Line #64 Film/InvasionUSA1952


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0950.JPG]]
2
3	->'''Mr. Ohman:''' The manufacturer wants more war orders, and lower taxes. Labor wants more consumable products, and a 30-hour week. The college boy wants a stronger army, and a deferment for himself. The businessman wants a bigger Air Force, and a new Cadillac. The housewife wants security, and an electric dishwasher. Everyone wants a stronger America, and we all want the same man to pay for it. George. Let George do it.\
4	'''Tractor Manufacturer:''' I disagree with you -- I don't want to let George do it!\
5	'''Mr. Ohman:''' Then you must be the exception?\
6	'''Tractor Manufacturer:''' No -- I'm George!\
7	''[everyone laughs]''[[note]]'''Crow:''' Ha ha, I kill you last.[[/note]]
8	-->-- The movie gets {{Anvilicious}} about the Aesop at the beginning.
9
10	''Invasion U.S.A.'' is a 1950s RedScare [[PropagandaPiece propaganda film]] that purports to show the American audience how quickly the UsefulNotes/ColdWar could heat up, and thus the importance of the military-industrial complex and the universal draft (and by universal, they don't mean the usual interpretation of drafting women into the armed forces -- no, they mean ''everything'').
11
12	The film was directed by Alfred E. Green, and ''quite'' the departure from his usual light fare, such as ''Film/TheJolsonStory'' and ''Film/FourFacesWest''.
13
14	One day in a bar, with news of Cold War tensions on the TV, a reporter comes in to ask the patrons -- a motley bunch from all walks of life -- if they support allowing the U.S. government to take over companies in the name of the Cold War effort. Most of the patrons are skeptical except for a strange man nursing a wine glass at the end of the bar -- one Mr. Ohman (Creator/DanOHerlihy), who delivers a [[WhatTheHellHero What The Hell, Citizen]] speech to everyone accusing them of just wanting to wish their problems dead instead of doing what needed to be done. After mesmerizing his audience with his speech before leaving, the patrons quickly discover that the U.S. is now in the middle of {{World War III}}, as "[[CommieLand the Enemy]]" ([[BlatantLies totally not]] [[HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection the Soviet Union]]) conducts an audacious plan to invade the North American mainland, with both nukes and paratroopers flying freely. The main characters try to do what they can, but somehow every request of the military-industrial complex that they'd been complaining about or ignoring comes back to bite the U.S. at the worst possible time, and the cast starts dropping like flies before the Red onslaught.
15
16	In the end, through the germanic man's hypnotizing the entire bar into seeing visions of what might be, the naysayers are shown the evils of their ways and pledge to be more patriotic afterwards. And the reporter hero manages to win the affections of the heroine from the tractor manufacturer who brought her to the bar.
17
18	For tropes and episode details related to the ''[[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]]'' version, please check out the [[Recap/MysteryScienceTheater3000S06E02InvasionUSA episode recap page]].
19
20	No relation to the Creator/ChuckNorris starring [[Film/InvasionUSA1985 1985 actioner]] of the same title.
21
22	----
23	!!''Invasion U.S.A.'' contains the following tropes:
24
25	* AllJustADream: Just as the last of the main characters dies, the characters awaken from a trance, still in the bar at the start of the film, discovering Ohman hypnotized them and the entire events of the film concerning the Soviet invasion were a cautionary tale.
26	* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The United States; but more importantly, the bar.
27	* AnyoneCanDie: The main characters drop like flies throughout, and it starts fairly early. At least two of them (the factory owner and the senator) are killed in the midst of [[RedemptionEqualsDeath attempting to reverse]] their earlier BystanderSyndrome attitudes.
28	* ArcWords: "If I had my life to live over again."
29	* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: The film was made less than a decade after World War II, when people had especially little idea how nuclear weapons worked. The weapons called "Atom Bombs" are just vaguely better ([[StockFootage and visually identical]]) versions of conventional explosives, not devices that leave a thousand mile wake of irradiated fallout. Hence, [[DirtyCommunists "The Enemy"]] throw nuclear weapons like peanuts, blowing up [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill airfields, dams, battleships, small out of the way towns, and cities (repeatedly)]], technically negating the very concept of an "invasion", since there'd be nothing actually left to occupy for about fifty years. As a particularly ludicrous example, the nuclear bombing of New York City results in only twenty thousand deaths. There's also the matter of the nuclear ''torpedo,'' which somehow only sets its target on fire instead of vaporizing it and everything a mile out in every direction. In fairness, this was TruthInTelevision as far as 1952 was concerned: the hydrogen bomb was still experimental and the American atomic stockpile consisted of mostly Mark 4, 5, and 6 gravity bombs with a maximum yield of about 180 kT, from half to a third of modern strategic yields. Given limited miniaturization, tactical atomics were also experimental; the 8 to 61 kT Mark 7 had only just entered into service in 1952 and a torpedo-based weapon probably ''would'' only set fires if it didn't hit directly. Military doctrine basically treated atomics as really powerful versions of their conventional counterparts and planned to use them the exact same way; Operation Plumbbob in 1957--the one with the films of soldiers marching into a mushroom cloud--was a test of this doctrine. This is how people thought nuclear war would be fought in 1952, and it's probably how it would've been thought... except that in 1952 the U.S. had 841 bombs and the U.S.S.R. 50, so they wouldn't have been tossed around like candy.
30	* BigApplesauce: [[strike: London]] New York is left a bombed out rubble.
31	* BigDamPlot: "The Enemy" nukes Hoover Dam (referred to in the film by its old name, "Boulder Dam"), causing Boulder City to be flooded, and presumably cutting off power.
32	* BrickJoke: Thick during the war, the bartender says his motto is "Let Jack do it!" -- Jack being George's brother.
33	* BystanderSyndrome / NotInMyBackYard: {{Discussed}} when Mr. Ohman points out to the bar patrons that everybody wants the problems of DirtyCommies solved, but they all want someone else to make the necessary efforts and sacrifices (the metaphorical "George").
34	* ChekhovsSkill: Ohman is described as a hypnotist by the barkeep during the cast introduction. You don't say...
35	* ComicallyMissingThePoint / DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Played simultaneously. See the page quote; when Ohman notes that everyone wants some other person ("George") to deal with the problems of society, the factory owner says he himself doesn't want "George" to do it -- because "'''I'm''' George!" PlayedForLaughs InUniverse, as the others all snigger at his splendid wit; but also PlayedForDrama when the viewer realizes that the man has just proven Ohman's point for him.
36	* CoversAlwaysLie: Don't let the poster fool you. Carla is wearing trousers when she jumps out the window.
37	* DayOfTheJackboot: The Not-USSR has taken control of both US coasts, occupied Washington DC and destroyed or seized most of America's industrial complex. It's all over but the shouting when the vision ends.
38	* DeadlineNews: A reporter covering one battle against "The Enemy's" forces has his signal cut off while his position is being overrun. Also, the reporter hero's final broadcast near the end of the film.
39	* DirtyCommunists: One even menaces a good, clean American woman. Her assailant also overlaps with HuskyRusskie.
40	-->'''Enemy Soldier:''' ''[drunk]'' Now you ''my'' woman!
41	* DressingAsTheEnemy: "The Enemy" soldiers are equipped with American uniforms and weapons, allowing them to infiltrate Washington , D.C. and kill off most of Congress.
42	* EmpathyDollShot: After the Hoover Dam flood, one is shown floating in the aftermath.
43	* ExtraExtraReadAllAboutIt: One of the most bizarre and badly staged in film history. As the Vincent and Carla stare lovingly into each other's eyes, a newsboy walks in, yelling, "Extra! Extra! 'America Invaded', read all about it!", '''''stares directly at the two characters''''' (who continue to stare into each other's eyes like zombies), then turns around and walks off '''''from the same way he entered'''''.
44	* TheFaceless: The movie refuses to show the president looking at the camera.
45	* {{Foreshadowing}}: The factory owner's anecdote about turning down the government's "offer" to take over his plant for tank production predicts [[spoiler:its being overrun and taken over by "The Enemy"]]. In the flashback, the Major even points out that if he doesn't want to produce tanks for the American military voluntarily, he can wait for the inevitable invasion and then he'll be forced to make tanks for the other side.
46	* AGlassOfChianti: Ohman's nursing a glass as the film begins -- and hypnotizes most of the bar with it.
47	* HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection: A prime example. "The Enemy" is never directly named, but near the end the movie just gives up and goes with the full-on Russian accents for the bad guys.
48	* HaveIMentionedIAmHeterosexualToday: There's a lot of accusations of being a sissy in the film. The TV reporter, of course, is a man's man; but even he gets hit by it a little, when he acts AfraidOfNeedles while giving blood (although in that instance he's probably just flirting).
49	* HollywoodGeography: Paratroopers landing on the sandy beaches of Washington, DC. Problem is, DC is a landlocked city and 30 miles away from any ocean.
50	* HollywoodTactics: Ranges from "The Enemy's" liberal use of nuclear weapons to paratroopers being dropped while under machine gun fire.
51	* InvadedStatesOfAmerica
52	* ItsRainingMen: The way "The Enemy" invades America.
53	* TheJuggernaut: No matter how much the American military throws at "The Enemy" forces, they just keep on coming, seemingly unstoppable and invincible. It's especially egregious given the President's claim that the U.S. is striking back at "The Enemy's" homeland, three strikes for every one of theirs (on the other hand, given how [[SwissCheeseSecurity pathetic]] the U.S. military is depicted herein, said three-fold retaliation could be just an exaggeration to boost morale).
54	* KarmaHoudini: No one seems to blame the President for allowing a ridiculous invasion like this.
55	* KilledMidSentence: The traffic controller at Peace Harbor, Alaska -- "The Enemy's" beachhead for the invasion.
56	* MeaningfulName: Mr. Ohman, who hypnotizes everyone into seeing an ''Omen'' of things to come. It's implied his name is even more [[ADogNamedDog on-the-nose]]; Vincent ''assumes'' it's spelled like Phil Ohman, the bandleader, to which he just replies, [[AFormYouAreComfortableWith "it will do"]].
57	* TheMole / DoubleAgent: The [[EthnicMenialLabor foreign janitor]] at the tractor factory turns out to be a spy for the "Enemy" and takes command of the factory after its owner is killed.
58	* NeutralFemale: The movie ends with everyone thinking about what they could do to stave off a Soviet invasion. All except Carla. Nothing she does either way would affect anything. In fact, she's just yet another war prize when the invasion happens. She did work as a nurse during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII however.
59	* OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness: "The Enemy's" war room, with a huge wall map of the United States and "the most feared Geography teacher of Central High".
60	* RapeAsDrama: See Dirty Communists.
61	* RedemptionEqualsDeath:
62	** The factory owner spends his last few minutes of life trying to work out a deal with the U.S. Army and, when the invasion overtakes him, refusing to kowtow to the invaders even in full knowledge that they will just shoot him. Which they do.
63	** The Senator, who previously had advocated for reductions in military spending, spends the crisis giving an impassioned speech to Congress urging everyone to pour every last morsel of their resources into the military. In the middle of his speech, "The Enemy" storms the Capitol, and the Senator is gunned down in the ensuing panic.
64	* SoundtrackDissonance: The "wah wah wah" horns implying laughs when they find the bartender's dead body.
65	* SpotTheImposter: Used when "The Enemy" sends its troops disguised as Americans to infiltrate Washington, DC, and one infiltrator claims to be from a Chicago unit.
66	-->'''Guard:''' You ever go see the Cubs play?\
67	'''Infiltrator:''' ''[confused]'' Cubs? A cub is a small animal, a bear...\
68	''[BlastOut ensues]''
69	* StockFootage: Used in long montages to show the progress of the war. Rather noticeably, one of the pieces supposedly showing the destruction of New York in fact used footage from the London Blitz. At the end of one of these...
70	* SwissCheeseSecurity: Even given the film's Aesop, only ''two guards'' are posted to defend the seat of government in Washington? It's not just Washington but ''the whole country.'' Are there more than 10 American soldiers in the entire movie? And if "The Enemy" captured Alaska to use as a launching platform to invade the USA, where is ''Canada's'' army to stop them going through Canadian territory to reach the continental US?
71	* TelevisionGeography: Paratroopers are shown landing on a beach supposedly outside Washington, D.C., which is 30+ miles from the Atlantic Ocean. A similar landing is shown at the wide open plains of Puget Sound in western Washington state, a region covered in trees and hills for hundreds of miles around.
72	* WhileRomeBurns: {{Discussed}}. One of the bar patrons asks the bartender what he'll do if WorldWarIII breaks out; the man replies he'll do the same thing he did during [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the last World War]] -- serve drinks. [[TemptingFate Not one minute later]], "The Enemy" bombs New York, and the bartender is among the dead.
73	* YouCantGoHomeAgain: The San Francisco cab driver realizes halfway to Phoenix that his home has a new flag over it.
74	* YouNoTakeCandle: "The Enemy" all speak in heavily accented, broken English. Even to each other--they were instructed only to speak English, as practice.

Context Film / InvasionUSA1952