The Fearmakers (1958)

Excellent but underrated film

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Some interested declassified history and commentary about the Fearmakers: http://www.koreanconfidential.com/koreanpowfilmnoir.htmlDirector John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate was the best but not the first to explore the issue of U.S. POWs in the 1950-3 Korean War. During the war, Americans had been stunned when many U.S. prisoners collaborated with their communist captors; issued false confessions to germ warfare; and even, in 21 cases, chose to stay behind in China rather than return home. What happened during the war and when the prisoners returned inspired its own sub-genre of Cold War Noir. How realistic were The Manchurian Candidate and these other firms -- and today's hit show Homeland? Click the poster to the right to find out.Check out some of the best, or at least most interesting, Korean War POW movies below. Click on the posters below for more info and view the trailers (you need flash).Don't miss the Bill Dumas documentary on unreturned Korean War POWs. And for perhaps the best actors in Korean War POW movies, see the bottom of this page.

Dana Andrews was taken prisoner during the Korean War and finally arrives home after being away for many years. But now he has periodic dizzy spells as a result of his brutal captivity. When he goes to Washington to meet his old business partner at a public relations office, he learns that his partner is dead and the business was sold out from under him to a guy that is obviously a jerk. After storming out of the office, Andrews meets with an old friend, a Senator, and learns that his old firm is doing a lot to distort truth and influence opinion--as they are a probable front group. Oddly, they never say "communist", but it's obvious that's what they intend. So, in order to expose this evil plot, Andrews returns and makes nice with the jerk and joins the firm.Generally, it's a pretty good curio of the time and it is one of the few chances you'll get to see Mel Tormé in an important role (though, oddly, he gets very low billing despite all his screen time). As always Andrews is very good, but towards the very end of the film the writers make a bad gaff--making the otherwise decent film really clichéd. This is when Andrews catches the baddies and is holding a gun on them. Just then, of all times, he gets a blinding headache and drops his gun!!! Come off it, this is just ridiculous and sets up an unnecessary final chase scene.Also, it's rather funny that the things the firm is doing to illegitimately influence public opinion and Congress are EXACTLY the same things many organizations do regularly today!! One example in the film is how they ask loaded questions that make it appear the public feels one way when they don't--something we see on news shows all the time today! Overall, it's not a great film but interesting enough to make it a little better than just a time passer, though fans of Andrews (like me) will probably enjoy it.

Just think, in 1951, handsome Dana Andrews looked great in the Korean War flick, I Want You. Some seven years later, maybe because of a jet-set lifestyle, or excess drinking and smoking, or just a fast life of hard living, Dana Andrews looked really old and worn out in this second rate Cold War "thriller."Like Alan Ladd, Tyronne Power, and countless other stars, Andrews literally lost his "looks" by his early 40s. This is not to say his acting wasn't up to his former greatness. Of course this film looked like it was made on a shoe-string budget. The script was over-the-top, and it's clearly out-dated today. The Fearmakers is a fear to watch. Rent the classic, The Best Years of Our Life, to see the vintage Dana Andrews.

The real irony, when viewing this film, is the way it views those who lobby for special interests in Washington (and the "marketing" of candidates, skewing polling data to achieve the desired results whether the sampling or data is fair or not) has become the norm in our own era. Hence, the villain in this film is pretty much doing the same sort of thing a Karl Rove does now, but we've just changed our perspective on it. The film purports a high tone of moral outrage at political practices which completely dominate our own time.That to me is the most fascinating thing about this film (which is well-made in a clearly B-picture sort of way: not too many sets, a conspicuously minor set of actors except for Dana Andrews--though I agree with others posting here that Mel Torme's performance is a standout--and a certain unadventurousness in the visuals and pacing, despite Tourneur's presence at the helm). By watching the film, we are made aware just how much we've come to accept certain the vast "untruthfulness" or immorality of the way politicians are marketed and elected. It's as though all of the things deplored in this film have completely become "business as usual" in our time, seemingly because the desire to operate this way in politics has survived tenaciously despite the occasional railing against it the way this film does. These days you might hear objections from alternate news sources or fringe publications to this type of deceptive political lobbying and marketing, but other than that it's clearly our daily contemporary political reality being objected to so strenuously 45 years ago in THE FEARMAKERS. While the film unfolds tightly and economically enough, it does suffer from a certain "pat-ness" concerning the plot coincidences concerning the doctor character Andrews meets on the plane at the beginning of the film. That whole subplot unfolds too easily within the overall story, as though the already claustrophobically tiny world of the characters of this movie couldn't possibly expand enough for some randomness or ambiguity between it's small ensemble of characters. Is there no-one in Washington who isn't in some way related to this plot? If memory serves, I don't believe there is ever a line spoken by anyone in this film who is not in some way part of the web of characters involved somehow for or against the unfolding scam, even though we are in cabs, in hotels, in a boarding house, on a plane, and in the city of Washington, throughout.Still, it's worth the time invested, and presents a curiously brusque performance by Andrews. His character is supposed to be tired and unstable after his ordeal in Korea, and yet it's difficult to know whether the occasionally zombie-like performance of Andrews in this film is entirely intentional. The actor himself seems fatigued and lethargic at times-- is that all for the sake of the character? But there are enough little twists and surprises in this film to hold our interest, and if the film feels at time like an extended episode of the old Perry Mason TV series, that's not necessarily a bad thing if you like that sort of presentation (as I admittedly do).I'd also agree with others here that this is a film ripe for a remake, although there is no doubt it would be a COMPLETELY different movie, with a completely different moral sense.