My Son John (1952, Leo McCarey)

Annoyingly square 1950s movie with a worm of weirdness in the middle. Mostly it’s clumsily-made propaganda, but the dialogue pops at times, and EGOT Helen Hayes is very good, bringing real personality to a bland mother role. Movie feels like a play, with long takes (ruined with weird edits via optical zoom), the family naturalistically stuttering over their lines. You wouldn’t think it’s the work of a 30-year veteran director, but at least it’s lovably eccentric – you also wouldn’t guess this all-talk bible-vs-communism story would end in a car chase and shootout. Dad vs. Red John: Mom listens in: Mom has nothing to talk about except when her kids were little, which seems familiar. John (Robert Walker, department store worker in One Touch of Venus) is doing important work in Washington while the other two songs (one from a John Carpenter movie, the other from a movie John Carpenter remade) head off to war. Dad (sheriff of Forty Guns) is exasperating, decides John is a commie then…