10 Films That Were Blatant Propaganda
2. Mission To Moscow
It's difficult still to fully explain the way World War II impacted foreign relations worldwide without sounding like a textbook. Taking Woodrow Wilson's "history with lightning" approach literally, the films released during the war represent a time when the US was willing to slum it to bring down the Nazis - even siding with Russia. FDR and the Office of War Information needed a pitchman, and they had one in director Michael Curtiz.
Mission to Moscow is a fairly straight forward political memoir, chronicling Ambassador Joseph Davies' experiences meeting with Joesph Stalin and other Soviets. It was the first of many pro-Soviet films made during the war effort to help normalize communism to the American everyman. And the film makes no secret of its intentions, opening with the real Davies in an armchair addressing the audience.
"No leaders of a nation have been so misrepresented and misunderstood as those in the Soviet government during those critical years between the two world wars," he says, before disappearing to be played by Walter Huston.
Consider hearing those words spoken seriously by a politician today without a Senate commission formed.
Most reviews at the time were savage, though Bosley Crowther did find their attempts to rehabilitate Stalin perfectly fine. As a film, it's dry as a piece of legislation, but as a time capsule, it's like a glimpse into the multiverse.