Poor Hail, Caesar! The latest Coen Brothers film has had a tepid response from critics and its box office returns have been disappointing so far. The survey firm Cinemascore, typically generous to films, determined that opening-night audiences rated Hail, Caesar! a “C-“—dregs usually reserved for artsy action movies like Haywire or Killing Them Softly that tend to alienate their core audience. What accounts for this lukewarm reception?
Pinko song-and-dance man Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) is obviously a riff on Gene Kelly—a figure whose own political activity demonstrates the subtle ideological gradation of the era. Neither Kelly nor his wife, Betsy Blair, were ever members of the Communist Party, but both served as emissaries to progressive Hollywood. (Blair’s party application was rejected in part because her stature as the wife of a prominent Hollywood liberal made her more useful as an outsider who could raise money for communist causes like the Henry Wallace presidential campaign or the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee.) It was Kelly who spoke out against The House Un-American Activities Committee under the guise of the Committee for the First Amendment, but it was Blair who was ultimately blacklisted after appearing publicly with prominent communists Gale Sondergaard and Lloyd Gough.
