Word: propagandas
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Riot in Cell-Block 11 has some points to make about prison reform, and hammers them home with billy clubs and screaming sirens. Doling out undiluted propaganda, the film presents a semi-documentary account of a prison revolt at Folsom Penitentiary, and between tedious explanations of its causes and effects, packs in some excellent action scenes. As a result, Riot presses its criticism of outmoded prison methods relentlessly in both dialogue and action. The effect is almost too strong...
...sheer propaganda, however, producer Walter Wanger has a masterpiece. The photography of Folsom's long, bare corridors creates an oppressive mood which is seldom relieved, and the contrast between the prison's cold mechanical routine and the sympathetic plight of its convicts is unusually effective. Wanger needed no stars to simulate these convicts, and except for Neville Brant as the chief conspirator, has none. Most of the cast has been supplied by Folsom's good-behavior inmates, whose rioting possesses a good deal of fervor and realism...
...oddly enough, the rioters prove to be idealists who have gained little for their troubles. Riot in Cell Block 11 concludes on a note of sour realism in harmony with its previous tone. Though the film's propaganda remains both pure and laudable, for entertainment value this is hardly an unmixed blessing...
...defense attorney, the late Emanuel Bloch. to a Manhattan couple, Songwriter Abel (Strange Fruit) Meeropol and his wife. The Society for the Prevention of-Cruelty to Children charged that, in the hands of the Meeropols, the two orphans were ruthlessly exploited by Communist groups as fund-raising tools and propaganda sob stories. This week State Supreme Court Justice James B. M. McNally asked the children's grandmother, Mrs. Sophie Rosenberg, if she wanted the boys. In tears, she said: "That's my children. I want to take them, please." Then the judge asked her (for the record) whether...
...Communist-lining in the Teachers Union was plain to see. Japanese teachers are overworked (average work week: 60 hours) and underpaid (average salary: about $50 a month). A small group of Reds and fellow travelers has played on their grievances and twisted their idealism to work up a propaganda war against the U.S. and "capitalist war plans," and for "peace" and "neutrality." Japan's unruly student population, in turn, has proved to be fertile soil for the smooth-sounding "peace" campaigns of the teachers...