# Commies as Bad Guys **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 1, 2007, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278 "2007-01-01T07:51:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/21 "2007-01-01T17:17:06Z")
There may have originally been a potential debate in the OP, but it seems to have been resolved in favor of exploring movie concepts. Off to **CS**. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/22 "2007-01-01T17:34:37Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] The Reds, being Atheists, have no occult/supernatural connection. [/QUOTE] You’ve never read Dennis Wheatley, have you? In some of his books, it’s a given that Communism is an invention and tool of Satan. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/23 "2007-01-01T18:13:55Z")
[QUOTE=Menocchio] Me, I’d have Indy racing an equally ancient escaped Nazi war criminal (and his henchmen) for Atlantis or something in the South American jungles. You’d get nice symmetry in the “your time is past” themes. [/QUOTE] **Menocchio** - if you ever bothered to take a holiday outisde of 15th century Italy you might have had a chance to play “Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis”, a very successful game made by Lucasarts for the PC. 😛 The nub of the story was (paraphrasing) “the time of gods is over, men should decide their own fate”. A bit done now and I’m not sure that the story in the game would have translated into a good film (and it’s just as well they didn’t try to convert it to the screen as no game to film conversion has ever been good). You can play it for free if your renaissance internet connection allows downloads from the 21st century - find it [here](http://www.abandonia.com/games/3/download/IndianaJonestheFateofAtlantis.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/24 "2007-01-01T18:42:34Z")
Sorry, I just lied - that game is ESA protected so you can’t download it. Still, if you’re interested you could probably find it on ebay for less than the price of the postage. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/25 "2007-01-01T19:20:39Z")
When Ronald Reagan died, one of his old movies shown on TCM was a Korean War story set in a POW camp (I will go see if I can find the title on IMDB). I was somewhat amused to observe that the film’s producers weren’t satisfied with showing the Communists running the camp merely torturing and brainwashing their prisoners–and some of these torture scenes were extremely unpleasant, especially for a 1950s movie. To top this and show how truly evil Communism really is, those bastards also killed a cute little puppy! Since seeing this film, I have occasionaly used the phrase “puppy-killing Commies.” ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/26 "2007-01-01T19:31:27Z")
[QUOTE=Miss Mapp] When Ronald Reagan died, one of his old movies shown on TCM was a Korean War story set in a POW camp… [/QUOTE] From the title and descriptions of the torture, this looks like the one: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047369/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047369/) ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/27 "2007-01-01T19:44:11Z")
_Indiana Jones And The Stone Of Destiny_ England, 1950. Scots Nationalists have stolen the fabled magical [Stone Of Scone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_of_scone) from Westminster Abbey. The British Government requests archeology professor Henry Jones II, guest lecturer at Oxford University, to recover the stone. (According to legend the stone will cry out when the rightful king of England sits upon it. Gee, I wonder what the nsurprise twist will be) ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/28 "2007-01-01T19:57:04Z")
[QUOTE=Peter Morris] _Indiana Jones And The Stone Of Destiny_ England, 1950. Scots Nationalists have stolen the fabled magical [Stone Of Scone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_of_scone) from Westminster Abbey. The British Government requests archeology professor Henry Jones II, guest lecturer at Oxford University, to recover the stone. (According to legend the stone will cry out when the rightful king of England sits upon it. Gee, I wonder what the nsurprise twist will be) [/QUOTE] This was also the plot of another (non-Indy) computer game, I forget what it was called. God it’s true, there really are no original ideas… ---
**Author:** ![Themenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ee59a6/32.png) [@Themenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Themenin)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/29 "2007-01-01T21:05:54Z")
[QUOTE=Bill Door] During the time the earlier James Bond movies were being made the money earned internationally was much less important. If you look at the grosses for [From Russia with Love](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057076/business) you see that the non-US gross was around 40% of the total. For [Die Another Day](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246460/business) the non-US grosses were 70% of the total, more than 1.5 times the US grosses. Film makers are not going to antagonize a large market, even if is’t more historically accurate. [/QUOTE] Purely in the interests of being nit-picky, your link indicates that the non-US gross of FRWL was upwards of 75%. FRWL was a British movie, and as I recall the primary bad guys weren’t communists. As for Indy Jones - how about something to do with Nasser (cold war connection) and the Pyramids - he discovers that the Rosetta stone was a mis-translation - chases some artefact stolen by Napoleon and spirited away to some glamorous Paris location near the Concorde obelisk - culminating in the discovery of the secrets of ancient Babylon lurking beneath the war-torn streets of modern Baghdad. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/30 "2007-01-01T21:48:17Z")
[QUOTE=Themenin] As for Indy Jones - how about something to do with Nasser (cold war connection) and the Pyramids - he discovers that the Rosetta stone was a mis-translation - chases some artefact stolen by Napoleon and spirited away to some glamorous Paris location near the Concorde obelisk - culminating in the discovery of the secrets of ancient Babylon lurking beneath the war-torn streets of modern Baghdad. [/QUOTE] Didn’t Dan Brown already do this one? I’ll get my coat… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/31 "2007-01-02T17:53:48Z")
According to the [IMDb,](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/) there’s a **rumor** this project might have Karen Allen in it! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/32 "2007-01-02T18:01:01Z")
[QUOTE=Themenin] Purely in the interests of being nit-picky, your link indicates that the non-US gross of FRWL was upwards of 75%. FRWL was a British movie, and as I recall the primary bad guys weren’t communists. [/QUOTE] Actually, the Soviet spy agency [SMERSH](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH_%28James_Bond%29) was the villain organization in several of Fleming’s early Bond novels, but in the film versions changed the villain to the non-state criminal organization [SPECTRE.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE) I guess the Commies were losing their luster even then. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/33 "2007-01-02T18:29:21Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I guess the Commies were losing their luster even then. [/QUOTE] The Commies had _luster_? I doubt they even had _floor wax_! ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/34 "2007-01-02T20:56:58Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] Quite a few James Bond movies, [/QUOTE] Are you sure about that? In some cases like _The Spy Who Loved Me_ the Soviet Commies were the _competition_. Dr No was a Chinese commie, sure, in the first James Bond, and the commies were also the enemy in _For Your Eyes Only_, but quite often - as in _From Russia With Love_ (the second movie), _You Only Live Twice_, _Octopussy_, and _A View to a Kill_ - it was some other villain (e.g. SPECTRE or Stromberg in _The Spy Who Loved Me_ or Whitaker in _The Living Daylights_) setting the Soviet Union and the West against each other. In _Die Another Day_, that the North Koreans were Communist was not mentioned. Looking down the [list](http://www.klast.net/bond/filmlist.html), I see Dr No (Chinese Commies), Goldfinger (Chinese Commies again), and For Your Eyes Only (Soviets). That’s three out of 21. Hardly ‘quite a few’. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/35 "2007-01-02T21:45:30Z")
I think the most plausible reason is that there were never any actual Nazis in Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/36 "2007-01-02T21:51:45Z")
[QUOTE=rowrrbazzle] I think the most plausible reason is that there were never any actual Nazis in Hollywood. [/QUOTE] You’re not familiar with Mr Gibson then? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/37 "2007-01-02T22:48:54Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] [W]e all had the chance to see Communism wear itself down from a fiery, genocidal crusading ideology, to a grey failing bureaucratic economic disaster. Since it was destroyed, our memories of Nazism are frozen at it’s full flower of malignant craziness. [/QUOTE] That’s exactly why using the Reds as the villains in an Indiana Jones-type film would not work even half as well as using the Nazis. On a white-to-black scale for good-to-bad guys, the Nazis as a group are solid black whereas the Communists are a dull shade of grey. As foes in fiction, Communists are better suited for more nuanced and ambiguous Cold War thrillers than the Indiana Jones movies which are good vs. evil, white vs. black popcorn flicks. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/38 "2007-01-03T03:03:58Z")
If I were going to set Indy in 1955. rather than fight the Commies, I’d put him in a central African country fighting for independence against one of the fading colonial powers. Let’s face it, he’s already been in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Nepal and (I guess) the Amazon, so he’s running out of exotic locales. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2007, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/39 "2007-01-03T03:50:39Z")
Brain Glutton points to the James Bond movies as examples of cinematic anti-communism… but he couldn’t be more wrong. Oh, to be sure, Ian Fleming’s books were anti-Red propaganda. And in Fleming’s books, the bad guys were invariably communist agents of SMERSH (supposedly an assassination wing of the KGB). But in the movies? Nah! The bad guys in the movies were always corporate executives and megalomaniacal businessmen, often members of SPECTRE 9a cvartel of evil international tycoons). If anything, the Russians were usually portrayed as innocents being framed by SPECTRE, or as plain old good guys. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2007, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278/40 "2007-01-03T04:32:02Z")
[QUOTE=NDP] On a white-to-black scale for good-to-bad guys, the Nazis as a group are solid black whereas the Communists are a dull shade of grey. As foes in fiction, Communists are better suited for more nuanced and ambiguous Cold War thrillers than the Indiana Jones movies which are good vs. evil, white vs. black popcorn flicks. [/QUOTE] Now that is what I am talking about. How (now that we know all we know) say the Commies were just ‘grey?’ Lots of individual Russians or Chinese were some shade of grey or course, but as a movement (or whatever) they were as black as night. Is there any doubt as to that now? (Time to move back to GD?) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commies-as-bad-guys/386278.md?page=3)