John McAdams Part 2

[Albert Rossi]

It was really only a period between the early '70s and early '90s when the CIA was portrayed in a negative light in films. Remember Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire where the assassin is a former Agency operative and psycho still protected in their computers? I can't see that being made today.

The Pentagon has always courted Hollywood (especially since the 80s with Top Gun and crap like that). Again, the anti-military period in film was limited from about 1964 to somewhere in the late 80s, and a lot of those films were made outside the US. Check out 1965's The Bedford Incident if you get a chance.

Yes, Tracy, I think you're right about both things. Of course, Watergate, the pullout from Vietnam and the 1975 Rockefeller and Church hearings are what led to that dip in prestige, and the Gulf War was the picker-upper.

Funny you should mention the Bedford Incident; I just rewatched it recently. Widmark always plays the heavies. Even as prosecutor in Judgment at Nuremberg he still comes off as a heavy (even though he isn't), and is overshadowed by Max Schell (wow, what a performance). Interesting the films that came out in the wake of the Missile Crisis: Strangelove, Bedford, etc.