The Fearmakers *** (1958, Dana Andrews, Dick Foran, Mel Tormé, Marilee Earle, Veda Ann Borg, Kelly Thordsen) – Classic Movie Review 10,621

‘MASTERS OF FEAR! MASTERS OF INTRIGUE! MERCHANTS OF MURDER!’

Director Jacques Tourneur’s anti-Communist 1958 black and white film noir crime thriller The Fearmakers stars Dana Andrews as brainwashed Korean War veteran Alan Eaton, who comes back to the United States find that the Reds have infiltrated his Washington PR advertising and opinion research company.

They are swaying views by making up and publishing phony opinion polls and helping left-wing and Communist organisations so that seemingly non-partisan political messages are being shaped by Communist infiltrators out to undermine America. Eaton co-operates with a US Senate committee investigation to try to stop the subversives.

There is an excellent premise along the lines of the later The Manchurian Candidate, and no shortage of provocative themes and ideas, in this stirring little Fifties Commie-bashing paranoia thriller, tautly made by Tourneur, with good performances by Andrews and Mel Tormé as corporate number-cruncher Barney Bond.

Elliot West and Chris Appley’s still relevant screenplay is based on Darwin L Teilhet’s 1945 novel.

Also in the cast are Dick Foran, Mel Tormé, Marilee Earle, Veda Ann Borg, Kelly Thordsen, Roy Gordon, Joel Marston, Oliver Blake, Dennis Moore, Janet Brandt, Fran Andrade and Bob Carson.

Robert Fortier as Colonel Buchane had his scenes deleted.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,621

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