Mexico and the Blacklist

For all its vaunted black & white visuals, film noir was not a unique phenomenon; there were scores of movies being made in the 1940s, and even earlier, that, shadow for shadow, angle for angle, had all the look of noir but could hardly be called film noir [1]. What makes the genre black is something more elusive -- a mood, angst, or zeitgeist, call it what you will [2]. Perversely, then, a defining feature of noir is a certain undefined menace, always lurking subliminally in the background, overlaying every scene with a larded sense of dread. The smell of fear, perhaps, as one writer so famously put it.

And while it may be an oversimplification to invoke the much-used term paranoia [3], certainly the Red Scare which coincided with the noir heyday of the late 1940s and early 1950s was a major contributing ingredient, ubiquitously fanning the flames of suspicion, recriminations and counter-recriminations, and in the process infusing the noir universe with its own special brand of pungent atmospherics.

To wit - and in one of the more infelicitous coincidences in film history - it happened that many of the artists who came to be associated with what we today call film noir tended toward the Left in their political sympathies [4]. Suffice to say that the Congressional investigations into ‘subversive’ elements in the film industry had an especially telling impact on the writers, editors, directors and actors who worked in film noir [5], in the process ruining, shortening or compromising entire careers, and in some cases, shortening lives.

Paraphrasing Raymond Chandler yet again, American society in the late 1940s and early 1950s had become dark with something more than night. As a result, Mexico and France in particular became popular alternatives for those who wished to escape the accusatory atmosphere of the times, especially those who found themselves under the watchful eye of the Red Scare police. The refugees on the Hollywood blacklist, as well as intellectuals and artists in other contexts, who ‘escaped’ to Mexico [6], continued to eke out a living, as screenwriters, ghostwriters, actors, directors, etc., or they worked in related fields, in any case under varying, usually greatly reduced circumstances (Gordon, p. 33).

There’s a further, rather cruel irony in that a common theme in American films noirs, to the point of cliché, is the notion of escape to Mexico. For the blacklistees, however, the flight to Mexico was a transmogrified, real-life variation on the noir formula. Their crime had been ideological incorrectness, and - however imperfect - Mexico represented a welcome refuge in an ever-unforgiving, indeed, noirish universe.

[1] Just a few examples : Casablanca, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Uninvited, The Black Cat, The Song of Bernadette, The Razor’s Edge, 39 Steps, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Cat People, Since You Went Away, Brief Encounter.

[2] As one source puts it : "Film noir reflected an existential dread far deeper than politics could encompass. ‘The death of God’ gets closer to expressing this than ‘the corruption of Capitalism’." (Film noir and the Death of God and More on Film Noir and the Death of God).

[3] For more on Cold War nuclear paranoia in particular and its connection to film noir, see : Mark Osteen, “The Big Secret : Film Noir and Nuclear Fear,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 22(2), Summer 1994, pp79-90; and Walter Metz, ''Keep the Coffee Hot, Hugo” : Nuclear Trauma in Lang's The Big Heat, Film Criticism, 21(3), Spring 1997, pp43-65.

[4] The resultant House Un-American Activities Committee's persecution of progressive actors, directors and especially writers has been dealt with in detail elsewhere. The many books include : Thomas Doherty, Cold War, Cool Medium : Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture, New York, Columbia University Press, 2003; Patrick McGilligan and Paul Buhle, Tender Comrades : a Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist, New York,  St. Martin's Press, 1997; "Un-American" Hollywood : Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era, edited by Frank Krutnik [et al.], New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 2007; Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner, Hide in Plain Sight : the Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and Television, 1950-2002, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Reynold Humphries, Hollywood's Blacklists : a Political and Cultural History, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2008. See also : Philip Kemp, "From the Nightmare Factory : HUAC and the Politics of Noir," Sight & Sound v55 (1986), pp266-270.

[5] Two good analyses of film noir and the Blacklist can be found here and here. And there’s a nice collection of articles and posts at The Hollywood Left and the Blacklist Era. Two good books on film noir and its connection to the Red Scare are : Wheeler Winston Dixon, Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia (New Brunswick, N.J., Rutgers University Press, 2009); and Ray Pratt, Projecting Paranoia : Conspiratorial Visions in American Film, (Lawrence, University Press of Kansas, 2001). See also : Handwringing Over Mass Culture 1950-1959, a Chronology, by Richard Keller Simon.

[6] There’s an extensive literature on Mexico exiles and the prevailing culture of the times. The best source is Rebecca M. Schreiber’s richly detailed Cold War Exiles in Mexico : U.S. Dissidents and the Culture of Critical Resistance (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2008), which covers visual artists and writers as well as filmmakers, and in addition examines African Americans fleeing racial prejudice. Other sources include Bernard Gordon, Hollywood Exile, or, How I Learned to Love the Blacklist : a Memoir, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1999; and Diana Anhalt, A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1948-1965 (Archer, 2001).

Our Man in Mexico

Morley, Jefferson. Our man in Mexico : Winston Scott and the hidden history of the CIA. Foreword by Michael Scott. Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, 2008.

The Mexico connection 
In the 1940s and 1950s a different kind of noir engulfed the U.S. and the entire Western world -- the specter of the Cold War, with all its attendant Red Scare paranoia and uncertainty. Because of its strategic pole position in the Cold War sweepstakes, Mexico came in for special attention from both sides. This was due mostly to Mexico’s status as gateway to Latin America as well as its proximity to Cuba. With the U.S. government’s near-pathological concern over Leftist uprisings in the Americas, it’s not difficult to see why Mexico City achieved such prominence.

The hero of our story is Winston Scott, CIA career officer, eventual Mexico City station chief, and a man of surprising shadings and complexities [1]. A strict taskmeister on the job but a coddling father at home, Scott had a picaresque temperament which metamorphosed into a certain suave, business-like exterior which served him well in his diplomatic cover. The downside was a predilection for inconvenient romantic entanglements which seemed to inspire the dreamy poetry he wrote during off-hours. A good soldier and true believer who was entrusted with the most sensitive assignment in the Western hemisphere, he nonetheless was left out of the loop by his Washington masters on matters relating to JFK's assassination, and he eventually came to have considerable doubts about the agency [2]. Tellingly, his memoirs, unpublished at the time of his death, were considered so potentially explosive that legendary spymaster James Angleton rushed to Mexico City only a few days after Scott’s death to whisk away the originals plus any copies, taking them back to Washington for safe keeping. Even today, four decades later, they’ve not seen the light of day [3].

Not quite conspiracist
Thus, on one level the book is a straightforward narrative of Scott’s life and colorful career, with especially good coverage of his years in Britain in WWII and his acquaintance with one Kim Philby. It also gives us a good flavor of social and political life in Mexico City the 50s and 60s (“Casablanca of the Cold War”). But the centerpiece of the story is of course Lee Harvey Oswald’s visit to Mexico City in late September and early October of 1963 [4]. The two oustanding issues raised by the book seem to be the CIA's advance, pre-assassination knowledge of Oswald generally, and in particular the degree to which the Mexico office was or was not involved in monitoring his activities there. There’s lots of facts to ponder and dots to connect, but the evidence – as ever, maddeningly incomplete and fragmentary – suggests more than it delivers. Lots of good stuff, but no smoking guns [5]. But even with these imperfections, Our Man in Mexico makes a substantial contribution to JFK assassination studies and will give historians and general readers plenty to chew over.

[1] Not so surprisingly, considering his line of work, Scott ultimately remains a mystery and enigma.
[2] Scott’s misgivings about the agency were primarily regarding its organization and management style, not necessarily its philosophy or mission. In this respect he was a true believer to the end.
[3] To be sure, about one half of Scott’s memoirs have been released publically. The only complete copies of the original manuscript, however, remain at CIA headquarters. 
[4] An alternate, conspiracist version of the events - not necessarily endorsed by Morley - posits that the man who visited Mexico City was an Oswald double or impersonator. 
[5] In a recent article on the subject, author Morely seems to lean toward a conspiracist interpretation.