In 1954, Hawley’s book Executive Suite was released as a film, and with an all star cast: William Holden, June Allyson, and Barbara Stanwyck.

Executive Suite opens with the sudden death of a furniture company’s president. His unexpected demise creates a power vacuum within the company’s management. The firm’s head accountant, a calculating, politically astute man, moves quickly to fill the void. But his policy of making short-term profits at the expense of the company’s long-term prospects, and his general lack of vision, have already been causing damage.

Among the few who understand this is a research scientist, who enters the fray to oppose him. In the scientist’s decisive speech at the end of the film, he argues, as Rand would, that people are not motivated simply by money but by pride; that both money and pride are the product of genuine accomplishment; and that to try to take short cuts to money (by producing shoddy merchandise, as had been advocated by the head accountant) would in the end produce neither the pride needed to motivate the company’s workers nor maximum profitability.

The implied maxim — that doing your best is the correct path to self-benefit — will appeal to libertarians, and amounts to the moral flip side of Adam Smith’s observation that people intending only their own self-interest tend to benefit others “as though led by an invisible hand.”

This was followed five years later with Cash McCall, probably one of the most Randian films ever made and a film that remains popular with libertarians now more than half a century later. It’s a genuine capitalist morality story and a pointed attack on envy. The film stars James Garner and Natalie Wood.

The hero here is Cash McCall, an ingenious businessman who creates value by buying and reorganizing troubled companies. His success has made him the object of envy, and his willingness to sometimes shut down and liquidate hopelessly unprofitable firms, with all the attendant social costs, has made him the object of hate. But he makes no apologies, frequently saying things like: “I don’t belong in the ‘better circles.’ I’m a thoroughly vulgar character. I enjoy making money.”

Most of the story surrounds McCall’s purchase of a small, troubled plastics molding company. McCall quickly solves the company’s problems and is set to reap the associated gain. News of the quick profit gets back to the company’s former owner, Grant Austen, who in turn feels McCall cheated him by paying him less than his company was really worth, and who therefore threatens to sue. (Woven into all this is a secondary story of a romance between McCall and Austen’s daughter.) McCall is a very ethical person and this turns out to be decisive in his ultimate triumph, a resolution in which all ends well with everyone making lots of money.

Cameron Hawley died in 1969, at age 64. Hawley was unusual for a writer in that he worked in business for decades before writing about business. He was writing what he knew, unlike so many who write about business what they imagine. The Atlas Society wrote a very thorough tribute to him: “Cameron Hawley made the life-and-death drama of business palpable. Sharing the fears, frustrations, and achievements of executives and factory workers alike, readers come away from his works experiencing the importance and romance of business.” The same could be said of his two films recommended above.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN DOCUMENTARIES
A documentary chronicle of the rise and fall of socialism: from its utopian beginnings, through its bloody and totalitarian peak of power, to its sudden collapse. [ Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism credits: Dir: Brittany Huckabee/ 168 min/ Documentary/ Anti-socialism]

Note: the full documentary can typically be found online via YouTube or Online search.

“Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism is a remarkably comprehensive and entertaining telling of the history of socialism, full of little-known details and compelling character sketches of historical key players. This is no dry exposition, but a story of human drama touching every corner of the globe, and intelligently structured to give a clear step-by-step sense of the order of events from the rise of socialism as a utopian ideal to the sudden fall of socialism as a disastrous and bloody experiment, and of the causal linkages.”

An outstanding primer not just on the history of socialism but on the fallibility of human nature and the arrogance of centralized planning, this documentary (and its companion book) would make ideal educational material for a high school or college classroom.

The three Heaven on Earth episodes are chronological, covering material as follows:

Part I: The Rise

A successful British industrialist, Robert Owen, invents the idea of an egalitarian society intended to reshape the human character; his followers call it “socialism.” He attempts to demonstrate the concept by establishing a socialist city in 1827 in the US, “New Harmony,” Indiana. The town fails after two years, as the more productive members leave. But Owen still likes his ideas, so he returns to England and founds a movement to spread them. A young radical from Germany, Friedrich Engels, meets Owen and joins the movement. Engels comes to the attention of fellow socialist writer Karl Marx and together they publish “The Communist Manifesto,” which argues that socialism is not simply a political philosophy but inescapable prophesy and the logical culmination of history. The book captures and ignites the imagination of intellectuals.

By the end of the 1800s it’s clear that the prophesy is false. The poor are not rising up to overthrow capitalism but instead becoming middle-class, because the Industrial Revolution has resulted in sharply rising living standards. Nonetheless, socialism still appeals to intellectuals. Two intellectuals — Eduard Bernstein and Vladimir Lenin — decide that it can be established without a working class revolution via different methods. Bernstein advocates gradualism toward a socialist world via the democratic process, an idea that eventually takes hold in the West. Lenin advocates violent revolution to establish socialism through the efforts of full-time revolutionaries. Lenin gets his chance when a weak civil government comes to power in Russia.

Meanwhile in the US, the socialist movement is philosophically split between those who believe socialist objectives can be reached more effectively via strong unions, and those who want pure socialism established through a Socialist Party. In the end, it is the union path that the US takes.

Part II: Revolutions

National socialism (Nazism, Fascism) rises in Germany and Italy. Like Lenin’s socialism, it is revolution in the name of the people, but with a nationalistic twist. This variant is short-lived, as it is defeated in WWII.

Meanwhile socialism spreads to China under Mao Zedong. He promises life-long economic security in exchange for total submission. He forces the population into large communes, dictating the minutiae of what is produced and how, resulting in unprecedented economic failure. Tens of millions die of starvation. In post-WWII England, democratic socialism takes hold with the election of Clement Attlee. Common ownership of property, to be achieved gradually, becomes the official policy of the Labour Party, and that policy is initiated with large-scale nationalizations. In Israel, socialist communes are founded by Holocaust survivors. Commune members dominate the country’s politics and lead it Left. A young African college student, Julius Nyerere, is introduced to socialist ideas while being educated in Europe. He returns to Tanzania and starts a political party to combine socialist ideas with traditional African village life.

But these attempts at centralized planning are starting to fail. By 1971, production is stagnating in the UK while powerful unions demand higher wages regardless. Strikes are rampant and disrupt every aspect of ordinary life, even emergency services. In Israel, kibbutzim are becoming less communal as people want to own their own clothes, have private access to food, and take care of their own children. In Tanzania, idealistic socialist Nyerere has openly turned dictator, and following a Maoist path is forcing the population into village communes at gunpoint.

Part III: The Collapse

The fall of socialism begins in the late 1970s, as its global failure is starting to be known and leadership around the world goes through a sea-change away from it. In China, following Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping comes to power. He is less ideological than Mao and simply wants economic progress. In the UK, Margaret Thatcher is privatizing state industries and rolling back socialism in every respect. In the US, the country turns Right with the election of Ronald Reagan. In Poland, workers go on strike and establish a powerful trade union – Solidarity. In Russia, a reformer named Mikhail Gorbachev is appointed General Secretary.

Deng Xiaoping orders that all communes be privatized, and introduces other pro-market reforms. GDP growth spikes to 10% annually. But the political system of communism remains, and an attempt at democratization – Tiananmen Square – ends with brutality and death. In Russia, Gorbachev takes a different route, by introducing democratic reforms and truth-telling about the past but leaving in place central control of the economy. A coup is attempted, but fails. Elections are held in Poland, and Solidarity wins in a landslide. The Soviet Union breaks up as its component countries rebel.

The democratically-elected Left in Europe shifts right, rebranding itself and evolving into a new model, “social democracy,” with market economies and social safety nets. But socialism as originally conceived – strong central control and planning as a path to economic progress and a reshaping of the human character – is now thoroughly disgraced and intellectually dead.

Links

Official homepage
IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: Heaven–On Earth: The Rise and Fall–of Socialism

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER: BEST PICTURE
A heroic few stand alone against the corrupt bosses of a powerful union. [ On the Waterfront credits: Dir: Elia Kazan/ Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Eva Marie Saint/ 108 min/ Drama/ Unions & Monopolies]

“Eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture) were heaped on this film and for good reasons, including: tight direction, inspired acting, Leonard Bernstein’s energetic music, and a brilliant script.”

Enter the world of a 1950s East Coast shipping dock. It’s a rough world in which a corrupt union controls the lives and livelihoods of its members.

Terry, a naive dockworker, has just been tricked into aiding in the mob-style execution of a fellow worker, a “squealer” who had been about to testify in court against the union. Terry feels guilty about his role, but there’s nothing he can do. He’s as much at the mercy of the union as anybody. His guilt is compounded when he falls in love with the sister of the man he unwittingly helped to kill. Riddled with remorse, he confesses his part in the murder to the local parish priest, hoping for some kind of relief. But the priest, who has been trying to overthrow the corrupt union, tells Terry there is only one answer and it isn’t easy. He must reveal everything he knows about the murder, to his girlfriend as well as to the authorities.

From then on, Terry is locked in a titanic struggle—first within his own soul, over whether to tell the truth, and finally with the ruthless union management, over its corrupt practices.

This film—inspired by a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning articles—popularized the truth about growing union corruption. Instead of representing the workers as collective brokers, union managements had become self-serving, ultimately controlling the workers for their own benefit and maintaining that control with great brutality. Of course, government coercion made this possible in the first place by creating labor monopolies which workers had no choice but to join and between which there was little competition. The ultimate triumph of the hero over this situation is very satisfying, but the underlying legislative causes of the problem are never addressed.

Eight Academy Awards (including Best Picture) were heaped on this film and for good reasons, including: tight direction, inspired acting, Leonard Bernstein’s energetic music, and a brilliant script. Marlon Brando was born for the leading role and gives a remarkable performance as a rough-and-tumble bruiser, cynical and gritty on the outside but with a heart that melts in the hands of virtuous Eva Marie Saint. The scenes between these two as they awkwardly try to bridge the social gulf between them are some of the best. On the Waterfront is a first-rate classic film that anyone concerned about government-supported unions and monopolies should see.

External Reviews

“This brutal, violently realistic drama, set against the sordid background of the New York waterfront, packs a terrific wallop that results in topflight entertainment. On the Waterfront is stark and gripping.”
–Hollywood Reporter

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia

A naive Depression-era widower who applies for welfare is robbed of his family by state child protection bureaucrats. Story inspired by actual events. [ After the Promise credits: Dir: David Greene/ Mark Harmon, Diana Scarwid, Rosemary Dunsmore/ 93 min/ Drama/ Abuse of Power, Incompetent Government]

“We are here to help. Our only concern is with the children’s well-being.” So says a social worker as she sets in motion a chain of events that ultimately ends in every father’s worst nightmare: the forcible removal of his children. Of course, once children are in the grip of the state, their well-being may fall through the cracks now and then, and that is just what happens in After the Promise.

As this story begins, the mother of this Depression-era family has recently died, leaving behind her husband and four boys. The father, a low-paid construction worker, can’t afford a baby-sitter so he applies for government assistance to hire one. Unfortunately, the social worker he is assigned decides instead that his kids would be better off in a foster home, and off they go.

What an effective tear-jerker! Every separation and every reunion of the kids from their father and from each other is played for all it’s worth. And it is made all the more touching by the fact the story was inspired by actual events.

Mark Harmon gives a sympathetic performance as the widowed father who must fight a sea of red tape to retrieve his children, one by one, from forced institutionalization, and some of the kids’ performances are also commendable. In most artistic respects After the Promise is a typical made-for-TV movie, but the story overwhelms all flaws.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia

He planted false stories to promote the war and US policy to the American public. However, he later regretted what he had done and came clean in the book Decent Interval. The CIA sued him all the way up to the Supreme Court and he was forced to turn over all the money the book had made. Nonetheless, he got the word out and later became an award-winning journalist. Frank Snepp was interviewed in 1983, as below.

More recently, someone did try to remind us this was happening again.

Who knew having well-funded intelligence agencies with unexamined budgets reporting to no one might be a problem for liberty? Well, there was Ron Paul.

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
In a future time when books are banned, a secret underground preserves the world’s literature. [ Fahrenheit 451 credits: Dir: François Truffaut/ Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack/ 112 min/ SciFi-Fantasy, Drama/ Freedom of Speech]

“Fahrenheit 451 is a wonderful Ray Bradbury story, and its antiauthoritarian content will make it of very strong interest to libertarians. Truffaut’s telling of this story is Hitchcockian at times, and seems all the more so supported, as it is, by an excellent Bernard Hermann musical score.”

“We’ve all got to be alike. The only way to be happy is for everyone to be made equal. So, we must burn the books.” Thus is explained the government’s antibook rationale. That is: exposure to the ideas found in books makes people different; differences create social friction; therefore books must be destroyed.

In this projected world, people are peaceful — but placid, shallow, and alike. Without books, there are no ideas to talk about, no prose or poetry to inspire — in short, no mental experiences that would give a person individuality or purpose. It’s a bland, authoritarian society in other ways as well. Men are forced to have short hair to preserve the appearance of being alike; “volunteers” are drafted (one is reminded of the words “social security contribution”); and people step out of their identical houses to look for a wanted man on the orders of a passing police car.

At the center of this story is one of the government’s antibook enforcers. He leads a bleak life, simply going through the motions of existence. Then one day a strange woman approaches him on his commuter train and talks to him about the books he so routinely burns. It’s a forbidden subject, but she’s an impertinent character. Soon curiosity gets the better of him, and he begins secretly reading some of the books he is supposed to burn. The ideas that he picks up transform him, but that transformation, of course, brings him into dramatic conflict with this static world.

Fahrenheit 451 is a wonderful Ray Bradbury story, and its antiauthoritarian content will make it of very strong interest to libertarians. Truffaut’s telling of this story is Hitchcockian at times, and seems all the more so supported, as it is, by an excellent Bernard Hermann musical score. Listening to this music, one is reminded of just how much difference a really good film score can make. The pace of the film is sometimes slow, as the details of a semicomatose world without books are played out, but this just adds to the sense of changelessness. In the end, one is left with the disturbing impression that such a society could actually be brought about.

External Reviews

“Fahrenheit 451 is weird, yes. And wonderful.”
–SciFi Movie Page

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: iFahrenheit 451

Philosopher John Locke was born on August 29, 1632. He has been called the “Father of Classical Liberalism” and is arguably the most influential libertarian thinker in history. His ideas — including the concept of “life, liberty, and property” — inspired the American Revolution as well as the modern concept of “social tolerance.”

“Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.” — John Locke

Locke’s philosophy tightly (and humorously) summarized. [3 min.]

Locke’s highly influential “Letter Concerning Toleration” summarized. [2 min.]

Thomas Hobbes and John Locke debate human freedom. [2 min.]

Locke’s life story told in a mini-biography. [2 min.]

A summary of John Locke’s influence on the American Revolution. [5 min.]

“In The Second Treatise of Government, a major contribution to the principles underlying modern democracies, Locke achieved two objectives: refuting the concept of the divine right of monarchy, and establishing a theory of government based on the ultimate sovereignty of the people. In A Letter Concerning Toleration, composed as early as 1667 but not published for political reasons until 1689 — after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ — Locke pleaded for religious tolerance on grounds similar to his argument for political freedom, i.e., that all men are by nature ‘free, equal, and independent,’ and are entitled to freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of worship. To help guarantee the latter freedom, Locke called for separation of church and state.” — Amazon

The top 10 are listed here in alphabetical order. This list will evolve as additional libertarian movies are noted and reviewed. Here are the best of the best…

1. Citizenfour

Up until a few years ago, you might have thought your guilty late-night searches for Justin Bieber/Selena Gomez pics were between you and Google; but now, thanks to Edward Snowden, we all know we are being watched, constantly watched, “for our own good.” As much thriller as documentary, Citizenfour tells the story of how Edward Snowden revealed for the first time bombshell proof that the U.S. government is routinely and secretly engaged in domestic spying. This is one of the very few films on this website to earn this site’s highest score in both libertarian content and production quality. This film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary.

“Riveting, as well as the most indispensable documentary of the year.”
–BBC

2. Dallas Buyers Club

Having your medications controlled by an all-powerful regulatory agency is great, because you can never be too careful. Oh wait you can be too careful, like when you are *dying* and the agency won’t allow you have access to experimental meds because…safety first. That was the situation in 1988, when thousands of AIDs victims were being eaten alive by a hellish virus and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied them access to life-saving medications. Fortunately, the world has heroes; in this case, the hero was AIDs patient Ron Woodruf, an ordinary man turned outlaw angel, who defied the FDA to smuggle unapproved pharmaceutical drugs into the U.S. in order to treat fellow victims of HIV. This film won three Academy Awards and was nominated as well for Best Picture.

“Dallas Buyers Club is a terrific movie with a strong libertarian message about self-help, entrepreneurship, overbearing and even lethal regulation, and social tolerance.”
–David Boaz, Cato Institute

3. Derrick J’s Victimless Crime Spree

Libertarian activist Derrick J. Freeman chronicles his arrest and incarceration for five “crimes” — videoing police, dancing in a public place, smoking cannabis, wearing a hat in court, and riding a bike — in a civil disobedience spree that demonstrates just how petty and dangerous is our ever-expanding body of law. Although not a major studio production, this film gets points for its gutsy young star who demonstrates unequivocally that government is force…and who paid with months in prison to bring that point to film. This is one of the most popular libertarian movies for students on this list.

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll be outraged at the people who made a ‘criminal’ out of one of the most peaceful people you would ever meet.”
–Free Press Publications

4. Do Not Resist

In this film the viewer gets an extended first-hand look at the working lives of ordinary police. What gradually becomes apparent in this cinematic ride-along is that the strong-arm methods they are being trained in, the military-grade equipment they are being given, the high-tech tools they use to get past individual privacy, and even the SWAT outfits they wear, are in many cases creating a culture and a capacity for potential abuse of power. Demonstrating that point is the greatest strength of Do Not Resist. You see the humanity and ordinariness of both the people behind the badge and the people they harry and arrest. Indeed, it’s the very ordinariness and best of intentions that makes what is witnessed so worrisome. No one seems to think anything is wrong with blitzkrieg-style tactics being used in the name of minor offenses, nor is anyone concerned about what that means for the Citizen-State relationship.

“When it was over, I had to force myself to exhale. What makes this movie so powerful is its terrifying portrayal of the mundanities of modern policing.”
–Washington Post

5. Good Bye Lenin

So what do you do when your East German mother — a committed socialist — sees the liberation of Berlin, has a stroke, and the doctors subsequently warn you that in her now very fragile state the slightest shock, including news of the fall of socialism, could kill her. Well, of course you hide news of recent events, recreate East Germany in her convalescent room, and keep it going for as long as you can. The lengths her son goes to in order to provide her now abandoned inferior socialist consumer goods, fake communist-style news casts for her to watch on video, and to persuade others to join in the charade, is the core of the film’s comedy; and because he is doing all this out of love — also its heart. This thoroughly enjoyable film is also a sweet and honest one, that works in every respect (it won a slew of European film awards).

“The cockamamie way foreign language films are chosen for Oscar consideration is evident in the fact that Good Bye, Lenin wasn’t even nominated. I don’t claim to have seen every entry from around the world, but it’s hard to imagine five better than this deliciously offbeat comedy, as wildly inventive as anything Billy Wilder ever conceived.”
–SFGate

6. Indoctrinate U

Pity the college-bound young people of today. They face not just the usual challenges of college life–being away from home for the first time, learning independence, and long hours of rigorous coursework. No, this generation must also endure a politically one-sided and aggressively-PC university system that demands from its young charges intellectual conformity, and backs those demands with threats of social and physical intimidation, “psychological counseling,” and ultimately career-shattering dismissal. It can’t be that bad, you say? Watch Indoctrinate U.

“Few know little about the rot on many college campuses. Indoctrinate U is a recently released documentary, written and directed by Evan Coyne Maloney, that captures the tip of a disgusting iceberg.”
–Human Events

7. Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron

Projected here is a future “Progressive” America, in which all exceptional human intelligence and achievement has been fully stamped out in order to eliminate the destructive consequences of envy. For a cinematic attack on enforced equality, you could hardly do better than this wonderful film. It fully articulates the price of enforced equality, in terms of both lost liberty and of those accomplishments that inequitably great people make possible. Based on a Kurt Vonnegut story, it has an imaginative and thought-provoking quality. This is a moving and stimulating experience, and one of the most dead-on libertarian films ever made.

“Harrison Bergeron is a real gem.”
–Sci-Fi Movie Page

8. Mao’s Great Famine

You know that cool Mao t-shirt your friend bought at the bookstore? You might want to tell him to return it. Fearless Leader was responsible for the single biggest holocaust in human history (a death toll of 45 million), also known as “Mao’s Great Famine,” which happens to be the title of this French-made documentary on the subject.

“The three-year famine is one of the major human tragedies during the reign of Mao. This film not only provides a real historical picture, it also brings a wider lens to the period of time until 1976, the end of the Cultural Revolution. The film is recommended to be used as a supplemental teaching material for college history and political science classes.”
–Educational Media Reviews Online

“Between 1958 and 1962, economic policy advocated by Mao resulted in the death of some 50 million people. Archive pictures and testimonials in support, this documentary unveils this dark episode in the history of modern China.”
–France5

9. Miss Virginia

So what does a Mom do if her son’s public high school is a crap institution that can’t even keep him safe let alone teach anything? Well, if she’s Virginia Walden Ford she kicks bureaucratic ass. Miss Virginia tells the true story of a Mom who fought a pitched, ultimately victorious, battle with educational authorities to create the District of Columbia voucher program — and save her son.

“A heartfelt ode to an important historical figure.”
–Film Threat

“Miss Virginia gives a voice to the voiceless children who would otherwise remain a part of the system. Five-star film.”
–Black Girl Nerds

10. No Safe Spaces

Freedom of speech is under siege on college campuses, and threats to First Amendment rights are spreading — as demonstrated in this provocative documentary. No Safe Spaces was the #1 political documentary of 2019 in terms of box office sales, despite repeated threats including thugs entering theaters and intimidating moviegoers. Some people really did not want others to see this film. It won the Grand Prize at the Anthem Film Festival.

“Should [free speech] be banned? A lot of us — most of us — would say no. So why are our campuses, which are supposed to be about the free exchange of ideas, saying yes? No Safe Spaces is a smart, vital, urgent, and provocative exploration of that question.”
–Variety

11. Sons of Liberty

American’s founders were old rich guys with powdered wigs, right? No, not at all. At the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Alexander Hamilton was just 21. James Madison was 25. John Paul Jones was 28. Most were under 40. And far from being dry intellectuals, they were the cool crowd of their time, men of intellect and action. In that sense, this is actually a truer picture than you get from more staid accounts. Sons of Liberty breathes new life into the story of the Revolution, by dramatizing it in terms not just accessible but engaging, even one might say sexy. Who knew Sam Adams was a daring heartthrob? This is just good storytelling; you feel for the rebels, you understand what they are fighting for, and you admire them for the heroes they were. The ending scene of the film, when the Founders are signing the Declaration of Independence, and full-on war finally breaks out, is particularly touching. Cinematography is also superior, at times even artistic.

“Sons of Liberty rips the powdered wigs off America’s founding fathers. In a good way.”
–New York Daily News

12. Sweden: Lessons for America

College socialists love to point to the “Nordic model” as a working example of the socialist ideal. Yes, socialism failed in Russia, China, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Albania, Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, the Congo, Ethiopia, Grenada, Kampuchea, Mongolia, Mozambique, Somalia, Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, Cuba, Venezuela, and so on (of course, that wasn’t real socialism), but it has succeeded in Scandinavia. And if it has even that one win, then it’s clearly a go! But what if Sweden isn’t an argument for socialism – but an argument for capitalism? That’s the question Swedish economist Johan Norberg asks in this persuasive documentary.

“Debunks outdated myths about the Scandinavian nation.”
–Reason

When Hitler began rounding up the Jews in Hungary in 1944, Wallenberg faced down the Nazi death machine with nothing more than courage and paper, partly by mass manufacturing fake Swedish passports and partly by threatening Nazi authorities that he had accumulated sufficient evidence to prosecute them as war criminals in the event that the Axis powers lost.

Unfortunately, when the war ended the Soviets arrested him for reasons unknown, locked him away in the brutal Soviet prison system and repeatedly resisted appeals to release him. (The Russians now say that he probably died in Moscow’s notorious Lubyanka prison a decade after the war, but no one knows for sure. As late as 1987 he was sighted in a Soviet prison by two independent witnesses.)

There are two biopics that tell his story, but neither do him justice. A better choice would be the Leslie Howard film Pimpernel Smith, about a British professor of classics who secretly rescues Nazi prisoners. Why? Raoul Wallenberg is said to have been inspired by this film, which was among the first to depict Nazi labor camps. It can generally be found free online.

A secret protector shepherds “enemies of the state” from Nazi Germany to safety. [ Pimpernel Smith credits: Dir: Leslie Howard/ Leslie Howard, Mary Morris, Francis L. Sullivan/ 120 min/ Action-Adventure/ Britain/ Escape from Socialism, Democide]

“Although the tone is witty and debonair, this film has its serious side and is considered one of the most important anti-Nazi films of the period — and it was not without effect.”

This story is essentially the same as that of The Scarlet Pimpernel but is updated to the Nazi era. Here, the hero is a British professor of classics and archaeology who rescues condemned scientists and artists from Nazi concentration camps. Says he, “When a man holds the view that progress and civilization depend in every age upon the hands and brains of a few exceptional spirits, it’s rather hard to stand by and see them destroyed.”

This courageous professor is a master of disguise and deceit. Operating under the cover of doing excavations on supposed ruins of ancient Aryan civilizations, he outwits the Nazi authorities over and over again. Publicly, the Nazis deny his existence, as in this humorous announcement from the Ministry of Propaganda: “Rumors of a mysterious personage helping enemies of the state to escape from Germany are without foundation. We can assure you there have been no such escapes and there is no such rescuer. Furthermore, in Nazi Germany, no one can hope to be saved by anybody!”

However, privately, Nazi agents are searching everywhere for this secret liberator. The Nazis end up forcing the daughter of a captured newspaper editor into helping them in their manhunt, but she double-crosses them to seek the hero’s aid in freeing her father. Getting her and her father out of the country to safety becomes the last daring rescue for Pimpernel Smith.

Leslie Howard produced, directed, and starred in this film. He makes an understated hero in the British style and is, as always, entertaining. The film also benefits from clever use of cinematography and an amusing script that mocks pretty much everything Nazi. There aren’t many films with this much of the right idea around, so it’s worth seeing, especially if you like classic British cinema.

Although the tone is witty and debonair, it has its serious side and is considered one of the most important anti-Nazi films of the period — and it was not without effect. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who is credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, is said to have been inspired by the character of Pimpernel Smith.

External Reviews

“…a gallant figure to capture the imagination and stir the blood.”
–New York Times

“Pimpernel Smith is not only every bit as stirring as Howard intended, but also genuinely poignant.”
–BFI Screenline

Links

IMDB
Book: Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor (Revised Second Edition)
Book: Heroes of the Holocaust: Ordinary Britons Who Risked Their Lives to Make a Difference
Book: In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
Book: The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust
Book: Righteous Gentile: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg, Missing Hero of the Holocaust
Book: A Place To Hide: True Stories Of Holocaust Rescues (Scholastic Biography)

“On the basis of Wallenberg’s statement to his sister in 1942 and the striking similarities between Leslie Howard’s performance, particularly in the Vodenschatz episode, and Wallenberg’s modus operandi in Budapest, there is every reason to believe that once committed to his mission at the Swedish legation in Hungary, Wallenberg found in Pimpernel Smith a role-model he could adapt to the situation at hand when facing down Nazi and Arrow Cross guards and snatching prisoners from their grasp. It is in this respect that the remarkable rescue of countless lives in Budapest involved at least in part the transmission of a heroic model from Leslie Howard to Raoul Wallenberg.”
–P.O.V.: From Leslie Howard to Raoul Wallenberg: the transmission and adaptation of a heroic model

As of publication, it’s available free on YouTube.

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
A small group of World War II veterans challenge their corrupt town government. Story inspired by actual events. [ An American Story credits: Dir: John Gray/ Brad Johnson, Kathleen Quinlan, Tom Sizemore/ 99 min/ Drama/ Corrupt Government, Resistance to Tyranny, Second Amendment]

“When the mayor attempts to rig the elections, the veterans finally fight back. Fresh from restoring democracy abroad, they’re not about to see it destroyed at home and they defend the ballot box — just the way Uncle Sam taught them to.”

“We didn’t take this kind of bull from the Nazis. I don’t know why we have to come home and take it from [the mayor].” So says an angry veteran who returns home from the battlefields of World War II Europe to find his small business paying protection money to City Hall. As it turns out, many people in this town are being forced to pay protection money. To rectify the problem, this veteran and his buddies form the “Veterans Party” to run against the corrupt mayor.

But their under-funded, amateur campaign has little hope of beating the mayor’s professional political machine. And the one man who could help them, a widely respected fellow veteran and World War II war hero, has been bought out by the powers that be. All seems lost until the mayor attempts to rig the elections. Fresh from restoring democracy abroad, they’re not about to see it destroyed at home and they defend the ballot box — just the way Uncle Sam taught them to.

This is a moving story and it’s inspired by actual events.

An American Story has something of an antitax and Second Amendment flavor, but neither subject is made an explicit issue. Even so, the film does provide an answer to those who cringe at self-defense against tyranny. Just before the veterans take on the town’s police force, someone asks rhetorically, “Why does it always have to come down to a war?” The hero unhesitating response: “Because some people can’t be reasoned with.”

Links

IMDB

“A television movie like An American Story couldn’t get greenlit today. In fact, it’s still surprising the Hallmark Hall of Fame and CBS joint production actually got broadcast back in 1992. Yet this fictionalization of the Battle of Athens, the last and best modern example of American citizens forcefully asserting their Second Amendment rights, was actually shown only 21 years ago. The telepicture earned two Primetime Emmy nominations, one for music and another for cinematography.”
–Breitbart

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN DOCUMENTARIES
In this landmark Free to Choose series, Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman guides the viewer through eleven documentaries on the workings of the market and its relation to human liberty. [ Free to Choose credits: Executive Producer: Bob Chitester/ Journalist: Milton Friedman/ 50 min/ Documentary/ Libertarianism 101]

See links below for free online access to the full series.

“A persuasive and entertaining exposition of libertarian ideas.”

This is a persuasive and entertaining exposition of libertarian ideas, and it’s a pleasure to see them presented with such clarity and charm. It’s a testament to the power of Friedman’s “radical” proposals—and perhaps this series itself—that some have already been implemented and others have become common subjects for discussion. Nonetheless, most viewers will not find the series excessively dated. The underlying theme of liberty versus state control is everlasting.

The Free to Choose Network has kindly made the complete episodes available online, so episode links on this page render the full documentary not just a trailer.

Episodes of Free to Choose (1980)

Part 1, The Power of the Market
Examines the logic and results of a properly functioning free market, with some emphasis on Hong Kong as an example of a relatively free economy.

Part 2, The Tyranny of Control
Discusses the pernicious effects of government intervention in the economy.

Part 3, Anatomy of a Crisis
Explains how the Great Depression was a product of Federal Reserve mismanagement.

Part 4, From Cradle to Grave
Illustrates how good intentions can lead to bad results in the area of public assistance. Suggests a negative income tax as a solution.

Part 5, Created Equal
Counters demands for material equality with the argument that “pursuit of equality before freedom will achieve neither; pursuit of freedom before equality will produce a large measure of both.”

Part 6, What’s Wrong With Our Schools
Demonstrates that voluntary educational efforts are superior to government schools. Proposes vouchers as one solution to the current mess.

Part 7, Who Protects the Consumer?
Examines the increasing role of regulation in the economy. Shows how well-intended regulations can have perverse effects.

Part 8, Who Protects the Worker?
Discusses the role of unions and protective legislation in the lives of ordinary workers.

Part 9, How to Cure Inflation
Debunks myths regarding the causes of inflation and lays the blame for it firmly at the doorstep of the Federal Reserve.

Part 10, How to Stay Free
Makes the case for further constitutional limits on government powers and for a popular understanding of and appreciation for liberty. Emphasizes the dangers inherent in the concentration of power.

Episodes of Free to Choose (1991)

A decade after the original ten episodes, four were updated and remade but production quality was not equal to the original episodes (found above). However, one new episode, Freedom and Prosperity, was added to the series.

Freedom and Prosperity
Discusses the reluctance of Eastern European governments to abandon socialism, and recommends rapid privatization of state assets and adoption of a free market.

Links

IMDB
Free To Choose.tv
The Free to Choose Network
Book: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
Book: Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
Book: Why Government Is the Problem (Essays in Public Policy)

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
When a young gay man in 1960s Britain commits suicide rather than face an inquiry regarding (then illegal) homosexual activity, a closeted bisexual barrister avenges his death and fights the law responsible for it. [ Victim credits: Dir: Basil Dearden/ Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price / 100 min/ Drama, Thriller/ Britain/ Government as Bigot, Sexual Liberty, Social Tolerance]

“When Dirk Bogarde, in the character of Melville Farr, swears he will fight this law even if it means his own destruction, few knew it was not just a portrayal of courage but an act of one.”

This was a revolutionary film. At the time it was made, homosexual activity was a serious offense in Britain. Thousands were sent to prison for it. And its illegality spurred a virtual crime wave of blackmail against gay men. In fact, ninety percent of all blackmail cases were gay related. The makers of this film sought to change all that by exposing the suffering that the law created.

In this story, a young man, Jack Barrett, is being blackmailed. He makes a series of desperate phone calls to a high-class barrister, Melville Farr. Unfortunately, Farr, a bisexual, believes that Barrett is trying to blackmail him and refuses the calls. Barrett commits suicide. Riddled with guilt that he had turned his back on a friend and (as he later learns) unknown protector, Farr determines to catch Barrett’s blackmailer and to reform the law, even if it means his own destruction.

In some respects, the film’s view of homosexuality is at times slightly outdated, but that’s forgivable given its otherwise radically progressive character.

That issue aside, this is a wonderful story of tragedy and heroism, and it’s told in an entertaining British mystery style, often with clever dialogue. One of my favorite exchanges is the following between two policemen discussing the case. First Policeman: “If the law punished every abnormality, we’d be kept pretty busy, sergeant.” Second Policeman: “Even so, Sir, this law was made for a very good reason. If it were changed, other weaknesses would follow.” First Policeman: “I can see you’re a true Puritan. … There was a time when that [too] was against the law, you know.”

Dirk Bogarde gives an outstanding performance in the leading role, as the heroic legal angel who avenges the young man’s death. In real life, he was just as heroic. Up to this point a popular and unobjectionable teen idol, Bogarde put his career on the line to make this film and defended its controversial content — a courageous thing for anyone to do at the time but all the more so for a man who, as it turned out, was himself secretly gay.

When Bogarde, in the character of Melville Farr, swears he will fight this law even if it means his own destruction, few knew it was not just a portrayal of courage but an act of one. Through Victim, he and others deliberately set out to demonstrate the harm brought about by the ban on homosexual activity and to free the thousands held in prison for its offense. Six years after the its release, such activity was decriminalized in Britain.

External Reviews

“What a gripping film – melodramatic and self-conscious, yes, but forthright and bold. Its tendency to show homosexuality as a tragic, pitiable quirk of nature may now look like condescension, but for the time this was real risk-taking. It has some of the earnestness of the traditional ‘issue’ movie, but it’s also a drum-tight thriller with a neat twist in the tail.”
The Guardian

“Released at a time when any homosexual act between men was illegal, Victim has often been cited as the catalyst for the liberating Wolfenden Report and the subsequent legalisation of homosexual activities. Revolutionary and aware of its own importance, Victim successfully treads the precarious tightrope, being both a gripping drama and a taboo-smashing landmark.”
Eye for Film

“With its assertive hero and hopeful conclusion, Victim made a difference…In 1967, Lord Arran introduced legislation repealing the Criminal Offences Act. He wrote Dirk Bogarde about Victim, praising him for ‘your courage in undertaking this difficult and potentially damaging part.’ When Bogarde protested, Lord Arran insisted that ‘we’ve both done our bit’ to decriminalize homosexuality. He mused that ‘it is comforting to think that perhaps a million men are no longer living in fear.’”
MoviePlot

“Shot in high-contrast black-and-white, edged with the darkness of a sitting-room at night but trapped in a fierce spotlight, Bogarde is mesmerising. Crisply suited, dry-voiced and on the edge of tears, he painfully stifles the emotion threatening to destroy him. With the camera locked in close-up, he lifts his chin ever so slightly in defiance, his eyes widening into a glare of triumph that costs him everything.”
The Independent

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Online Video Search
Wikipedia: Wolfenden Report
Mother Jones: You Thought It Was Tough Being Gay in Uganda. “It’s Hell in Nigeria.”
New York Times: Russia’s Anti-Gay Crackdown
The Guardian: Gay rights around the world: the best and worst countries for equality
Slate: You Can Still Be Arrested for Being Gay in Red-State America
The Independent: India’s gay community scrambling after court decision recriminalises homosexuality
New York Times: Nigeria Tries to ‘Sanitize’ Itself of Gays
New York Daily News: Hiding Cuba’s crimes behind gay rights lies
National Post: The communist roots of Russian homophobia
Washington Post: Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death
The Guardian: Iran executes three men on homosexuality charges

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
An old woman’s refusal to pay for a dog license sets in motion a chain of events that humbles her local government. [ Storm in a Teacup credits: Dir: Victor Saville, Ian Dalrymple/ Vivien Leigh, Rex Harrison, Cecil Parker/ 87 min/ Comedy/ Britain/ Free Press as Hero, Abuse of Power]

“The script, based on a stage play, is tremendously witty, the acting talent (including a young Vivien Leigh) is some of the finest of its time, and the direction makes the most of both. For fans of British humor in particular, Storm in a Teacup is a real gem.”

“Oppression is never small.” So says the heroic reporter at the center of this story as he exposes an authoritarian town mayor for condemning to death an unlicensed dog. The film doesn’t argue against licensing as such but just the heartless application of law without regard to the situation.

At the center of this story is a poor old woman and her mongrel dog. The old woman refused to pay for a dog license, and so has been fined five pounds. However, she can’t pay the fine. So the town mayor, a law-and-order man in the midst of a campaign for higher office, orders that the dog be seized and executed. All the old woman’s pleas for mercy fall on deaf ears.

Enter the hero, a principled reporter with a sharp pen. He has just been hired by the local paper to do a flattering story on the mayor. Instead, he uses this opportunity to publicly attack the mayor for his cruel behavior. The article incites a local political rebellion, and further actions by the reporter undermine the mayor’s chances for higher office. Furious at this unwinding of his political prospects, the mayor has the reporter arrested and tried on a vague offense. It all ends in a hilarious climactic trial.

What an enjoyable film! The script, based on a stage play, is tremendously witty, the acting talent (including a young Vivien Leigh) is some of the finest of its time, and the direction makes the most of both. For fans of British humor in particular, Storm in a Teacup is a real gem.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
Book: Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER: BEST DOCUMENTARY
WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN DOCUMENTARIES
The story of how Edward Snowden revealed for the first time bombshell proof that the U.S. government is routinely and secretly engaged in domestic spying. [ Citizenfour credits: Dir: Laura Poitras/ 114 min/ Documentary/ Fourth Amendment, Search & Seizure]

“Citizenfour is a well-made documentary that deserves the highest accolades, not only for what it is, but for the risk borne by those who made it, and it will leave you walking away chilled to realize how far down the path of fascism we have recently traveled.”

If a documentary can also be a thriller, this is it. This film tells its story from the perspective of director Laura Poitras — from the first email she received under Edward Snowden’s enigmatic codename “Citizenfour,” in which he revealed that he was an NSA whistleblower from hell about to release proof of unconstitutional wholesale invasions of privacy; to their first clandestine meeting, in a Hong Kong hotel in which they together orchestrated, in coordination with journalist Glenn Greenwald, the release of Snowden’s documents; and finally to the aftermath of Snowden’s escape and exile.

It’s history told in real-time, a telling made up of clips that Poitras recorded in the moments when it was actually happening. It’s clear this is the way Snowden wanted it–maximum exposure through news outlets and through this documentary–no doubt as much to insure his personal safety as to get the word out.

Two things you get from this film. First, it sheers off whatever patina of cool the Obama administration still had. It’s the Obama administration that Snowden is accusing of wrongdoing, it’s the Obama administration that he is afraid of, and when the documents are released it’s Obama’s talking heads and Obama himself who come out to try to spin the story. Second, Snowden is a genuine hero. He is sincerely fearful that we are moving in a potentially irreversible authoritarian direction and he has made a great personal sacrifice to do something about it. He may be an imperfect hero, like all heroes before him, but his courage and daring are without question. There is a moment when he is asked if anything should be done to shield him from exposure. He replies with conviction, in the tone of someone who knows the thorny path to which he has committed himself and is determined to carry it through, “No…Put a target on my back…Nail me to the cross.” The analogy is not lost, given the situation. Over the brief course of the events told in the film, I noted the circles under Snowden’s eyes darkening. No doubt his subsequent exile in Putin’s Russia has also taken its toll. He has made a great sacrifice for all of us.

Citizenfour is a well-made documentary that deserves the highest accolades, not only for what it is, but for the risk borne by those who made it, and it will leave you walking away chilled to realize how far down the path of fascism we have recently traveled. It’s rated R, but that reflects only the hilariously-flawed MPAA standards; it was scored R for language, based on an occasional use of the F-word. Don’t let that deter you from taking your kids to see it–they are the ones with the most at stake in this mess.

External Reviews

“Riveting, as well as the most indispensable documentary of the year…”
–BBC

“Citizenfour is a gripping record of how our rulers are addicted to gaining more and more power and control over us – if we let them.”
–The Guardian

“Snowden documents a world in which the NSA routinely collects cellphone conversations from millions of Americans, along with their email and records of their other online activities, and consigns all of it to a huge NSA data-storage lair in Bluffdale, Utah. Woven together, this information tells highly detailed stories about blameless private citizens, to be used later, perhaps, for purposes not yet devised.”
–Reason

“One of the major and defining documentaries of recent times.”
–The Hollywood Reporter

“No amount of familiarity with whistleblower Edward Snowden and his shocking revelations of the U.S. government’s wholesale spying on its own citizens can prepare one for the impact of Laura Poitras’ extraordinary documentary Citizenfour.”
–Variety

“For the pure, driven Snowden, you must see Citizenfour…focusing on the eight days in June 2013 when Snowden first spilled his and his computer’s guts to the three journalists in his 10th-floor room at the Mira Hotel, this is a fascinating, edifying and creepy record of history in the making…Citizenfour is, at heart, a portrait of a man at the moment he chooses to change Americans’ understanding of what their government knows about them.”
–Time

Links

Official homepage
IMDB
Wikipedia
Related Film: Snowden
Book: No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Book: With Liberty and Justice for Some
Book: The Digital Surveillance State

“But nobody had more to celebrate than the team behind Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ up-close look at Edward Snowden, which became the first doc ever to win both NYFCC and Gotham awards on top of receiving Spirit Award, IDA and Cinema Eye Honors noms.”
–The Hollywood Reporter

“CitizenFour just won the Gotham Award for best documentary, just hours after winning the New York Film Critics Award…The doc about Edward Snowden by Laura Poitras has made $1.5 million at the box office. Now it’s sweeping awards season.”
—Showbiz 411

“It’s also worth noting that both the Gotham voters and the New York Film Critics Circle honored Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’s documentary about Edward Snowden.”
–Washington Post

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
The rise to power of Soviet socialism corrupts every aspect of life in a Russian city, leaving its occupants with three choices: cynicism, self-destruction, or escape. [ We the Living credits: Dir: Goffredo Alessandrini/ Alida Valli, Rossano Brazzi, Fosco Giachetti/ 174 min/ Drama, Romance, Foreign Language/ Italy/ In Italian with English subtitles/ Anti-Socialism, Ayn Rand, Individualism]

“This engaging film has a touch of greatness.”

It’s a fitting tribute to the universally antiauthoritarian nature of Ayn Rand’s ideas that this film — first produced in fascist Italy as an attack on communism — was then banned at the angry insistence of the Nazis, who considered it antifascist. Like the Rand novel on which it’s based, it is, of course, an attack on totalitarianism of all stripes.

The film was scripted, directed, and produced without Rand’s knowledge and only later discovered and reedited under her supervision. Nonetheless, except for a slightly happier ending, it’s a faithful adaptation.

As in the novel, the story begins as the Soviets have just taken power in Russia. All property is being nationalized. Food and other essentials are in short supply, and life in general is unhappy and uncertain. At the same time, as socialist aspirations give way to socialist reality, corruption and intimidation are becoming rampant.

In this milieu, a young woman, a university student, is trying to make her way. By chance she meets a mysterious man with whom she falls in love. As it turns out, he’s wanted by the state. Meanwhile, an agent of the state, a GPU man, falls in love with her. It’s the classic love triangle. In the end, the respective choices made by these three central characters represent the only ones open to those living under totalitarian governments: cynicism, self-destruction, or escape.

In many ways, We the Living is a recovered masterpiece of 1940s style cinema; indeed it is considered by some critics in Italy as their equivalent of Gone With the Wind. There is tremendous artistry in every scene, expressed particularly in the subtle use of cinematography and wonderfully haunting music, and every part is played with great sensitivity. The effect is to make events not only understood but to create an atmosphere and mood that makes those events felt as well. It’s a little long by modern standards, but the time is not wasted. This engaging film has a touch of greatness.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: We the Living