Counter-Attack

It was just a few years after this film was released that Muni, Parks, Lawson, and supervisor Sidney Buchman were named by the House Un-American Activities Committee as having communist affiliations. Lawson refused to testify and was branded as one of the "Unfriendly Ten," while the other three were blackballed from the industry for most of the rest of their lives. At the time COUNTERATTACK was made, the Russians and the U.S. were allies, but in the cold light of several years after, witch-hunters read things into the script that were never intended. Based on the Russian play "Pobyeda," the script was brought to Broadway as the stage play ONE AGAINST SEVEN, wherein...