Down With... the Femme Fatale

I don't think I am saying anything particularly controversial when I say that the US has never been especially friendly towards Socialism.

Modern American conservatives like to refer to their opponents as "the radical left" or "the extreme left" although 21st Century American liberalism is what most European countries would call the "centre-right".

The mid-Twentieth Century in America was defined by an explicit "war on Communism", and accusations of Socialism are still a very effective way of stopping someone's career dead in its tracks.

Setting aside the rantings of modern social media jockeys who think that President Biden is slightly to the left of Lenin, there actually was a period of American history when the country was genuinely left-of-centre. 

The 1930s in America was the decade of Franklin Roosevelt and his "New Deal". Following his election in 1933, Roosevelt implemented a series of social programs designed to get the country (and its citizens) back to work. Remembered today as one of the most ambitious social programs in the country's history, the New Deal also coincided with the rise of extreme right-wing ideology in Europe (that's not glib hyperbole; I'm talking about actual Nazis). 

The New Deal was not universally popular with Americans, and many of its reforms were eventually ruled to be unconstitutional. But it was undeniably effective in getting the country out of the Great Depression, and it was popular enough with voters to get Roosevelt elected to a second term. And a third term. And a fourth. They would probably still be electing him if he was still, you know, alive.

For our purposes this week, the decade of the New Deal was the one time in American history when it was socially acceptable to be even remotely "left-wing". 

They Drive By Night is in many ways a typical film noir of the late 1930s, with intrepid heroes and shady ladies (actually one shady lady, but she is extremely shady). 

George Raft and Humphrey Bogart (who gets fourth billing in this comparatively early role) play truck-driver brothers trying to make a living in a system that seems designed to keep them constantly below the poverty line while the "fat cats" of industry get rich off their (almost literal) back-breaking labour.

Made during that brief window in American culture when "Socialism" wasn't quite the dirty word it normally was, They Drive By Night is an unapologetic celebration of "the little guy" and his struggle against The System.

As with so many films of this era, there is a "good" girl and a "bad" girl.

Unlike many other films however, the bad girl is not necessarily the irresistible temptress she usually is in these situations.

Hollywood didn't often get a chance to make films that champion the ordinary working man (and film-makers who tried often found themselves summoned to testify before a committee) but the 1930s was an unusual decade.

They Drive By Night is a rip-roaring tale of a working man's struggle against a hostile system, and it was also a huge popular hit at the time. 

It also happens to be an extremely enjoyable and juicy film, which we will be screening at 7.30 on Thursday, the 13th of July, at the Victoria Park Baptist Church.