ABSTRACT
Hollywood made at least thirty-three anti-Communist films between 1947 and 1954, although many more scored anti-Red points allegorically or featured Communist villains. The Red Scare dominated Hollywood and shaped the themes of most of the political films of the early 1950s, more traditional films about politics and social issues were also produced, though they were fewer and more cautious. While some filmmakers of the 1950s challenged the Production Code, others remolded old movie genres to suit the changing times. The Last Hurrah, 1958, was less distinctly contemporary than Twelve Angry Men, but although it reminisced about the good old days of machine politics, it also had something to say about politics in the coming decade. Political movies had changed during the 1950s. They had begun to deal with discrimination, they had confronted the Cold War, and they had learned to look at the Communist threat and the anti-Communist crusade from a new perspective.
