Keeper of the Flame is on TCM

[IChing]

Overall the fascist threat seems too muted in this film. Darryl Hickman as the young Jeb Rickards, who had belonged to Forrest's youth organization (which looks less like the Boy Scouts and more like the Hitler Youth as the movie progresses), is the true emotional heart of the film.

Yet in the end you feel more that he was mislead than actually endangered by his membership. The idea that fascism could succeed in America only as a third front sort of thing is dangerously misleading, as demagogues like Huey P. Long were in the process of proving. The nation surely could have used a solid anti-fascist film from Hollywood, but "Keeper of the Flame" was ultimately too shallow an effort.

At the end you might understand that Robert V. Forrest was a fascist, but you really have no idea what that means beyond the fact that it is a very bad thing.____stole this from a reviewer

What is interesting about the film is that fascism hides it face in the guise of a conservative industrialist.

and besides it is Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn

[stillcool]

1. my new favorite channel...

I watched "Lawrence of Arabia" with Peter O'Toole the other night. Very appropriate for the times.

[IChing]

2. This is a surprisingly dark film on fascism

It is not one the known Tracy/hepburn films, Forest is revered by the public, until after his death when Tracy, a reporter uncovers the true nature and secrets of the man.

A film on someone like Prescott Bush

[stillcool]

5. I'm taping it to watch later...

sounds good. There's an uncanny feeling when watching these films made well over 50 years ago with subject matter that is so relevant. Like all of a sudden being able to see, that which has been in front of you all your life.

[Lindsay]

3. An interesting film that rarely shows up

in Tracy-Hepburn film fests. I wonder if it resonated more or less than it does now when it was originally released.

[flamingyouth]

4. Great movie

:thumbsup:

[grasswire]

6. mmmmm....LOVE TCM

I check the schedule every morning for the day's offerings. If I had nothing else to do, that's what I'd do. Just lounge around with TCM, all day and night.

[Wilber_Stool]

7. Found it!

This is a great film from Encyclopedia Britannica Films, 1946, called "Despotism". Can be streamed or downloaded in several formats.

http://www.archive.org/details/prelinger