Original entitled Freedom and You, Red Nightmare is vintage US propaganda ala the Twilight Zone— only instead of Rod Serling, you get Jack Webb.
Made for the US government by Warner Bros, Red Nightmare stars a then-cast of TV Who's Who (most now unknown to the average millennial) and was directed by George Waggner (7 Sept 1894 – 11 Dec 1984), an early actor (his film debut was alongside some guy named Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik [1921 / full film]) who ended his years as a TV director; somewhere in between, he also directed such movies as Man Made Monster (1941 / trailer / full movie), Horror Island (1941 / trailer/ full film), the classic The Wolf Man (1941 / trailer) and, The Climax (1944 / trailer), a Karloff film featuring Turhan Bey.
The plot, as given by Through the ShatteredLens: "Jerry Donavon (Jack Kelly of Cult of the Cobra [1955 / trailer], Forbidden Planet [1956 / trailer], She Devil [1957 / full film]) and The Human Tornado [1976 / trailer) takes his freedom for granted. So, Jack Webb shows up and casts a magic spell, which causes Jerry to have a dream about what it would be like to live in a communist society. In fact, you could even say that Jack Webb gives Jerry a red nightmare! [...] A histrionic but sincere time capsule of what was going on in the psyche of 1962 America."
Scriptwriter Vincent Fotre (14 Feb 1901 – 20 Dec 1975), who had previously conscripted the classic non-classic Missile to the Moon (1958 / trailer), went on to write to the stories cult favs Baron Blood (1972 / trailer) and Night of the Witches (1970 / trailer).
Red Nightmare:
One can't help but wonder what the Russian-fearing conservatives of yesterday would think about having a Conservative president helped into the White House by Russia. (They'd probably tweet "Sad!"— or maybe, like our Dad, leave the Republican Party after over 60 years.)
For your reading pleasure —
not from the movie:
