Ayn Rand and Thomas Pynchon

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: <MalignD at aol.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 3:50 PM
Subject: NP: Ayn Rand and Thomas Pynchon


> Life in Russia
>
>  Suddenly there is a Nazi attack on them. The poor, sweet
> Russians were unprepared...
>

"One can only imagine the reaction of arch-conservative MGM head Louis B.
Mayer when Song of Russia first tumbled over the spools in the studio
projection room. It must be remembered, however, that back in 1944 it was
politically expedient for Hollywood to offer hosannas to America's Russian
allies, and to gloss over the less-attractive aspects of the Stalin regime.
Based on Scorched Earth, a story by Leo Mittler, the film stars Robert
Taylor as John Meredith, a famous American symphony conductor who is touring
Russia just before the war. Meredith falls in love with Russian lass Nadya
Stepanova (Susan Peters), who impresses him with her conviviality and charm:
why, she's almost like a typical American girl! In the course of their
romance, Meredith and Nadya visit a collective farm, where the peasants
sing, dance and smile all day. The lovers marry, only to have their
honeymoon abruptly halted when the Nazis invade the Soviet Union. Nadya
promptly joins the Resistance, solemnly assembling molotov cocktails and
shooting down Germans with her comrades. Just before the Nazis swarm into
Nadya's village, the peasants set fire to the place so that Hitlers minions
will not be able to plunder its resources. All of this is played out against
the music of Tschiakovsky and other Russian composers. During the HUAC
investigations in the early 1950s, several of the personnel involved in Song
of Russia were required to explain why they'd been involved in so blatantly
"pro-communist" a project. Louis B. Mayer blithely explained that he "just
wanted to make a picture about Russians, not communists," while star Robert
Taylor - likewise a staunch anti-Red - insisted that he'd been forced to
make the film, and that he'd demanded script deletions throughout
productions. In the end, the losers were screenwriters Richard Collins and
Paul Jarrico, both of whom ended up on the egregious Hollywood Blacklist,
simply for adhering to America's wartime pro-Soviet sentiments." - Hal
Erickson
http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll

"(...) Robert Taylor - likewise a staunch anti-Red - insisted that he'd been
forced to make the film (...)"

"forced" -- sounds as if the US in 1943 were quite soviet-like.

Otto

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