My Son John (1952) User Reviews

Heavy handed anti-commie propaganda all of the way

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 17 May 2016]

In the beginning we see all of the Jeffersons -sans the titular John - going to church in their small town, getting ready to send their two sons off to Korea. These are the good sons, the literally blue eyed blonde haired sons in their uniforms going off to war, with the church symbolically behind them as the priest is the one to drive them off to join up with their regiments. Hey. Have I just wandered into a Nazi propaganda film, because so far it sure seems like it! Didn't Sam Goldwyn make "The North Star" just nine years before telling us how great and friendly those Russians were? And that Stalin, he was just a big lovable father figure...in 1943 that is.

John is given a big build up before he even physically enters the scene. He is a big intellect. His brothers were the football players, he was the student. Dad is suspicious of John and thinks he looks down on them. Mom is still seeing him as a little boy, and sometimes it gets downright creepy. You almost feel like if John died and she lived we'd have the reverse of Hitchcock's "Psycho" playing out as John would be the stuffed one sitting in a rocker. John is also treated as some sort of supernatural threat that only mother love and the Catholic church can defeat. The truth unfolds as though the son has been found out to be a vampire, one of the walking dead. Rosaries and crosses and talk of God thus repel him.

There also seemed to be quite a bit of Bruno ("Strangers on a Train") in John Jefferson, especially with cigarette in hand, conversing with dear old Mom: Oh you know how father is, etc. He just preferred a gray flannel suit to a silk dressing gown, and communism to homosexuality. Besides the dark shadow of Marxism-Leninism hovering over the Jefferson household, there is the dark shadow of mom's menopause. Mother Jefferson does seem very subject to mood swings, even before she starts to suspect John's secret. That's why the doctor gave her those three times a day pills. I think Helen Hayes played this role very well, with just the right tone of confused mother love, and a little bit of pixilation. But maybe it would have been better if her two All-American sons had actually sent her back an opium pipe from their government-sponsored trip to Korea rather than a kimono, and the necessary contents to fill it. Mom could have mellowed out a bit. Who sends their mom a kimono anyways?

Leaving aside the Communist element, this film is similar to ones like All My Sons and others of the deep, dark, family secret genre. Usually it's the old man who is hiding something from his cheerily normal family. This time it's the son who has the secret. That sets up all those claustrophobic, dark, gloomy scenes between the three in their somewhat spooky house. And while it's overlong and overwrought, that's the saving grace of this film. There's a certain pedestrian reality to this aspect of the movie that's separate from all the Red Scare guff. I was hoping John would come through with a few more anti-clerical shafts at the expense of the priest, but you can't have everything.

If you want to see a similar film from the same era, see John Wayne's "Big Jim McLain". That one has a lot more action, Wayne style, but still makes the same basic claim. Loyal all-American guys and gals are physically attractive and good at sports and genuinely well liked. The ones that are likely to be seduced by Communism lack athletic ability and may be overly intellectual, making them prime targets for being philosophically enslaved by their Soviet masters. However, in trying to fight the Soviet menace, the authorities use tactics similar to those they say that they are fighting, such as faking a car accident, impersonating Joe average, and then smooth talking their way into the home of the unknowing parents so they can get them talking and maybe get some clues, which FBI agent Van Heflin does. Yet somehow, being Heflin after all, he manages to remain charming throughout.

This had to have been an A-list production for Paramount, because of the very talented cast. You have Academy award winning Helen Hayes and Van Heflin, Dean Jagger as John's father playing it a bit over the top, and finally Frank McHugh in a more serious role than I was accustomed to seeing him in, but still with a touch of that comic wit he displayed over at Warner Brothers in the 30'sand 40's. I'd recommend it because the mass hysteria of the red scares may be 65 years in the past, but this film gives us a good record of how it affected the film industry. I'm giving a 6/10 more for historical value and being a snapshot in time.

This was on Turner Classic Movies about six years ago, just once. Other than buying the rather pricey DVD, the only other way I know to see it is Amazon Prime, where it is free per view, which is how I saw it today.

Hollywood in the Dark Ages

[Teagarden1256 · 6/10 · 6 December 2021]

Much maligned in its day as one of Hollywood's much too fervent attempts at atonement to the HUAC and McCarthy for having once hired so many communists, this slick Paramount picture made in 1952 remains a social document that reveals the right-wing views some members of the film community held during those dark days. It glorifies an idealized small-town family. Dad (Dean Jagger) is a solid hard-working citizen, a Legioner who finds time to toss around a football with his two blonde athletic sons about to fight the good war in Korea; he's a man who goes to church every Sunday. The flaw in the perfect unit is mother--who else?-- and her curse of too much Mommy love; Helen Hayes, for some reason, too obviously dotes on the son (Robert Walker) who doesn't play football, doesn't go to church, and prefers the company of college professors, yes professors, to his own family. He is, horror of horrors, a practicing self-admitted intellectual.

Needless to say, we eventually learn that any spoiled child brought up this way cannot be up to good. Despite this silly propogandist view of the true values of decent American life, the film is very well directed by the great Leo McCarey, excellently acted by all the leading players. Robert Walker, in his last film, is particularly effective as the non-athletic son with heretic (read unAmerican) views. If the film had been made a decade or so later, his secret would have been that he was gay, but as this is 1952, the sin is political.

What a weird movie

[jjnxn-1 · 5/10 · 11 May 2013]

Somewhat paranoiac drama looking at the perceived communist threat in the 40s and 50s. Overwrought in both direction and performance-Helen Hayes in particular seems on the very verge throughout the film. Walker died suddenly during the making of the film and his performance was completed by cobbling together outtakes from Strangers on a Train and the use of a stand-in in some scenes, its easy to pick out most of the these and it cast an odd melancholy pall over the picture. More of an interesting artifact of a troubled time in US history than a good example of film making. McCarey could be an exceptional director who made many fine films and possessed a few Oscars but he is decidedly off his game here. A strange experience.

In its way, a historical document.

[robertshort_3 · 17 September 2004]

In its way, this film is a historical document (albeit a misguided one), and certainly a product of its time. Made at the height of the infamous red scare, "My Son John" is so fervent in its anti-Communist message that it becomes somewhat fascinating as a piece of social history.The film has become famous (or perhaps more correctly notorious) as propaganda; despite the sometimes; overwrought script, the film is not without a talented cast. The great theatrical actress Helen Hayes, in one of her relatively rare movie appearances, is really very good as the mother, as is Dean Jagger as the father, and Robert Walker is fine as the son who is the object of his parent's suspicions. (Walker actually died before filming was finished, so some scenes were shot with a double or prepared with footage from Walker's earlier film "Strangers On A Train", or re-written to exclude Walker's character or requiring his presence.)

In response to another reviewer, who wondered who had actually seen this film - I saw it a couple of times on Canadian television, once in the 1970's, and the last time in December, 1990. To my knowledge, it hasn't been shown on Canadian TV (at least in my viewing area) since that time.

Update: The film was released on DVD and blu-ray in 2015.

A magnificent performance from Helen Hayes redeems this piece of propaganda

[MOscarbradley · 6/10 · 19 March 2020]

Leo McCarey was one of the greatest directors ever to come out of Hollywood but he was also vehemently right-wing in his views and he made two stringently anti-communist pictures, "Satan Never Sleeps", which brought his career to a somewhat ignominious close and "My Son John" which he made in 1952 at the height of Hollywood's anti-communist scare. It centres on a very typical Mid-American family; father Dean Jagger, mother Helen Hayes, (with Jesus wanting both of them for sun-beams), and their beloved son, John, (Robert Walker at his most insidious), who returns from Washington spouting views that could hardly be called American. You may wonder which is worse; the sweetness-and-light family or the ultra-cynical John, both of whom I would happily have taken a baseball bat to. If you can't fault the skill of McCarey's direction, you might throw up at the content. Subtle this movie ain't.

Givien the appalling material they have to work with Hayes, Jagger, Walker and the always reliable Van Heflin as an investigating FBI man all give superb performances as characters you either don't believe in or simply can't stand with Hayes good enough, not only to redeem the picture, but actually make it worth watching. Is it any wonder she was considered the greatest actress of the American theatre? However, because of its unfashionable subject matter the film is not highly thought of and even fans of McCarey tend to dismiss it. It's the kind of film you wish they could completely re-dub with an entirely different plot along the lines of "What's Up, Tiger Lily". As a picture of an American family coming apart it can be commended; just a pity about the message.

The Daughters of the American Revolution meet Oedipus Rex

[bmacv · 4/10 · 20 December 2003]

Caution: Contains spoilers

There are countless strands in what Richard Hofstadter termed the `paranoid style in American Politics.' In My Son John, Leo McCarey (the Frank-Capraesque director of Duck Soup, Ruggles of Red Gap and Going My Way), weaves several of them into the most emotionally loaded and propagandistically shameless Red Scare movie of the cold-war years. He reassembles the apparatus of the home-front tearjerker, retired after deployment during World War II, to feed fears of Soviet infiltration. Rarely resuscitated, My Son John remains a glimpse into a tribal mind-set that by no means vanished with the disgrace and death of Senator Joe McCarthy but even after the turn of a new millennium enjoys its vogue.

The Jeffersons are middle-Americans right out of Norman Rockwell cover art. Patriarch Dean Jagger is a schoolteacher, Legionnaire, pipe-smoker and beer-drinker (though when vexed switches to Bourbon). Mom is apple-cheeked, twinkly-eyed Helen Hayes, active in her church's Ladies' Solidarity and even more so in keeping tabs on her three grown sons. Two of them (beefy blonds Richard Jaeckel and James Young) present no obvious problem, as former halfbacks headed off to fight the Korean War. (Normal or no, one of them bids mom farewell by a slap on her rear end.) The third, dark-haired child, however (Robert Walker), never tossed a pigskin in his life (the first clue), but in compensation boasts `more degrees than a thermometer.' Consequently of course he's a non-believer. Also, he's a big shot in Washington - and, as it will emerge, an operative of the Communist conspiracy.

My Son John keeps the revelation of his sinister, secret life firmly within the bosom of this increasingly screwy family, augmented by a priest and a doctor. Old hostilities erupt on one of Walker's rare visits home. While Hayes labors to keep up the facade of normalcy by bustling around like Fay Bainter and mugging like a simpleton, she defaults to mournful reverie more appropriate to Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night. Jagger stays full of bluster and received opinion, another simpleton doing duty as model citizen. Against a barrage of parental prying (`People in Washington are starting to see things as they are, aren't they?' and `Do you have a girl yet?' and `What church are you going to in Washington?'), Walker maintains a detached air of amused condescension, baffling Hayes (whom he soothingly dismisses as `dear' and `darling') and needling Jagger (hence, the whiskey).

Half a century later, Walker's irony has another register to it, that of an urban (and urbane) homosexual parrying the thrusts of parochial snoops. Even at the time it probably had this resonance, if more faintly, since sodomy, atheism and Communism made up the unholy, if unspoken, triad of the times (aka: moral turpitude). But the hint of sexual unorthodoxy may owe to Walker's reprising his Bruno Anthony in Hitchcock's Strangers On A Train of the previous year, where his interactions with dotty mother (Marion Lorne) and unseen but hated father are much like the dynamics of the Jefferson family. (This identification has an even closer source, of which more later.) And Hayes' penetration of her son John's wicked ways comes from wounded maternal pride (`When it gets to the stage that you're making fun of a mother's love...,' she accuses, breaking off in horror).

But on the surface, Walker's derelictions are not any liaisons he may pursue in Rock Creek Park after midnight but his abandonment first of his faith then of patriotism. When he urges Hayes to take the pills the doctor has prescribed for her (apparently, some menopausal nostrum), she comes back with `What about Moses and the tablets he left behind with the prescription written right on them?' Boasting that the only reading that matters to her are cookbook and Bible, she makes him swear on it (the Good Book, not Good Housekeeping) that he is `not now nor ever was' a member of the Communist Party, as if the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities had convened in the homey kitchen. Moments later, Jagger makes him repeat the same oath but won't accept it, on the grounds that the Bible means nothing to dialectical materialists. (Had Walker been a JayCee and a Taft Republican, it wouldn't have warmed Jagger's iced-up heart.)

The movie careens along an ever murkier trajectory. Van Heflin insinuates himself deviously into their lives, in a way more typical of Eastern-Bloc secret police than of J. Edgar Hoover's F.B.I. When a key left in a pair of torn pants precipitates an urgent call from Walker, Hayes dutifully retrieves them from the church charity drive and boards a plane to Washington to deliver them. Intercepted and set up by Heflin, she finds that the key unlocks the door to a convicted spy's apartment - finally, the furtive love-nest uncovered through a mother's vigilance! (Happily, the spy turns out to be female, so at least her worst suspicions are allayed.)

The plot, which had shown some measure of control, grows more hysterical as it thrashes around looking for a way out. Hayes, decompensating as battily as Gloria Swanson in the last reel of Sunset Blvd., sings snatches of the `Battle Hymn of the Republic' and spouts football metaphors. And Walker suddenly undergoes a dark night of the soul, precipitated by - what else? - his love for his mother.

To be fair, the making of My Son John suffered the worst kind of catastrophe: Before principal photography was completed, Walker died (of an adverse reaction to a shot of the sedative sodium amytal, potentiated by the level of alcohol customarily in his bloodstream). So the final cut was cobbled together from existing footage augmented with outtakes from Strangers On A Train (there are oddly-composed shots of Walker speaking silently from telephone booths). In the movie, Walker (as he would do simultaneously off screen) meets an abrupt quietus; he was on his way to `infect' the graduating class of his alma mater through a commencement speech. And the film's conclusion freezes into a long, hieratic tableau: A shaft of radiant light (suggestive either of divine grace or an interrogation chamber) floods the empty podium as Walker's tape-recorded voice delivers his anguished recantation. This sustained note of redemption rings as false to the traditions of cinema as it does to the politics of the time and to any mature grasp of human nature.

Diddle, Diddle Dumpling...............!

[bsmith5552 · 7/10 · 7 June 2020]

"My Son John" was made at the height of the McCarthy House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) communist witch hunt, so expect some patriotic flag waving.

It's the story of the Jefferson family who live in an un-named typical American town living typical American lives. Mother Lucille (Helen Hayes) is a sickly nervous person who is proud of her family, Father Dan (Dean Jagger) is president of the local Legion and both are staunch Catholics. Sons Chuck (Richard Jaeckel) and Ben (James Young) are football playing brothers who have just joined the army to go fight the evil in Korea. But then there is John (Robert Walker).

John has returned from abroad a changed man. He no longer agrees with his father's views and much to his mother's anguish and that of Parish Priest Father O'Dowd (Frank McHugh), refuses to attend Sunday mass during his visit home. He receives phone calls from a mysterious woman and dashes off to secret meetings without explanation. He announces that he is to be awarded an honorary degree by an un-named university where he is scheduled to give the commencement address.

Dan and Lucille are involved in a minor traffic accident with a stranger named Stedman (Van Heflin). Stedman is an FBI agent who uses the accident to gain the confidence of the Jeffersons. Tension grows between John and his father, particularly when John "makes notes" on a patriotic speech Dan is to make to his Legion colleagues.

Stedman identifies himself to Lucille who becomes distraught over the thought that her eldest son may be a communist. In a disagreement with Dan, John is struck by the old man and tears his trousers. John, who has to leave suddenly, Leaves the trouser behind and asks his mother to donate them to the church rummage sale. Unfortunately, John had left a incriminating key in the trousers and excitedly gets his mother to retrieve it. Curious and still not believing that John is a communist, flies to Washington and goes to the apartment of the female communist sympathizer who has just been exposed.

Shocked, Lucille returns home and now realizes that John had been involved with this woman. She confronts him. And in the highlight of the film, she pleads with him to change his ways before it is too late. John at first refuses. When his mother's health begins to fail, he relents and promise to right his wrongs by changing his planned commencement speech. John's colleagues fearing that he will expose them have him killed.

John, however, had recorded the speech beforehand and it is this that is played before the graduating class vindicating him in the eyes of his parents.

The film has some slow spots and an overlong running time. There is no action to speak of until the end. Helen Hayes plea to her wayward son is the highlight of the movie as she begs him on bended knee to reform. Robert Walker, who died before his scenes were completes, gives another sinister performance as John. His missing scenes were completed using a double and out takes from his previous film "Strangers On a Train" (1951). Kudos also to Dean Jagger as the flag waving father. He rarely had a leading role like this one.

From The Mind Of Leo McCarey

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 27 January 2010]

In viewing My Son John you have to keep a few things in mind. First Leo McCarey directed and wrote the film. Second Leo McCarey was a staunch anti-Communist and part of Hollywood's right wing caucus. Third Leo McCarey was also a devout and practicing Catholic. Fourth Leo McCarey was also one of Hollywood's bigger alcoholics. Put all that together and I think you've got the answer to how My Son John was created.

It's interesting to speculate how My Son John would have turned out if Robert Walker had lived to complete the film. Putting the patchwork ending on the film that he was forced to do left a lot of plot holes. For one thing, I'm not sure exactly why the FBI in the person of Van Heflin was on to Walker. He's a government bureaucrat, a high level one, but we never really learn what he did as a job and what he might have been doing for the Communists.

What Walker is is the oldest son of Dean Jagger and Helen Hayes as a representative a group of middle Americans as you can get. He's quite a bit older than his brothers and made a good academic record and now is a big success in Washington. His two jock younger brothers, Richard Jaeckel and James Young are about to go to war in Korea and he's back home for the family sendoff. You know right away something's amiss when he shows up late, not really having the heart to wish his brothers well in fighting against the Reds in Korea.

How do you spot a Communist? Well if you're Leo McCarey you've got to dislike the Catholic Church you've been brought up in. That's what Walker does, he makes snide remarks about the church and other wholesome American institutions. Man's got to be a subversive as his parents come to realize. Remember Pius XII was Pope at the time and he was a staunch anti-Communist. This is where McCarey's Catholicism comes into play.

How incredibly naive. If Walker were really an effective spy he'd be the loudest amen shouter in church, make the most obviously big contributions in the collection plate etc. to keep his cover.

Frank McHugh reprises his role from Going My Way as Father O'Dowd who apparently has left the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen New York and Barry Fitzgerald and now is pastoring out in the red states. Since McCarey also wrote and directed Going My Way and created McHugh's character he certainly could do what he wanted with him. But for the life of me I can't figure out why McHugh adopted a brogue for this film when he had none in Going My Way.

When Leo McCarey was creating some of the best screen comedy like The Awful Truth and Once Upon A Honeymoon, there were few his peer and none better. But he was out of his league in dealing with political material. And if you're wondering about how this might have turned out if Walker had lived, take a look at McCarey's last film, Satan Never Sleeps. Also an anti-Communist film it makes My Son John look like Citizen Kane.

Russian interference or Red Scare?

[wglade · 9/10 · 12 September 2020]

We live In an era super charged with The seriousness of Russian interference in the American political system. For decades many dismissed the specter of communist and Russian influence in the west Even though we had proven cases throughout the Cold War. The Russian government under the Soviet system was far larger and more powerful than the Putin Russian government of today. it is so interesting that so many dismiss the influence the Russians had In the last half of the 20th century yet take the Russian interference in the second decade of the 21st century so seriously as a real threat. This film is dismissed and marked as anti-communist propaganda, but if one were to make a contemporary version of this film and place it into the context of the 2016 election maybe we will see that Russian interference has been far greater and more suspect than we realized.

Great time capsule movie

[ghostshirt2000 · 6/10 · 28 January 2010]

I watched it on TCM last evening; first time I've seen it in thirty years. Enjoyed it even more this time. Though Ms. Hayes turns on the tears a lot, there are also some finely nuanced scenes from her.

"My Son John" is neither mawkish or camp, my opinion. In context of the times, lack of any espionage storyline is easy to understand. Simply being a Commie was John's ultimate betrayal of his family; anything he did as Soviet agent was secondary to that.

A fun thing to watch for in this movie is the wealth of veiled references to Mrs. Jefferson's menopause all through the film. Heck, it even serves as sort of plot device in a climactic scene near the end.

Those seeking anti-Communist camp would be better served with John Wayne's "Big Jim McLain" released the same year.

"My Son John" is only partly a Cold War cautionary tale. It's mostly a family drama of inter-generational estrangement, with some education based class friction thrown in. Oh yeah, and LOTS and LOTS of menopause. I really enjoyed watching it.

Self-important anti-Red hysteria

[marcslope · 3/10 · 2 February 2010]

It's such a distinguished cast and crew, and they look as though they felt they were part of something important--the dark, somber lighting, slow pacing, and portentous music suggest Paramount's "A Place in the Sun" from the year before. But screenwriters John Lee Mahin (can this really be the same guy who wrote the lively, bawdy "Red Dust" 20 years earlier?) and Myles Connolly make elementary mistakes: They make Walker's secret ridiculously obvious without even telling us what D.C. department he works for, and they end scenes arbitrarily. McCarey and DP Harry Stradling, another distinguished name, traffic in irrelevant tracking shots and unimportant details. And McCarey badly misdirects his actors: Hayes and Jagger are way, way over the top, and she gesticulates like a silent-screen heroine. Walker overdoes prissy (which I guess equaled Communist in that climate), and Heflin's underplaying, while not much fun to watch, is refreshing in contrast. Most anti-Red pictures of the day were Bs, and it's instructive seeing what A-picture production values could bring to the party. But the picture's, meaning McCarey's, viewpoint is odious, and even such basic functions as plotting and pacing are substandard.

An important film that documents American culture of the early 1950's

[bestactor · 9/10 · 1 April 2005]

I saw this film only once when it was broadcast on network television (ABC, I think) during the late 1960's or early 1970's. I had already read about this movie and made a point of watching it to see how "terrible/horrible" it really was. What I saw was a very slick and entertaining piece of propaganda. This was obviously Hollywood's reply to the HUAC and McCarthyism. It would be interesting to know what the artists involved really thought of this film as they were making it and how they regarded it, later. It is ridiculous for film critic bloggers to trash the individuals associated with this movie; there are thousands of miles of celluloid that stink far worse than this. What is horrible is the culture that produced the "need" for this propaganda, and that was never able to know or tell the truth because of political institutions. This film is evidence of a shameful and troubling period of history that, even today, seems to be rewritten to justify the present and future brain washers of America. This movie deserves to be preserved and should be made available for all to see.

obviously communism is so dangerous that it would beat capitalism in any open debate?

[karlericsson · 6/10 · 12 September 2012]

This is probably the most communist film I've ever seen. Yes, you read correctly: "communist" not "anti-communist"! The communists must not be allowed to speak - that is the point of this movie and with this point it declares that the communists are right, since obviously their arguments are so strong and full of convincing virtue that it will beat the weak plea of the capitalists any day.

This film really does not go beyond the statement above. If you are looking for an intelligent debate between father and son on the issue of any -ism, you will have to go elsewhere. The emotional propaganda of capitalism is however beautifully displayed and, yes, revealed in all its nakedness. It's as if capitalism really hasn't any arguments on virtue and, as this film reveals, their is certainly no free speech! Interestingly, there is also little attempt by the communist to convince his surroundings. He does not even try to debate his mother! it's as if he regarded his parents as insane and beyond all logic, a topic that is brought up openly more than once. Obviously, free speech would never convince people like his parents, who seem to be brainwashed beyond all hope. No, free speech is not allowed for the communist because such speech would convince the intelligent, such as inventors and scientist, who otherwise find little time to engage in these questions.

I'm probably reading too much into this movie, which maybe only is a fairly accurate account of the fifties, intellectually.

I experienced the fifties as a boy and felt there was much love around in a developing society and in Europe we developed toward communism for a long time. Only the brutes of Stalin, Breshnew and the like kept us from full communism. Crustiev was a little different as was Gorbatjov.

Today we have the internet and youtube and are not as easily fooled as during the fifties. Still, it's an interesting thought that there is no attack on rich and poor to end these abominations, whereas a 100 years ago that was openly and seriously discussed and so gave rise to communism and anarkism.

Oscar Nominee: Best Screemplay

[jeffhaller · 3/10 · 1 December 2021]

Thought this would be entertaining and interesting to see because of the 1950s Communist hysteria? WRONG!! It was a bore, in spite of great actors and a very fine director. The very middle class everyday American family felt the way it did (phony). But the evil character, Walker, is so unpleasant, after all he is a commie. But of course he is like a heathen who accepts Jesus at the last minute. As he is dying, he find patriotism. The movie is like a comedy sketch parody of American ideals. Scarily in 2020s idiotic United States, there are those who would see this as what happens as a result of electing those commies, the Demorats.

Does anyone know WHY this film is unavailable?

[sammydees · 25 July 2005]

I have been watching movies for 35 years and follow listings, VHS and DVD releases, and this is one I have YET to come across. Does anyone know WHY it isn't available in some form or the other? Is it lost? Does it need restoration? The content, while out of date, nevertheless, isn't the main issue. It's that this film needs to be seen. What good are films, such as this one, "Porgy and Bess," "The Constant Nymph," etc tied up in estates for no one to see and pass opinions on? I wish there were a website of "unavailable films" where one could reference why certain ones are never heard from. Cable channels too many times show the same films over and over again but never ones that need to be seen.

John take the ball before the clock runs out!

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 28 January 2010]

(Some Spoilers) Over the top anti-Communist film that was so outrageous that even when it was released back in 1952 at the hight of the Communist Red Scare period that it bombed out in the box-office with its cast, with the exception of Robert Walker who died before its released, wishing that they never had anything to do with it.

There's the typical All-American family the Jeffersons who's two younger sons Chuck & Ben, Richard Jaeckel & James R. Young, are in the US Army and slated to go fight for their country against the Communist North Koreans and Red Chinese in the Korean War. There's also the oldest brother John the intellectual of the family, played by Robert Walker, about to give the commencement speech at his alma mater as well as receiving a honorable doctorate for his work in political science.

John always acting superior and like he knows it all John's father Dan, Dean Jagger, feels that there's something very strange and unpatriotic about him especially when he talks politics and religion. It's John's mom Lucille, Helen Hayes, who looks past her son's contrary views about the American way of life and religion, in the both Old & New testament, who totally overlooks his radical views about how things should be in the world.

As hard as he tried to hide his political feelings from his parents John's prissy intellectual shyster-like double-talk start to bring the dark side of him out into the open in him being not only a Commie sympathizer in his political views but actually a Commie spy in the people that he, back in Washington D.C, associates with! It's when Mr. Stedman, Van Hflin, who had earlier rear-ended their car showed up at the Jefferson home that the worst fears that his parents had about John became a reality. It turned out that Mr. Stedman was an FBI Agent investigating John's activities in D.C that involved him being a member of a underground Communist spy ring there!

Extremely dark, with the lights almost never turned on in the Jefferson home, and depressing film that has the slinking "Commie John" hidden in the shadows in almost every scene that he's in. It's as if John, like a cockroach, is afraid of the light being shined on him and exposing him for what he really is: A Godless unfeeling and anti-democratic and free world Commie! John's super patriotic father Dan who at first did had his number, in being an undercover Commie spy, later started to have second feelings about his sons very strange behavior. That's when Dan's wife Lucille convinced him that John's problems were because of a girl he was having an affair with not his love for the Communist system. It's later that Lucille found out from FBI Agent Stedman that the girl that John was involved with, who was arrested in an FBI bust, was the head of the Communist spy ring in D.C that he was a member of and was planning to overthrow, with the help of the Soviet Union, the United States Government!

***SPOILERS*** Feel good, if you can call it that, ending with John finally seeing the light in what a lowlife Commie swine he really is and then getting himself killed, by Commie agents, for it when he tried to turn himself over to the FBI. The fact that actor Robert Walker, who played John Jefferson, died before the film was finished the ending had to be changed with him getting killed off in the movie before he could make his public apology, for being a life-long Commie, at the commencement speech he was scheduled to give. To solve that very pressing problem the films writer & director Leo McCarey had John record his farewell address ahead of time and then having himself-McCarey-on the movie sound track give it to a stunned and shocked audience of graduate students at the collage!

P.S Helen Hayes who didn't make a movie for 17 years until she played Lucille Jefferson in the film was later reunited with her co-star in "My Son John" Van Haflin 18 years later in 1970 in the mega million dollar all star disaster epic "Airport".

Film is a victim of circumstances

[16mmRay · 5/10 · 21 July 2008]

Having just watched a mint 35mm transfer of MY SON JOHN, I can say it is very definitely worth seeing. But it is mostly for its individual idiosyncracies than for its success as a complete work. First and foremost, there is no getting around the fact that the horribly tragic death of Robert Walker resulted in, at best, a cobbled-together hodgepodge of cinema. Scene after scene has abrupt insert angles to cover lapses in material. Material that was probably shot but deleted due to necessary story restructuring following Walker's death. Dean Jagger is, for the most part, awful as John's father. Jagger was an odd actor who, when a part wasn't letter perfect for his distinct personality, often seemed ill-at-ease. Here he is often VERY ill-at-ease. Walker shows much of his brilliance and gosh only knows how many of the takes that wound up in the film would have been redone had he lived. Helen Hayes is brilliant with what she is given. Her characterization is heavily layered and perhaps if the film had been completed as designed her "Battle Hymn" scene might even have worked. Frank McHugh reprises his GOING MY WAY role as Father O'Dowd. Van Heflin is excellent as the FBI man (Todd Karnes is his partner). The biggest problem with the story is that there is really no narrative explanation of just what John was doing as a Communist. Had the film remained a pure character study of a clash of ideals and personalities it would have succeeded. It would even make a very good play. The procedural scenes with Heflin & Company are uninvolving. Again, how much of this was contrived after Walker's passing. So, if you have an opportunity, see the film. It's neither fish nor fowl; as a whole it is by no means good; but its individual elements are often fascinating and very rewarding. Probably the best line in the film is when Helen Hayes chastises Van Heflin, "What are you trying to do - fire up my patriotism?" Don't let the anti-anti-Communist zealots scare you away.

A deeply flawed but fascinating curio...

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 30 January 2010]

My reason for giving this film a 4 is for some problems with the acting as well as the contrived ending necessitated by the untimely death of Robert Walker.

My complaints about the actual subject matter of the film are minimal, as, despite some revisionist history, there apparently was some Communist infiltration of parts of the US government (particularly the State Department)--as shown by the release of records from the Soviet archives in the 1990s. Was it as bad a problem as the film shows--perhaps not. And, did justifiable concerns about this justify trampling the First Amendment right to free speech--of course not. But it was a serious problem and it was a very scary time in the world--with two nuclear powers nearing a deadly showdown. And, while there was a 'Red Scare' (with some terrible abuses of civil rights), there actually was a reason to be scared. So it's natural that a film would dramatize this struggle.

Sadly, despite the timeliness of the movie, they sure didn't do a particularly good job of it. Instead of the film being informative or entertaining, it came off as silly and contrived. My first biggest complaint was with Helen Hayes. For a while, I liked her playing of this role. She was sweet and believable...to a point. But, late in the film, she began overacting horribly and I felt embarrassed watching her. I'm not sure how much of this was due to the poor writing or her acting...or both. Unlike Robert Walker and Van Heflin (who both were quite good), she did NOT underplay her role in the least! Dean Jagger, for his part, overacted a bit as well--but nearly to the level that Hayes reached.

Another problem was the result of the film makers trying to work past the fact that Walker had died towards the very end of the production. I think it would have been better to scrap the scenes he made and re-shoot them with another actor. Instead, they changed about the script, used a double in a darkened room scene and substituted a shot from Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train" for his final scene--and had his voice indifferently dubbed. If you aren't looking for this, the ending will confuse you as it makes little sense. If you are, it's pretty obvious what they did--it shows.

Overall, the film comes off as a bit hysterical, disjoint and confusing. What could have been an interesting idea for a film just comes off as cheap propaganda in the end--though it could have had something to say had it been done better.

So bad it's sublime

[andym108 · 8/10 · 13 March 2006]

I actually owned a bootleg 16mm copy of "My Son John" about 35 years ago and showed it as part of a "Sex, Drugs and Treason" festival on college campuses, along with "Pecker Island" and "Reefer Madness." "My Son John" is a movie which is almost comically awful, with Robert Walker swearing on the Bible that he's not a Communist; Dean Jagger singing "If you don't like your Uncle Sammy;" the Communists tapping the FBI's phones rather than vice versa; Robert Walker dying from a blast of a Commie machine gun after a geographically impossible chase through downtown Washington; the taped posthumous speech to a collection of frozen-faced graduates with warnings of "stimulants" leading to "narcotics;" and finally, Dean Jagger more or less telling Helen Hayes that their late son got what he deserved.

So bad, though, that it's absolutely sublime, sort of like a "Reefer Madness" of politics, with its stereotyped, one-dimensional characters and its glorification of authority figures. I must have shown this movie several dozen times within the course of two years, but I could never once refrain from watching it again. There is no other movie which quite captures the spirit of blind conformity to the ethos of the witch-hunt as does "My Son John." Finding this site by accident makes me want to track down my copy (I lent it to a friend 15 years ago and never got it back) and see if I can get it transferred onto a DVD. Seeing this movie is better than reading almost any conventional political history of this period. Easily an 8 on a 10 scale, even acknowledging that it's one of those Bizarroworld scales.

Film with an agenda, but still, it has some good moments.

[donby-1 · 4/10 · 21 October 2007]

I saw this film when it appeared on Canadian TV some years ago. Yes, it has an agenda which seemed to really bother most reviewers, but it is worth preserving and seeing for a really wonderful performance by Helen Hayes, the best that I've seen from her. We feel her pain as she suspects, then has her suspicions gradually confirmed, that her son is a Communist spy. I also liked the performances of Van Heflin & Dean Jagger.

The ending is laughable, and there are some really clunky insertions of Robert Walker taken from Strangers on a Train. There is even one telephone scene using an actor who obviously is NOT Robert Walker.

One can't help wondering how this film would have turned out if Walker had not died in the middle of production. But still, someone, maybe Criterion, will put this one out on DVD to satisfy film buffs.

memories of the old town

[postcefalu · 9/10 · 5 March 2008]

After a long period of time (maybe 15 years, maybe more) I have finally seen this film thank you to the internet (and some unknown friend who put it "in the air"). It's interesting watching a feature that you have been years reading about; in this case much more to knock it down as a an anti-communist pamphlet with no interest. And like many films along cinema history this is a great and surprisingly unknown film, typical of the best period in McCarey's career, which it means that it's a perfectly edited, wonderfully rhymed, gracefully shot film. It's almost a perfect portrait of American families in the 50's, better (and before) than Nicholas Ray's "Rebel without a cause" and the consequences of generation affairs between father and sons, between the America coming out of a war and the new country that looks upon the future. Remarkable cast, perfect Robert Walker and Dean Jagger and moving Helen Hayes.

If you're blue, you're true, if you're red, you're dead.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 6 July 2015]

If you are going my way, you better be proud to be an American, a Democrat, a Republican, heck, even a Whig! But no commies allowed, not in Leo McCarey's world of the pro-Americana, anti-Red universe. So for all-American mom and pop (Helen Hayes and Dean Jagger) to go through the horrific discovery that one of their sons (Robert Walker) may indeed be a communist spy (not just a sympathizer) is a bit too much and turns their perfect world (which includes two athletic sons, now off fighting in Korea, and one intellect, now working in Washington D.C.) upside down.

You know you are in Leo McCarey territory when you see Frank McHugh as the Catholic priest greeting Jagger and Hayes and the two athletic sons, inquiring where the missing Walker is. He's too busy to be attending the final family dinner before the two athletes (Richard Jaeckel and James Young) head off to war. His absence means pain for his devoted mother who smiles through her tears, but this doesn't hide the fact that he's her favorite. He wasn't a jock like the others, but more sensitive, intelligent and curious, and thus, the weakling of the family who got mom's attention over the others. When he does finally appear, she dotes on him as if he was the second coming of Jesus, but his father realizes that something has changed, and not for the better.

Before long, Walker and Jagger are arguing over a speech that Jagger made for his lodge, one which promotes an old ideal of American values that Walker finds dated. He agrees to edit Jagger's speech which ends up with the crossing out of key points Jagger had wanted to make and gives Jagger even more suspicions that his son has crossed over into the dark side. Hayes does not want to even consider the possibility that her son has become a traitor, but the sudden meeting of Van Heflin through a car accident opens up a can of worms when it is revealed that he is a government agent investigating Walker. Long conversations between Heflin and Hayes (some 18 years before their one crucial scene in "Airport") open up Hayes' eyes to the possibilities, and a sudden trip to Washington D.C. for an impromptu visit with Walker opens her eyes to the horrific truths she has been denying.

While all the performances are outstanding, the melodramatic script at some points gives a convoluted view of the main plot line, and at times, Hayes becomes so excessively melodramatic that it appears that the actress, in addition to the character, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She seems to be a modern day version of Amanda Wingfield, the grasping mother of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie". Jagger's low-key performance occasionally erupts into a tense disgust, and it is obvious that while Walker may be Hayes' favorite, he prefers the two heroic soldiers that once were two heroic athletes. It's obvious that there has always been a tension between Jagger and Walker's characters, and that Hayes often had to step into the middle. Heflin is very subtle in his performance as the ultimately concerned agent who is equally as determined to protect Hayes as he is to complete his mission. The confrontation between Hayes, Heflin and Walker in the film's key turning point scene is truly intense as Walker gives the impression that he could have his own mother committed for believing such "lies" about his real profession.

The really great performance comes from Walker, so nice and All-American as soldiers in "Since You Went Away" and "The Clock" (as well as the two "Sergeant Hargrove" films), but so dastardly as the "let's swap murders" antagonist of "Strangers on a Train". He continues the dastardly streak here, never loosing his cool even when he misplaces a very important key, yet determined to complete his mission without interference even by his own parents. As Walker suddenly died during the making of this, some shots of him from "Strangers From a Train" were used, particularly one of him in a phone booth where the audio is strangely muffled out. It is ironic considering that both of these films were made by different studios.

The very dramatic conclusion is eye-raising to be sure. Walker creates a speech after a sudden change of heart, and his message seems to come straight out of all those "so patriotic that butter wouldn't melt in your mouth" propaganda films of World War II. What worked in 1943 doesn't quite work in 1952, with the world in turmoil and everybody suspected of being a "red" in one of the greatest "witch hunts" since the days of Salem Massachussats. While McCarey and his writing staff certainly seem to mean well, this comes off as a bit too much, even if it is a step above "Big Jim McClain" and "The Red Menace" which really took anti-Communist propaganda way too far. Had this been written with less anger towards the Walker character and given his background some more perspective, it would have been a more well-rounded film rather than the artistic flop it turned out to be.

This dog has fleas

[NORDIC-2 · 1 August 2011]

Made during the height of the McCarthy era, Leo McCarey's MY SON, JOHN is virulent anti-communist propaganda masquerading as...what, exactly? A tragic family melodrama, I guess. Anyway, middle-aged suburban couple Lucille (Helen Hayes) and Dan Jefferson (Dean Jagger) have three adult sons, two of which are okey-dokey, i.e., big, blonde strapping former football jocks who are shipping off to the war in Korea. Their third son, dark-haired John (Robert Walker), is unfortunately problematic. He's an overeducated, effeminate egghead who cannot be bothered to come home from his high falutin' government job in Washington to see off his two brothers. Furthermore, he's too well-spoken, doesn't have a girlfriend (highly suspicious!), mocks his father's American Legion-style patriotism, and his mother's sentimentality. Hell, he even mocks Christianity and the local priest! If these traits were not bad enough, John Jefferson also seems to enjoy the company of one of his former college professors a little too much (ahem). Well, where there's smoke there's fire and John's mother--played with scene-chewing intensity by Ms. Hayes--gradually comes to realize that her son John is nothing less than a two-faced, conniving commie spy. With the FBI closing in, John can opt to flee the country or face the music. In deference to his mother's wishes he does the latter and thus achieves a kind of redemption, even though it results in his assassination by his fellow commies. Still, a plot synopsis cannot convey the odd and unsettling tonalities of this strange opus. Holy Mackerel! MY SON, JOHN is one weird, overwrought movie, with a cloying script, tons of bad acting, a portentous musical score and a creepy, pervasive aura of paranoia in keeping with the times from which it was spewn. Particularly striking is the way this film valorizes the classic constellation of right wing household gods--religiosity, the patriarchal family, superheated patriotism, heteronormative sexuality, and (especially) anti-intellectualism--to create a stew of prejudice against those who think or behave differently. If you want to understand the authoritarian mentality behind Fascist art, watch this film and be amazed and enlightened.

Just doesn't stand the test of time

[HotToastyRag · 2/10 · 7 July 2020]

I tried very hard to get through this movie, but I just couldn't manage it without fast-forwarding some of the tedious, trying scenes. It's extremely wordy, and Helen Hayes's over-the-top performance made me wish she'd been able to take the role on stage instead of in front of the camera. It's also more than a bit dated, because it was made during the height of the McCarthy Communist witch trials, and now, we view that time period differently.

Mom Helen Hayes and Pop Dean Jagger are the heads of a perfect family. Their younger sons are off to fight in Korea, and they all go to church, participate in their community, and are friendly with their neighbors and priest, Frank McHugh. The fly in the ointment is Robert Walker, their oldest son. He's a drifter with radical ideas, and he comes and goes when he pleases. He hasn't seen his parents in quite a long time, and when he finally comes home, he doesn't behave the way they'd like. He continually picks fights with his father about religion and patriotism, and he breaks his mother's heart with his sarcasm and coldness. Before long, an FBI agent, Van Heflin, comes knocking on the door asking questions. Helen and Dean have to accept the possibility their son might be...a Communist!

Yes, this movie's really dated. It's really long, and really drawn out. The only reason to watch it would be if you really love Robert Walker and want to see his last film. He met a tragic end, and he died before the movie was finished, so editor Marvin Coil had to piece together some shots from Strangers on a Train into this movie, as well as (in the grand Hollywood tradition when this type of tragedy struck a film set) careful use of body doubles and impersonators. Helen Hayes fans can skip this one and pretend she waited four more years to come out of retirement; catch her in Anastasia instead.

My Son John-Picture for the Cold War Times Doesn't Hit It **1/2

[edwagreen · 5/10 · 13 February 2010]

Helen Hayes as the sympathetic mother along with Dean Jagger's husband image as well as the all-American patriot doesn't really work in this basically 1952 American propaganda film extolling the American way of life while denouncing Communism. With the McCarthy era at its height, a better film couldn't have been made. Yet, what went wrong with this film?

Unfortunately, am not surprised that Robert Walker died suddenly during the filming of this movie. He looked awful, especially in later scenes.

Hayes, who always gave a superb performance, is whining here and you would think she was Mildred Dunnock in the way the latter acted in 1951's "Death of A Salesman."

I had it with the writing,especially when Walker kept saying mother and father over and over again. We realized that Dean Jagger was his father and Helen Hayes his mother. Enough already.

Interesting to see Van Heflin and Helen Hayes in this film. 18 years later they would both co-star in "Airport," where Hayes' Ada Quonsett, the unauthorized airplane passenger caught up in a plane bombing, earned her a supporting Oscar.

How coincidental that Jagger's car goes into FBI agent's Van Heflin. Too coincidental at that.

Didn't it strike you that in order to deal with Walker's death, the reading of the tape reveals that he had changed his tune so fast and was now ready to denounce the Communist way of life. McCarthy must have been jumping up and down with joy. The speech delivered at a Commencement was way too preachy.

Nevertheless, Hayes still is remarkable as the conflicted mother, who of course by film's end chooses the American way. She had to. After all, she had 2 sons fighting in Korea! Dean Jagger, as the patriotic schoolteacher, acts like he came right out of uniform in "12 O'clock High." This was certainly not one of his better performances.