Quiet Americans: The CIA and Hollywood in the Early Cold War

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Willmetts
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Production Code ◽  
Foreign Intelligence

The CIA was established in 1947, but it did not appear in a Hollywood film until Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest in 1959. Why? This chapter explains Hollywood’s long silence on American foreign intelligence during the early Cold War. It argues that a combination of patriotism, stringent libel laws, the restrictions of the semi-documentary format, and Hollywood’s in-house industry censor the Production Code Administration, encouraged filmmakers to respect the CIA’s proclaimed “passion for anonymity”. It ends with a sustained examination of one of the most well-known examples of CIA interference with a Hollywood representation of their Agency: Joseph Mankiewicz’s 1958 adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel The Quiet American.

From Indianization to Globalization: Tracking Bond in Bollywood

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajay Gehlawat
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The West ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter uses Bollywood Bond “adaptations” to chart the shifting relationship between India and the West, from the Cold War era to the neoliberal present. It examines how elements of the Bond films were incorporated and “Indianized” in earlier films and how these elements, and the Bollywood film itself, subsequently became more globalized, as can be seen in contemporary Bond adaptations like Farhan Akhtar’s Don (2006) and Don 2 (2011). Whereas previously the Bond figure was “Indianized” and elements of the Bond film similarly indigenized via the Bollywood masala formula, what one witnesses in the ensuing transition leading to the contemporary era is how the Bollywood film has become more aligned, both aesthetically and culturally, with contemporary Hollywood film forms.

Gendered Narratives in Anti-Stalinism and Anti-Communism during the Cold War: The Case of Juliet Poyntz

2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Lynn
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
World War ◽  
Secret Police ◽  
House Committee ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Intelligence ◽  
The Cold War

In June 1937, Juliet Poyntz left her boarding room at the American Woman's Association Clubhouse in Manhattan and was never seen again. Poyntz's story might have gone unnoticed if not for the fact that she was a U.S. citizen working for Soviet foreign intelligence. Her task was to recruit others with connections to Germany who would be willing to gather intelligence on the Nazi apparatus. After she disappeared, rumors circulated that she was abducted by the Soviet secret police and murdered or spirited back to the USSR and imprisoned. Anti-Stalinist radicals claimed that Poyntz was disillusioned with the Soviet Union and was murdered in retaliation. After World War II, Poyntz's disappearance fueled the fears of Communists such as Whittaker Chambers who became key witnesses at hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Poyntz's disappearance symbolized the danger of Iosif Stalin's leadership in the 1930s, and after the war this evolved into fears of Communism itself as the main threat. What emerged from both anti-Stalinist radicals in the 1930s and postwar anti-Communists were highly gendered narratives that reveal the evolution of anti-Communist fears—fears that were reflected in Poyntz's fate.

We now know … a little bit more: Canada’s Cold War defectors

2021 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-314
Author(s):  
Timothy Andrews Sayle
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Foreign Intelligence ◽  
The Government ◽  
Government Of Canada ◽  
The Cold War

Igor Gouzenko’s defection might have been the first—and most famous—of the Cold War in Canada, but it was hardly the last. Recently opened after Access to Information Act requests made by the Canadian Foreign Intelligence History Project, a number of records cast brighter light on this aspect of Canada’s intelligence history. This article offers an overview of how the Government of Canada established its policy to manage defection and those who defected. It offers a number of possible leads for future research projects, some, but not all, of which, will require the release of further material, whether under the Access to Information Act or a broader declassification framework from the Government of Canada.

Hollywood Film behind the Iron Curtain: Cold War Nostalgias in Chuck Norris vs Communism (2015)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
OANA GODEANU-KENWORTHY
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
American Studies ◽  
Black Market ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

This article focusses on the American reception of a British–Romanian documentary about the black market for VHS Hollywood films in 1980s Romania. The film uses two different registers of nostalgia. On the one hand, it functions as an ostalgic media product that engages Eastern European viewers by building upon a sense of continuity with the socialist past. On the other hand, its surprising success in the American conservative blogosphere reveals the endurance of Cold War exceptionalist tropes. My analysis expands current discussions of post-socialist nostalgia, arguing for the relevance of the concept of ostalgia for the field of American studies.

Foreign Intelligence and the Historiography of the Cold War

2004 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond L. Garthoff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Foreign Intelligence ◽  
The Cold War

Foreign intelligence played a number of important roles in the Cold War, but this topic has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. This survey article provides a broad overview of some of the new literature and documentation pertaining to Cold War era intelligence, as well as the key dimensions of the topic. Despite the continued obstacles posed by secrecy and the mixed reliability of sources, the publication of numerous memoirs and the release of a huge volume of fresh archival material in the post— Cold War era have opened new opportunities to study the role of intelligence in Cold War history. Scholars should explore not only the “micro level” of the problem (the impact of intelligence on specific events) but also the “macro level,” looking at the many ways that the Cold War as a whole (its origins, its course, and its outcome) was influenced, perhaps even shaped, by the intelligence agencies of the United States, the Soviet Union, and other key countries. It is also crucial to examine the unintended consequences of intelligence activities. Some interesting examples of “blowback” (effects that boomerang against the country that initiated them) have recently come to light from intelligence operations that the United States undertook against the Soviet Union. Only by understanding the complex nature of the role of intelligence during the Cold War will we be able to come to grips with the historiographic challenge that the topic poses.

scholarly journals Quiet Americans: The CIA and Early Cold War Hollywood Cinema

2012 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIMON WILLMETTS
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
Hollywood Film ◽  
American Cinema ◽  
Production Code ◽  
The Press ◽  
Us Government

This article examines the relationship between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Hollywood film industry from 1947 to 1959. Surprisingly, the CIA was almost entirely absent from American cinema screens during this period, and their public profile in other popular media, including television and the press, was virtually nonexistent. This conspicuous lacuna of publicity coincided with what some scholars have termed the “Golden Age” of US covert action – an era of increasing CIA intervention in Italy, Iran and Guatemala, to name only the most prominent examples. How was it that the CIA managed to maintain such a low public profile and in the process evade popular scrutiny and questions of accountability during such an active period of its history? Utilizing extensive archival research in film production files and the records of the CIA themselves, this article suggests that Hollywood filmmakers adhered to the CIA's policy of blanket secrecy for three interrelated reasons. First, it suggests that the predominance of the so-called “semidocumentary” approach to the cinematic representation of US intelligence agencies during this period encouraged filmmakers to seek government endorsement and liaison in order to establish the authenticity of their portrayals. Thus the CIA's refusal to cooperate with Hollywood during this period thwarted a number of attempts by filmmakers to bring an authentic semidocumentary vision of their activities to the silver screen. Second, up until the liberalization of American defamation law in the mid-1960s, Hollywood studio legal departments advised producers to avoid unendorsed representations of US government departments and officials through fear of legal reprisal. Finally, this article suggests that the film-industry censor – the Production Code Administration – was instrumental in reinforcing Hollywood's reliance upon government endorsement and cooperation. This latter point is exemplified by Joseph Mankiewicz's controversial adaptation of Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Overturning existing scholarship, which argues that CIA officer Edward Lansdale played a decisive role in transforming the screenplay of Greene's novel, this article suggests that Mankiewicz's alterations were made primarily to appease the Production Code Administration.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document