Top cast:Francis X. Bushman,Ruth Stonehouse,Bryant Washburn
Director:George Albert Smith
Genre:Fantasy
Region:Egypt
Year:1999
Storyline:Two melodramas that commented on restrictive social norms included Douglas Sirk""sAll That Heaven Allows (1955), and Todd Haynes""Far From Heaven (2002).I really got to know it in the classic period of the Black Market.[Boots, stockings, cigarettes, and watches exchange hands.] [They could get anything if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay.]We""d run anything, if people wanted it enough- mmm - had the money to pay.Of course, a [the] situation like that does tempt amateurs, but [of course, they don""t last long, not really, not like professionals]you know they can""t stay the course like a professional.The Irishman hero/vagabond, strolling in the streets of New York City, tells the audience in his first line (with a wry, brogue accent), a flashback, that he has made a stupid fool of himself:When I start out to make a fool of myself, there""s very little can stop me.The time period of the provocative, sophisticated film is set in the early 50s during the height of right-wing McCarthyism - a time of tense political paranoia with the overriding, reactionary fear that Communists (Russian and Chinese) were scheming to take over the US via advanced brainwashing techniques and programmed terrorist raining.