Cold War Cinema

• S2 Ep. 6: Pickup on South Street (1953; dir. Samuel Fuller) w/ guest Stephen Gillespie

  “Are you waving the flag at me?” The Cold War Cinema team returns to look at Samuel Fuller’s 1954 noir masterpiece, Pickup on South Street, with special guest Stephen Gillespie, film critic and cohost of The STACKS and I’m Thinking of Spoiling Things. When small-time thief Skip McCoy picks the wrong pocket on a busy subway car, he quickly becomes the most popular lowlife in town, trailed by crooked cops, the feds, and a Communist spy ring.  Join Stephen and hosts Jason Christian and Paul T. Klein as they discuss: Why J. Edgar Hoover hated this movie. How the film makes sense of Cold War paranoia through its critique of American ideological systems  Pickup on South Street’s depiction of the down-and-out and three-time losers that populate America’s urban landscapes, and how the film suggests they got there. Writer-director Samuel Fuller’s provocative and ultimately idealist politics _____________________ Each episode features book and film recommendations for further exploration. On this episode:  Stephen recommends Samuel Fuller’s film Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street (1972) and Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret (2011). Paul recommends Samuel Fuller’s film I Shot Jesse James (1949) and Peter Brooks’ book The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess. Jason recommends Samuel Fuller’s film Shock Corridor (1963) and J. Hoberman’s book An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War. Check out Stephen Gillespie’s two podcasts, I’m Thinking of Spoiling Things and The STACKS, and read his reviews of films and video games at Step Printed (stepprinted.com). Find him on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/stephenage/. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don’t forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected]. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema.  For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic.  Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com  _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian  Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt).  Happy listening!  

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• BONUS: Interview with Christopher Jason Bell

  In this bonus episode, cohost Jason Christian interviews the independent filmmaker Christopher Jason Bell. Besides being a filmmaker, Bell is a board of director of the streaming co-op MeansTV. Bell’s archival doc series about George W. Bush’s presidency, Miss Me Yet, can be watched on MeansTV and received praise from numerous outlets such as The Baffler, AV Club, and Filmmaker magazine. His third feature Failed State premiered at Torino Film Festival and is continuing to screen across the world. His newest documentary short, Attention Shoppers, features Abby Martin and can be viewed on MeansTV. His latest narrative short, The Confection, is now playing the festival circuit. In the episode, Christopher elaborates on his filmmaking process, especially making Miss Me Yet and Attention Shoppers, and how he used footage from the YouTube channel Vampire Robot to make the latter. Further, Christpher and Jason reflect on the political climate during the Bush years and today, and the similarities and differences between each era.  If you subscribe to MeansTV, and use the promo code CHRISBELL, you’ll get 10% off! On this episode:  Christopher recommends Scott Noble’s documentary The Power Principle: Corporate Empire and the Rise of the National Security State (2012), Ian Bell’s 2025 documentary WTO/99, Tyler Rubenfeld’s short horror film Another Sinking Sun (2023), and the book The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood, by Kristen Martin.  Jason recommends the podcast Blowback, particular Season One about the Iraq War.  Follow Christopher Jason Christopher Bell on X (formerly Twitter): @UpdateTheGrids.  Follow Jason Christian on X (formerly Twitter): @JasonAChristian.  Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don’t forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected]. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 

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• S2 Ep. 5: Silvery Dust (Abram Room & Pavel Armand, 1953)

  This week on Cold War Cinema, we discuss the 1953 Soviet science-fiction drama, Silvery Dust, directed by Abram Room and Pavel Armand, a film once again set in the United States. The film concerns an American scientist who has developed a powerful new weapon of mass destruction designed to wipe out populations within a large area while leaving no harmful radioactive residues or traces. In the film, the scientist colludes with a Nazi colleague and various private interests, who all conspire with the government to use innocent Black men as test subjects, without their knowledge or consent.  Join hosts Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we consider: The historical legacy of Operation Paperclip, a secret government program in which the US brought some 1,600 scientists, engineers, and technicians from former Nazi Germany to the US for government employment after the end of World War II.  The numerous government experiments conducted on minorities without their knowledge or consent, such as the Untreated Syphilis Study at Tuskegee (1932-1972) The contradiction, in the film, of critiquing racism in America while using white Russian actors in “black face.” Comparisons between American and Soviet propanda styles in the 1950s.  _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode:  Paul recommends the book, Building a Better Race: Gender, Sexuality, and Eugenics from the Turn of the Century to the Baby Boom by Wendy Kline Tony recommends the book, The Selected Works of Ho Chi Hinh by Ho Chi Minh Jason recommends the book, Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don’t forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected]. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema.   

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• BONUS: The Phoenician Scheme (w/ guest Matthew Ellis)

  “Normal people want the basic human rights that accompany citizenship in any sovereign nation. I don't… I don't live anywhere; I'm not a citizen at all. I don't need my human rights.” The Cold War Cinema team is back with special guest Matthew Ellis, a researcher, artist, and cohost of the Pacific Northwest Insurance Corporation Movie Film Podcast, for a special bonus episode covering Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme. Recently released on home video and streaming, the film follows the cunning, reprobate industrialist Zsa-zsa Korda (Bencio Del Toro) as he swindles his way into a massive infrastructure deal in the country of Upper Independent Phoenicia.   Join Matthew Ellis and hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as they discuss: The Phoenician Scheme’s connections to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-backed cultural operation from 1950 that weaponized writers, artists, and other thinkers for intelligence operations. How Anderson’s film reveals the Cold War origins of the contemporary world in its critiques of capitalism and the neoliberal project.  The ways that The Phoenician Scheme breaks Anderson’s hermetically sealed aesthetics and alludes to its formal limitations. _____________________ Each episode features book and film recommendations for further exploration. On this episode:  Matthew recommends Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later. Paul recommends Matt Zoller Seitz’s The Wes Anderson Collection and Louis Althusser’s “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes Towards an Investigation.” Tony recommends Carpenter’s Gothic by William Gaddis. Jason recommends The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World by Vijay Prashad. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don’t forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected]. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema.  For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic.  Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com  _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian  Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt).  Happy listening!

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• S2 Ep. 4: I Married a Communist A.K.A. The Woman on Pier 13 (Robert Stevenson, 1949)

  This week on Cold War Cinema, we discuss Robert Stevenson’s 1949 drama, I Married a Communist, also known as Woman on Pier 13. This Hollywood production is one of the most storied—and notorious—anti-communist films of the early Cold War era. The movie revolves around a San Francisco shipping executive who worked his way up from the docks, as a stevedore, only to find himself embroiled in a Communist plot to sabotage a labor contract.  Join hosts Jason Christian, Tony Ballas, and Paul T. Klein as we consider: How Hollywood colluded with the government to portray Communists as nihilistic, intellectual, unfeeling and yet effeminate organized criminals.  The condescension at the heart of anti-Communist propaganda in the US that implies that ordinary Americans are too "dumb" to recognize when they are being duped.  The paradoxical role of unions in New Deal liberal ideology as a potential bulwark against Communists.  The perennial recycled anti-Communist tropes in American political rhetoric to this day. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode:  Paul recommends Foster Hirsh’s 2023 book Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties: The Collapse of the Studio System, the Thrill of Cinerama, and the Invasion of the Ultimate Body Snatcher—Television. Tony recommends Gerald Horne's 2011 book, Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawai'i. Jason recommends Rebecca Prime's 2013 book, Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don’t forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at [email protected]. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. 

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