Jack Webb | Red Nightmare (1962) [Drama]



Red Nightmare is the best known title of Armed Forces Information Film (AFIF) 120, Freedom and You.[1] It was meant to educate the U.S. armed forces about the nature of Communism. The film was later released to American television and as an educational film to American schools under the Red Nightmare title. The film is a Cold War-era drama short subject starring Jack Kelly and Jeanne Cooper. Red Nightmare was directed by George Waggner (The Wolf Man) and narrated by Jack Webb. Though made for the Department of Defense, it was shown on American television on Jack Webb’s GE True in 1962.

A man takes his American freedoms for granted, until he wakes up one morning to find out that the United States Government has been replaced with a Communist system. The basis for this short film, narrated by Jack Webb, is the alleged Soviet re-creation of US communities for the purpose of training infiltrators, spies, and moles.

The film begins in what looks like a typical American town. The camera moves back to reveal barbed wire, barricades, and soldiers in Soviet Army uniforms. Narrator Jack Webb informs us that there are several places behind the Iron Curtain used for training Soviet espionage and sabotage forces prior to infiltrating America. Webb introduces us to a typical American family of father Jerry (Jack Kelly), wife Helen (Jeanne Cooper), and daughter Linda (Patricia Woodell, the original Bobbie Jo on Petticoat Junction) Donovan. Her boyfriend Bill Martin (Peter Brown) has been invited to dinner but while Jerry lectures Bill on football plays, Bill only has eyes for Linda. All is not well, as Jerry’s missing his PTA meeting to go bowling, and his intention to miss his Army Reserve training does not go over well with Helen. Linda and Bill inform Jerry and Helen they wish to get married but Jerry is angered and says they are too young, but he would have no objection if they waited five years after university.

Jack Webb explains how safe Jerry is in his world, but when Jerry goes to sleep, Webb looks grim and tells the audience Jerry is going to have a Red Nightmare. Jerry awakes to find meetings in the public square about infiltrating America to bring down Capitalism. He returns home to find his daughter going to a farm collective escorted by Bill, who is now in Russian Army uniform. Helen informs Jerry that he will have to address the PTA on the glories of communism, which Jerry refuses to do, but his wife says he has no choice. At work, Jerry’s foreman (Robert Conrad) tells him that he has not met his quota and must work through the lunch break to meet it. On Sunday morning, Jerry wakes to find his two youngest children being sent to a State Communist school against his wishes. Jerry insists on the children going to Sunday School, and takes them to their church that has been turned into a museum glorifying the Soviet Union, including many inventions made by Americans which the Soviets claim to have invented. Jerry knocks the exhibits over, and is arrested by troops led by a Commissar (Peter Breck).

Jerry is brought to trial at a Soviet tribunal (Judge, Andrew Duggan; prosecutor, Mike Road), where there is no jury nor a defense attorney. Jerry demands to know what he is charged with, but the rights Americans take for granted are long gone. After condemning testimony from several witnesses, including his own wife, Jerry is convicted and sentenced to death. When he is strapped into the execution chair, Jerry gives a speech about the Soviet people waking up one day to overthrow communism, before he gets a bullet in the head from the Commissar. Jerry wakes up to his freedoms and apologizes to Bill and Linda. Bill says that Jerry had a point about waiting to get married and he and Linda will do so after he finishes his enlistment in the US Army.

Directed by George Waggner, produced by William L. Hendricks and Jack Webb, written by Vincent Fotre, starring Jack Kelly as Jerry Donavan, Jeanne Cooper as Helen Donavan, Peter Brown as Bill Martin, Pat Woodell as Linda Donavan, Andrew Duggan as Judge, Peter Breck as Russian Officer, Robert Conrad as Pete, Mike Road as Prosecutor and Jack Webb as On-Camera Narrator.

Source: “Red Nightmare” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 4 April 2013. Web. 29 May 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Nightmare.

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29 Replies to “Jack Webb | Red Nightmare (1962) [Drama]”

  1. John Hagee is a shill for the NWO: everytime he pushes zionism, he is pushing one-world-total-gov't — in the 20th century, the paradigm was communism Vs capitalism while now it is islam Vs christian fundamentalism/zionism — but the program is the same: the NWO elites (Rothschilds) always back both horses. They backed the communists just as they back the capitalists. The point is that armed conflict is good business — international criminal banksters made billions of dollars off WWI, WWII, etc

  2. Ok I'm a little lost, this movie talks about Freedom for all, how communism takes away these freedoms we Americans take so much for granted; But what about "Racism"? was it not these same White Americans who tried so hard to take away the freedom of Black Americans and other people of color? Isn't that almost the same as Communism? Tell me I'm wrong…

  3. in today world YOU please tell us how whitey is taking rights away from AA it seen to be going the other direction with the IRS, NSA ,TSA,CIA and our lovely well run GOV

  4. Having lived through all this time in history, I find films such as this amusing. Propaganda was the great lie told of the red menace. Study history if you think I am on the wrong track.

  5. You might be interested to know that white and black people are all mutants. Brown people are the natural ones. Look it up and you will see this is true.

  6. In another version of this film, Jerry lives in Van Nuys (San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles) in 1962, and he has the lovely family depicted here, but then he goes into a deep sleep and wakes up in Obama's America in 2015—an OBAMA-RED NIGHTMARE:

    1. His wife has run off with another woman from Westwood.

    2. His oldest daughter has tattoos all over her neck, a tongue ring, and a nose ring—-and she wears used men's clothing from the thrift store…..And she won't even speak to him, spending all of her waking hours tapping little messages into some tiny black box in her hand……

    3. The younger children all have ADHD and are on Ritalin….They have also been diagnosed with several other pediatric diseases that didn't even exist in 1962.

    4. Jerry goes to Safeway and is shocked by the prices—all of which are seven times the level of 1962.

    5. He cannot find a newspaper, anywhere—All the racks in front of Denny's are gone.

    6. A newscaster with a very thick non-English accent announces that the federal government's debt is now $18 trillion, but the chairwoman of the Federal Reserve assures the public that Fed Reserve loans to the US Treasury will be "tapered" soon.

    7. He drives a tiny electric green-kart down to San Pedro (since his old company, that produced steel castings, is gone) to seek work as a forklift operator, but takes a detour to watch the  arrival of the 80,000-ton Chinese aircraft carrier Deng Feng, here on a "wellness check" to assure millions of Asians in the LA area that the PLA will not allow any mistreatment of them by the provisional military government of Southern Aztlan.

    8. On the way home (on the San Diego Green Transportation Corridor, formerly I-405), Jerry's green-kart is rear-ended by the three-ton electric limousine of a Hollywood Sewer-Pipe Producer, and he suffers serious whiplash (from mis-deployment of the air bag) …..A bicycle-ambulance peddles him to the hospital in Carson, but the emergency room waiting area is a madhouse—crammed with people from 100 nations, all clamoring to be seen by the doctors.  The nurse asks him for his ObamaCare card, but Jerry doesn't have one…..No treatment allowed…..

    So he staggers out onto Avalon Blvd, headed north, but some gang-bangers on skateboards kidnap him, and he is never seen again…..

    Jerry will never recover from his OBAMA-RED NIGHTMARE……

  7. Well now we see that people didn't listen to the warnings. We have a full blown Marxist in our White House and half the country doesn't even see it as a problem! It is just a matter of time before the blood runs in the streets of the USA.

  8. Genetically, everything is a mutation. There is no "natural" brown. And skin will, in time (over generations), respond to prevailing sunlight conditions. Secondly, calling Obama a Marxist is an insult to Marx and the intelligence of genuine Capitalists and Marxists everywhere.

  9. Oh good old Marcharthy era propaganda, true to the brainwashed ignorant and a good laugh to the rest of us. The fun thing is that right after this many US people was sent to Vietnam to push around the Vietnamese people in similar manner to what the so called communists did in this film.

  10. Jack Webb is one of the most famous Right-Wing voices spreading hate and warmongering – next to Charleton Heston – that America has had.  These types of people using their notoriety to spread hatred and propaganda.  The only reason they didn't describe themselves as Fascists is because their aim was to twist and morph "Democracy" and freedom for all to reach.  Their aim in this Right Wing ideology wasn't to destroy Democracy – just shape it to allow "the Authorities" to know all, see all, and do all – and do it with the sanctions of the citizens.  We've seen the John Birch Society, Goldwater running for president, Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz,  and Rumsfeld.  It happens every few years that these Fascists rise into the higher echelons of our Federal Government- trying to work from within.  If you watch Jack Webb's "Dragnet" series – you'll see in almost Every episode a violation of the Law.  I know that show was intended as "entertainment."  But it was also Teaching the easily-led sheep of this era (50s-60s) to actually believe in the powers the police tried to enforce.  NOW we know how illegal the cops of "Dragnet" were to the People.  Now we know how Heston wanted to bomb the Middle East into submission.  Now we know how the Cheney's and Rumsfeld's led our country into a hole so deep that we're still digging our way out.  They may not be Criminals – per se – but they all are Moral Criminals to the ideals of the United States of America.  I for one apologize to the rest of the World for these warmongers and racists for being allowed to control the evil forces that President Eisenhower warned us all about years and years ago.   

  11. I don't know which is funnier? This whacky, over-the-top, corn-ball propaganda film, or the even more hilarious comments of the stupid, racist, and paranoid looney Right-Wingnuts?

  12. The American town training center in Russia was repeated on TV before and since as it's a cool story. I wonder if the commies made a movie or two about us doing one of their towns? LOL. A great TV episode from Secret Agent (AKA Danger Man) had the hero Patrick McGoohan going into a Russian English town training camp as a English commie and taking all of their pictures and escaping! It's called Secret Agent: "Colony Three".

  13. It was weird how they jumped from normal everyday family to Bernie Sanders-ville all of a sudden. Without a show of progression, it doesn't seem possible for America to become such a ridiculous state. Jerry should have been shown making decisions that helped reduce his freedom, for instance insisting the government be more responsible for regulating the phone company to keep his bill down. Then the next phase where the government controls who can make phone calls when makes sense.

  14. Priceless! Now if we did,ent have a dumbed down populase created by government indoctrination centers we would have hope, sadly we are only 1 step away from completing the communist manifesto that is the 2nd ammendment, communists ernastly infiltrated our way of life many decades ago now, i guess its sort of a self fullfilling prophacy, right comrad, infact Russia has more freedoms than we do today my fellow kenyans.

  15. The Commies succeeded admirably, but it took them longer than they planned. It wasn't till more than 4 decades later that they were able to install in the White House a traitor as solid as B Hussein Obama, or put traitors as skilled as Nancy Pelosi and John McCain in Congress. And, even then, they still suffered a few setbacks like the defeat of Crooked Clinton and her mob in 2016.

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