Robert Rockwell plays a war veteran who, as the publicity campaign reads, “almost loses everything he fought for” when he falls for the “false but attractive” promises of the Communist party in this 1949 film. Charles Hopkins writes, “After the war, films like The North Star and Song of Russia were cited by the members of the Congressional committees investigating ‘subversion' in the movie industry as examples of typical Hollywood-sponsored Communist propaganda--even though most such films had been made at our government's request. The producers, eager to prove their loyalty, blacklisted many of the people who had worked on these films, and anyone else in the industry suspected of leftist sympathies. They also rushed out a few melodramas like The Red Menace--films that portrayed the plight of upstanding U.S. citizens (like themselves) who had been duped or coerced into becoming agents for the Soviet Union. It has been suggested that these movies were influential in molding the strident anti-Communism of U.S. attitudes during this period. In point of fact, the American people have never been very receptive to political propaganda presented as entertainment. None of the anti-Communist films--including what was probably the best one, Leo McCarey's My Son John--was even a modest box office success.”