Watch I Was a Communist for the FBI For Free

Fantastic!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

It's been over 65 years since this social drama of political intrigue cane out. Here we are, in a very different era, and while communism may not be the issue, one of the major countries from where it came is. The world is fighting different battles, but the goal is the same: to save democracy, and keep free countries free and out of the hands of tyranny and evil, self-serving issues. This semi documentary is tons better than other anti-communist, propaganda films of the same time (the worst, "Big Jim McClain" starring John Wayne), and quite shocking, even today. If you compare the situations of the early 1950's with situations today, it's ironic how they compare, even if methods today seem more sinister and obvious thanks to excessive media and social networking.This story focuses on FBI agent Frank Lovejoy and his family, impacted by his newest assignment, exposing the methods of the communist party to destroy democracy. The methods are brutal and horrifying, yet true to live, even today. Race wars, riots, class division, strikes, sudden and unexpected violence: all ways of stirring up the masses. Sound familiar from your favorite news channel or website? They're all here.The infiltration of these spies are everywhere: in the unions, the offices, even the schools. Hey, what's better than influencing the minds of the young in a period of time long before safe spaces? Lovejoy has his hands full, even aiding a communist party member (Dorothy Hart) who realizes the truth and risks her life to stop them. With sensational photography, truly sinister villains and a message for even our age, this is a reminder that our freedoms cannot be taken for granted, and must always be continually fought for. Differing opinions are one thing, but taking away free thinking must never be allowed to infiltrate a free world.

In 1921, only 4 years after their revolution, Hoover warned that Russian Communist spy cells were being set up in America with the purpose of violently overthrowing America. They would start with infiltration, strikes, riots, tied into labor disputes and whatever mayhem they could create. When this movie was made, there were many sympathizers in Hollywood, the elites who didn't understand that they would be among the first murdered if Russian Communism succeeded. Warner was brave to do this movie. McCarthy was villainized by daring to ask if their allegiance was to America or to Russia. Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist party? A simple question, which any patriot would be proud to answer a resounding "No". They tortured him into an early grave by ridiculing him, with the help of the Liberal Press. To this day, Liberal professors poison our youth against the lofty principles that made America great. Along with "entitlement" and 15 million illegals and their "rights", we are in deep trouble.

One of the best things about this reds-under-the-bed drama is Frank Lovejoy, an inscrutable actor who neatly inhabits the role of Matt Cvetic, an FBI mole planted in the Pittsburgh branch of the Communist Party during World War 2 and its Cold War aftermath. For the first two thirds of the film he stalks the screen imperturbably, the victim of suspicion from his fellow Party members and often open hostility from his very own family - churchgoing, patriotic Slovenian immigrants who are appalled by his connections to the Communist Party. His own son (Ron Hagerthy) can barely stand the sight of him. When his masquerade begins to unravel he gets emotional, but within limits. He never loses self-control entirely like Paul Lukas in the similarly themed Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), and he is handy with his fists and agile enough to jump out of perilous situations. He is consistently believable, though just at the borderline of wooden. Lacking in charm and magnetism, he nevertheless can carry a film. It's a tough order to play a father who must convince the world, his son included, that he is indeed a member of the widely despised Communist Party, when in fact he is fighting to undermine its influence from within for what he believes is the good of his family and humanity. Quite a conflict, and potentially the stuff of great drama. Although the strongest moments in this film are between Lovejoy and his teen-aged son, we never quite believe that a family man could live such an intensely duplicitous life for as long as Cvetic did without an explosion occurring much sooner. It is somehow too pat. In depicting Cvetic as a spotless hero, the filmmakers have surgically removed too many rough edges, contradictions and loose ends and we are left with a propagandistic symbol instead of a man.

****SPOILERS**** Living in the shadows despised and hated by his family and friends Matt Cvetic, Frank Lovejoy, made the ultimate sacrifice in the war against the Communist menace that threatened America and the free world back in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Matt became a Communist but a Communist for the FBI. Based on the true story of undercover agent Matt Cvetic the movie is about a Pittsburgh steel worker and union representative and member of the Communist party. Matt risked his life and safety as well as the lives and safety of his friends and family for nine years to get the goods on the Communist party and put them behind bars for a long long time. Yet for all that time Matt was not only a man without a country but a man without a soul as well. Matt working undercover gets the evidence on his commie cohorts but not after he's involved in killing two commies who tried to kill him and his girlfriend Eva; as well as him being charged with the murder of an FBI agent. An FBI man That the commies, that Matt killed in self-defense, really murdered. Matt's also provided in the movie with a fellow traveler love-interest Eve Merrick, Dorothy Heart, who's a teacher, undermining the American youth, in Matt's son's Dick, Ron Hegerthy, high school.You at first think that Eve is an undercover agent like Matt is when he accidentally drops his wallet, when Matt's brother Joe(Paul Picerni) slugs him for having the nerve to attend their mother's funeral. Matt's wallet has a letter to his son telling him the truth about himself that Eve picked up. You later realize that Eve really was a commie but saw the light and got religious after seeing just how low those rotten Reds can go to achieve their wretched aims.Watching the Communists in action in the movie shows how their only really interested in creating chaos hatred and destruction among the working-class people. The Commies have not the least interest at all in getting the people to love and respect each other or to help them economically. This is the usual Commie trick that they always like to pull, in helping the working class, like they kept boasting over and over in the movie but to only use them to farther their goals. The Commies are so cold and unfeeling, even to each other, and were more then willing to rat out and even have fellow members murdered for the slightest infraction against "The Movement". These back-stabbing actions on their part made you wonder why anyone normal would want to join such a sleazy organization in the first place? Even Matt as hard as he tried had trouble convincing people in the movie, as well as the movie audience,that he was really a Communist! Matt acted so forced and phony as a slimly and in your face fanatical Communist that he looked almost embarrassed in his efforts in trying to be one. It was good to see in the end of the movie Matt get a couple of good licks in by belting his commie comrade boss Blandon, James Millican, who attacked him in the courthouse after exposing him and his Commie organization. It was also good to see Matt put the rest of Baldon's rotten Commie crew away with his undercover testimony as well. And most of all it was also very rewarding for Matt to have his friends and family finally realize just what a really great American he was. In Matt letting them on that he was a Commie only to get the Commies that he was involved with, who were trying to undermine and destroy America, their just reward.Obviously " I was a Communist for the FBI" is an over-the-top movie about Communism in America back during the Cold War. Yet at the time of it's release, 1951, there was a Hot War going on in Korea not just against the Communist North Koreans but the Communist Chinese. It was the Red Chinese who provided the manpower for the North Korean Communists to the point were they were over 80% of the ground forces fighting the US troops there. There was also USSR, the Evil Cummmunist Empire, also providing the North Koreans with experienced jet-pilots, who shot down hundreds of USAF combat planes and helicopters. Knowing all this one can easily forgive the extreme dislike and antipathy shown against the Communist in the film back in those days.