Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2001 | Page 110

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Popular Culture Review

3. Almond makes a distinction between Communist affiliation in various countries. He
argues that American and British Communists are largely motivated by rebellion against
the norms of society, while French and Italian Communists display ideological
commitment to the cause (243).
4. After a ten-year hiatus from writing Mike Hammer novels, Spillane published The
Girl H unters in 1962. In this novel, Spillane reveals that Velda had been an OSS agent
during WWII and has during the past seven years been an agent “behind the Iron
Curtain causing trouble for the Commies” (Collins and Traylor 88).
5. See also Jennifer Terry for a discussion of Momism and Communist infiltration.
6 Spillane exposes Lee Deamer, who is a McCarthy-type character, as a Communist
who hides behind anti-Communist rhetoric to further the cause of the Soviet Union. As
Collins and Traylor note, “the ‘kicker’ is that the figure in the novel representing a
thinly disguised Joe McCarthy proves not only to be a murderer but a Communist
agent” (19). The notion that McCarthyism conceals the real Communist threat is also
played out in Richard Condon’s novel The Manchurian Candidate (1959) and John
Frankenheimer’s film based on the novel (1962).
7. As Charles L.R Silet notes, Spillane was attacked by the critics who argued that the
novels “promoted anti-social behavior through their excessive violence and sadistic
treatment of women, homosexuals, and Communists. He was blamed for juvenile
delinquency, increased sexual immorality, and the breakdown of other traditional values”
(199).
Eric Smoodin argues that Jet Pilot uses the narrative of the typical Hollywood film to
tell the audience that communism is “an impediment to typical narrative closure” (40).
Thus, the pleasure we feel at the end of the film in seeing the couple reunited reminds
us that “only American values can produce a happy ending” (40).
.

Works Cited

Allen, Raymond B. “Communists Should Not Teach in American Colleges.” Educational
Forum 13.4 (May 1949): 1-7.
Almond, Gabriel A. The Appeals o f Communism. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1954.
Barson, Michael. 'Better D ead Than R ed ': A N ostalgic Look at the Golden Years o f
RussiaPhobia, Red-Baiting, and Other Commie Madness. New York: Hyperion, 1992.
Collins, Max Allan, and James L. Traylor. One Lonely Knight: M ickey Spillane s Mike
Hammer. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1984.
Dayton, Tim. “’The Annihilated Content of the Wish’: Class and Gender in Mickey
Spillane’s 1, the Jury.” Clues 14.1 (1993): 87-104.
Hilfer, Tony. The Crime Novel: A Deviant Genre. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
Jet Pilot. Dir. Josef von Sternberg. RKO, 1957.
May, Elaine Taylor. “Explosive Issues: Sex, Women, and The Bomb.” Recasting America:
Culture and Politics in the Age o f the Cold War. Ed. Lary May. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1989. 154-70.
Rogin, Michael. “Kiss Me Deadly: Communism, Motherhood, and Cold War Movies.”
Representations 6
1984): 1-36.
Sayre, Nora. Running Time: Films o f the Cold War. New York: The Dial Press, 1982.