Dana Andrews plays a returning Korean War POW who learns that his public polling partnership was sold out from under him during his captivity. During the course of the film, he comes to realize how his partner was murdered by Communist sympathizers who turn the the firm into a public relations lobbying firm for subversive left-wing causes. We see the intricate web of scientists, intellectuals and fellow travelers who use K Street lobbyists for their plans for destroying America's defenses.This 1958 film exposes how public relation and lobbying firms manipulate public opinion to meet their aims and how a gullible public can be coerced. Fifty years later, this was successfully executed to perfection during the 2008 Presidential campaign.This film is ripe for a remake, although sadly the fifth columnists portrayed in this film, now firmly control Hollywood and would spin a tale about Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, FOX News and other fair and balanced voices.

Wow! What a disappointment. Caught it on TV, and the combination of the theme and Tourneur promised so much. But it turned out to be a clumsy, boring, heavy, theatrical flick. I think the main problem is that the film drowns us with words – the dialogs are too long and pretentious, and the uninspired Mise en scene makes the all experience quite unbearable. From an historical point of view, it's interesting to place this picture seven years or so before the Manchurian Candidate, so these 85 minutes weren't exactly wasted; but had I known it's such a torture, I would not watch it for a million bucks. I also did not like the way the nerd working in the office was treated – such a sallow caricature! All of the sudden he is in love with the girl, and of course he has to sacrifice himself in the end. I also did not understand if the hero was brain washed during the war, and if so, what significance does it have? Anyway, it is sad to see a filmmaker as tourneur producing such a banal picture, which could have been made by quite any B-Movies director of the time. I understand it is considered one of his worst films – I can only second that view.

The Fearmakers stands as one of the stragglers in the Red-Scare cycle, which ran from the late 1940s pretty much until 1962, when John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate blew it to smithereens. (The studios, running scared, churned them out but the public shunned them in droves.) This one benefits from the talents of director Jacques Tourneur (The Cat People, Out of the Past) and noir icon Dana Andrews; it also features a young Mel Torme as a pusillanimous lackey who relies too much on stage business (mopping his brow, fiddling with his glasses). The movie is somewhat elevated, too, by working with themes that resonate today: How polls and focus groups can be manipulated by well-heeled special interest lobbies -- how, in fact, they can be made to say absolutely anything. Here, it's the disarmament movement, viewed of course as nothing more than a Commie plot. Inevitably, The Fearmakers degenerates into stereotypes as simple as Veda Ann Borg's big round puss.

This low-budget 50's thriller has a treatment standard for its time, but the premise is fascinating. Dana Andrews plays Alan Eaton, a veteran of the Korean War who comes home (after years of being brainwashed as a POW.) When he returns to his Public Relations firm in Washington, DC, he is surprised to find it has been sold by his former partner, who later died; his own name has been retained only for the goodwill value he had generated. Soon after, he comes to suspect that the firm no longer uses polls and surveys to shape its PR campaigns, it conducts its surveys in accordance with a hidden agenda and shapes the data to meet its own demands. By the end of the film, the entire conspiracy (and its plot to get a man elected Governor) is exposed. Americans are free to believe everything they read, once again.Everything about the movie is just what one would expect from an inexpensive thriller from the era, and that's not bad at all. Probably the most appealing character is played by Mel Torme (Andrews is much too surly - and for good reason - to capture audience sympathy), a number-cruncher who remains oblivious to the moral implications of the data he is massaging for his employers. His best moment comes when he picks EXACTLY the wrong moment to strike up a conversation with Marilee Earle; the audience knows she can't possibly tear her attention away from a task she has been sent to perform, but we all know how it feels to want to break through another person's preoccupation.Thematically, the film bites off more than it is prepared to chew. The premise (that some distinct group may control a substantial part of the information we Americans receive every day) is both disturbing and plausible. We do our best to make sure that no single source can exert too much power over information, but we can never be sure just how much of the data we believe to be factual, is actually cooked up by people with an agenda. Exposing one conspiracy (as seen in The Fearmakers) does not stamp out all such conspiracies at once, and the film offers no hint of assurance that the public will be any wiser, the next time information is manipulated. One may extrapolate that there is a terrible danger in trusting ANY source of information, but no solution is suggested.A minor disappointment comes from another important topic that is introduced at the beginning and then thrown away: Eaton's brainwashing. He has apparently been subjected to gruelling torture and mind control in the recent past, but it has no effect at all on his behavior except to make him grumpy and subject to sudden headaches. Basically, this is used as a plot device which allows the bad guys to get the upper hand at times, but nothing in the story really turns on it. Perhaps after seeing The Manchurian Candidate, one's expectations are set too high; certainly one can't fault the scriptwriters, as the novel had not yet been published. The most unfortunate aspect of the movie is that a 1950's happy ending is predetermined. By the 1970's, filmmakers would be comfortable creating conspiracy stories with darker endings, and today it is difficult for viewers to accept a movie in which a problem like this one is completely solved. By current standards, the last few minutes of The Fearmakers are dreamlike and childish...and perhaps this explains some of the film's charm. I'd love to see a remake of the movie, set once again in the 50's, nearly identical right up to the end, and then have Alan Eaton wake up to discover that the conspiracy has NOT been neatly wrapped up at all. It's enjoyable to imagine a finale in which he runs, Kevin McCarthy-like through Washington DC, grabbing away people's newspapers and shouting "Where do they get their facts? Where do they get their numbers?" Who knows? Seems like they're making a lot of remakes these days, and this one would be do-able with a small budget...