on Communist infiltration into the motion picture industry, available here. Specifically, it can be found on Page 12 in the ninth of 15 dossiers released under the Freedom of Information Act at some point in the ensuing decades. The sender of this 1949 update to the report is listed as one H.B. Fletcher, but it's not clear who specifically wrote the It's a Wonderful Life entry: Although the FBI does not appear to have ever officially declared or designated the film as communist propaganda, it's quite clear those agents involved in the investigation of Hollywood (codenamed COMPIC) were far from agnostic on the socialist, even Soviet inspiration behind the Christmas classic. Indeed, Hoover instructed Richard Hood, special agent in charge at the Los Angeles field office, to limit his team's criticism and reviews to films which are obviously communist propaganda in nature. The entry on It's a Wonderful Life appears in the fourth section of the report (Communist Influence in Motion Pictures), under a sub-section entitled Analysis of Motion Pictures Disclosing Communist Propaganda Therein. According to the author(s) of the briefing, Frank Capra's movie is noteworthy because: the two credited screenwriters, husband-and-wife team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, were supposedly close associates of known communists; the film negatively portrays the villainous local businessman Mr. Potter, which is a common trick used by communists; and the storyline appears to have been borrowed from a putative earlier Russian film entitled The Letter. The first two sections of the briefing can be read in full below: (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url