Film Details

Julia Reichert and Jim Klein’s 1984 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary Feature relates the forgotten history of ordinary Americans who joined the Communist Party—and of the high price many of them paid during the 1950s Red Scare. Compiling footage from more than 400 interviews with former and current Party members, the filmmakers deliver an engaging, funny portrait of a half century of Red activism and antagonism—from the Party’s salad days in the 1930s and 1940s, through the witch hunts of the 1950s, to its collapse following the revelations of Joseph Stalin’s crimes and his denunciation by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956. With Pete Seeger. DCP. 100 min.