If you are looking for a documentary about the Red Scare and the Hollywood Eight, then this film might just disappoint you. While it skims around the topics, "Red Hollywood" isn't a systematic discussion of communists within Hollywood or the studios' blacklists. So this is no history lesson and it's certainly not exhaustive. Instead, some of the surviving members of this infamous group talk about their films and you see a few clips. The problem with this is that the movies they show really aren't 'commie films' but are films with a left-wing bent-- and distinguishing between these cause films and the rest of the films of the era is indeed very vague in this documentary. Additionally, occasionally they trash wonderful films, such as "Intruder in the Dust"...and I have no idea why. Nor did I understand why the film HINTS at the Pre- Code era and how films changed because of the new Production Code...but never really explained it in any way.
The sum total effect of this documentary is that it comes off like the ramblings and musings of a couple guys...and that's really about it. Not systematic nor philosophical...just disjoint and confusing and a lousy history lesson. Where are the films of Jules Dassin, Dalton Trumbo and others?! It just seems woefully incomplete.
The sum total effect of this documentary is that it comes off like the ramblings and musings of a couple guys...and that's really about it. Not systematic nor philosophical...just disjoint and confusing and a lousy history lesson. Where are the films of Jules Dassin, Dalton Trumbo and others?! It just seems woefully incomplete.