Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

blanche-2 As just a movie, "I Was a Communist for the FBI" is quite good in that it moves quickly and has an element of real suspense, particularly the train track sequence, which is excellent.As a propaganda film, it works even better, giving one the impression that the Communists had infiltrated many aspects of society and were more powerful than they actually were in reality.The film purports to be the true story of Matt Cvetic, who infiltrated the Communist organization in Pittsburgh on the part of the FBI and testified before the House on Un-American Activities, naming something like 100 people in the party.In the film, no one except a priest knows that Cvetic is undercover, so his sons loathe him, and he's broken his mother's heart. During his work as a Communist, he meets a beautiful teacher, Eve Merrick (Dorothy Hart) who ultimately becomes disillusioned with the party.In reality, Cvetic thought he was hot stuff and told a lot of people he worked for the FBI. He was also an alcoholic and eventually no longer used as a witness in trials against Communists.As played by Frank Lovejoy, he is a very committed hero, and Lovejoy does an excellent job in portraying this Everyman. He had an interesting career, mostly in television, and rarely as a leading man.This is the kind of movie that has to be taken in the context of the times. Everyone was told of the dangers of Communism, and that it was going to take over the world. Communism is a philosophy just like anything else, and in the '30s, many people were interested in it. They didn't all become Communists. On paper it's fine, but there aren't any people messing it up on paper. The reality is a very repressed, racist society where the top guys share in the wealth brought to them by the laborers.Here they're depicted as people imagined them, powerful rabblerousers infiltrating every level of society. I doubt it got that far. And we see today that it's lost its grip most places.As a baby boomer going to Catholic school, I was told that a Communist would point a gun to my head and ask if I was Catholic. When I said yes, I would be killed. Like that's what I planned to say."I Was a Communist for the FBI" is worth seeing as a '50s artifact with some suspenseful scenes.

atlasmb Oh brother! How ironic that this film purports to expose the vast communist conspiracy in America, with its endless resources, its sinister agents, its goal to subvert American values and to ridicule religion. Yet this is such a crock of propaganda, in which the FBI is the hero.Years later, Americans would find out that just about everyone was deemed an enemy of the FBI. They were spying on and compiling dossiers on many many Americans. Hoover targeted anyone he didn't like. He was a real piece of work.Everyone should watch this film, which is modeled after other undercover movies where the protagonist is deemed a hero for being persecuted for his cause. During WWII, for example, other films championed American spies who suffered while infiltrating Axis organizations. Yes, it's a lousy film filled with misinformation, designed to alert and rile up "loyal" American citizens, but it serves as a warning of how the powers that be manipulate facts and create bogeymen to suit their needs.

mukava991 One of the best things about this reds-under-the-bed drama is Frank Lovejoy, an inscrutable actor who neatly inhabits the role of Matt Cvetic, an FBI mole planted in the Pittsburgh branch of the Communist Party during World War 2 and its Cold War aftermath. For the first two thirds of the film he stalks the screen imperturbably, the victim of suspicion from his fellow Party members and often open hostility from his very own family - churchgoing, patriotic Slovenian immigrants who are appalled by his connections to the Communist Party. His own son (Ron Hagerthy) can barely stand the sight of him. When his masquerade begins to unravel he gets emotional, but within limits. He never loses self-control entirely like Paul Lukas in the similarly themed Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), and he is handy with his fists and agile enough to jump out of perilous situations. He is consistently believable, though just at the borderline of wooden. Lacking in charm and magnetism, he nevertheless can carry a film. It's a tough order to play a father who must convince the world, his son included, that he is indeed a member of the widely despised Communist Party, when in fact he is fighting to undermine its influence from within for what he believes is the good of his family and humanity. Quite a conflict, and potentially the stuff of great drama. Although the strongest moments in this film are between Lovejoy and his teen-aged son, we never quite believe that a family man could live such an intensely duplicitous life for as long as Cvetic did without an explosion occurring much sooner. It is somehow too pat. In depicting Cvetic as a spotless hero, the filmmakers have surgically removed too many rough edges, contradictions and loose ends and we are left with a propagandistic symbol instead of a man.

Michael O'Keefe The fear of Communism runs high. Truth or propaganda? An FBI agent turns counterspy burrowing his way into the U.S. Communist Party. Documentary style Film-Noir. Watching this fifty some years after its release dilutes the original intentions. A case of do as I say; not as I do. Frank Lovejoy is sometimes stoic but effective. Also featured are Philip Carey, Dorothy Hart and Richard Webb. You may possibly get more into CONFESSIONS of a NAZI SPY(1939)starring Edward G. Robinson.