The 100 best conservative movies - includes list of 20 best liberal movies - Cover Story

National Review, Oct 24, 1994 by Spencer Warren

Best Picture Predicting the Collapse of Communism: Ninotchka (1939, directed by Ernst Lubitsch). Greta Garbo, dour agent sent to Paris to check up on emissaries who have succumbed to the charms of Paris, learns that she too would rather laugh and love in the West than suffer and endure in the East. Human nature triumphs over Communism. The film further foretells the rampant corruption that accompanied Communism: the three comrades quickly rationalize taking the Royal Suite in their Paris hotel on the ground that "we must uphold the prestige of the Bolsheviks."

Best Portrait of a Communist Bureaucrat. George Tobias, as the Soviet visa official in Paris, in Ninotchka. (To Garbo's lover: "If you ever want to get into Russia, take my advice ... confess!")

Best Portrait of a U.S. Government Bureaucrat: William Atherton, as the EPA official in Ghostbusters (1984), whose mindless enforcement of the "rules" allows the fearsome phantoms to escape, wreaking havoc on New York.

Best Pictures Depicting, the Inhumanity of Mass Revolution: Marie Antoinette (1938) - no gateau here: note the chilling prison in which her son is seized from her arms; A Tale of Two Cities (1935), with Blanche Yurka as Madame Defarge, an early study in bl00d-lusting, radical fanaticism; Viva Villa! (1934), about the degeneration of Pancho Villa and the Mexican Revolution; and Knight without Armor (1937).

Best Pictures on the Limits of Good Intentions: There Was a Crooked Man (1971), in which a liberal prison warden (Henry Fonda) learns some truths from Western desperado Kirk Douglas and puts his learning to good use. Cynically directed (as always) by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

In Heavens Above (1963), based on a story by Malcolm Muggeridge, Peter Sellers learns some truths about human nature as he turns his parish ministry into a soup kitchen.

Forbidden Planet (1956) depicts the dangers of rationalist utopias.

Best Movie Critiques of Journalism. Ace in the Hole (1951), a/k/a The Big Carnival, directed by Billy Wilder. Top reporter Kirk Douglas prolongs agony of a mine cave-in victim to juice up his story.

Honorable Mention: Absence of Malice (1981), in which Paul Newman experiences the consequences of press absolutism; and Too Hot to Handle (1938), crackerjack comedy-adventure and prototypical Clark Gable film, in which he stages newsreels in war-torn China.