Sadly Over-hyped

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

too many historical inaccuracies. the movie is set in 19371. fascism wasn't anti-semitic until the mid thirties, and the first racial laws were passed in 1938 on account of the pressing ideological pull of the dominant ally, Nazi Germany. Hitler needed the Italians to get on par with the racial discrimination, otherwise he couldn't justify to the Aryan German people being allied with an inferior people, and all the propaganda efforts put into making the Germans feel as a unite comradeship against their many inferior enemies would promptly fail its purpose. Mussolini obediently submitted to his requests and promulgated the race manifesto, despite counting many Jews among his friends and acquaintances himself, like his ex lover the writer Margherita Sarfatti2. Margherita Sarfatti was a strong supporter of Mussolini, but that changed when the racial laws were passed. She soon left the fascist party and went to Argentina. So if she ever went to the USA to promote Mussolini, this was surely before the regime turned anti-semitic.3. Italy and Germany did not attack Spain. They aided and military and politically supported the nationalist rebels leaded by Franco, who tried a coup during the civil war to restore a conservative regime which had been subverted by the late socialist government and numerous anarchist riots. IE Spain was already a mess. Many Italian Marxists, communists and socialists also went and fought in Spain alongside the republican forces - which were aided by the URSS - against the falangistas and the fascist regular troops. 4. Rivera painted that mural in 1933, so all dates and facts happening in the movie mismatch.5. In my understanding there was wide sympathy and support for Italian fascism in the American parlors, which isn't as apparent watching the movie. They favored fascism in juxtaposition to communism, as the latter was founded on class conflict, and the first on induced/enforced social peace and corporatism - which was already part of the American culture and economy, although in a more liberal form (and it still is). The fascist ideology found ground in the frightened middle and upper classes in all of the world, as the unions were getting stronger and the rich were scared of a Marxist revolution.

This film is about a pro-union play being blocked by the American government from being played.Maybe I am not familiar with the history and the background of these events, I find "Cradle Will Rock" incredibly confusing. I suppose there are many metaphors in the film too, but unfortunately I did not get them, so a lot of the story is lost for me. I did not understand the Bill Murray's abandonment of the puppet and the subsequent funeral. I am sure there is a lot of significance but I have no idea what it is. In addition, I find the several subplots (Bill Murray's puppets, Joan Cusack's hearing, John Cusack having his building lobby decorated) unconnected and poorly intertwined. If "Cradle Will Rock" is just about the play being suppressed and the fight to continue it, I guess I may understand and enjoy it.

A wonderful, large cast recreates the story behind "The Cradle Will Rock" in this 1999 film, written and directed by Tim Robbins and starring Hank Azaria, Ruben Blades, Joan Cusack, John Cusack, Bill Murray, Cherry Jones, John Turturro, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Jamey Sheridan, Gretchen Mol, Emily Watson, Bob Balaban - etc.Before the Depression and the turbulence of the 1930s, plays focused on the upper class. Everyone talked like Katharine Hepburn and people wore beautiful clothes. In the 1930s, the working man began to have a voice with the works of William Sarayoan, Clifford Odets, and Maxwell Anderson, among others. During the Depression, FDR started the WPA, and the Federal Theatre Project was one of its programs. "The Cradle Will Rock" is a leftist labor musical by Marc Blitzstein that is chosen by Hallie Flanagan, head of the FTP, to premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theater in New York. The politics of the FTP come under question, the theater is locked, and the actors are forbidden to appear on stage.Orson Welles finds another theater for the production, and the story of the opening night performance, spontaneously performed by the cast from the audience as Blitzstein sat up on stage and played, was thought to be one of the most exciting moments in theater history by those who were there.Robbins focuses on the controversy surrounding the musical but also on several other important events. Maybe, in the end, it is too much content, but fascinating nonetheless. Diego Rivera, an avowed Communist, played by Ruben Blades, is hired by Nelson Rockefeller (John Cusak) to paint a mural at Rockefeller Center. Rockefeller, however, doesn't like the revolutionary tone of the mural. One of the actors, played by John Turturro, has to deal with a family that supports Mussolini's Black Shirts.Marc Blitzstein, in focusing on a prostitute in "The Cradle Will Rock," asks us who the real prostitutes are, and Robbins shows us in his depictions of Rockefeller, Hearst, and the Senate committee before which Hallie Flanagan testifies, the thin and sometimes nonexistent line between art and politics.The performances are terrific. Just about everyone is a standout, with John Turturro in an especially showy role as a man who wants to demonstrate principles and ethics to his children. Ruben Blades and Corina Katt Ayala could have been Rivera and Frida Kahlo, the resemblance is so strong. Vanessa Redgrave is excellent as Countess LaGrange, a wealthy woman who gets caught up in the proceedings. The gifted Broadway star Cherry Jones gives another strong performance as Hallie Flanagan, and Emily Watson is marvelous as Olive Stanton. The minute I heard the vocal rhythm of Angus Macfadyen, I knew he was playing Orson Welles. He does a beautiful job, as does Susan Sarandon as Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolini's ex-mistress who came to the U.S. to sell Mussolini to the American people via William Randolph Hearst's newspapers.Well worth seeing, and the period is well worth reading about.

I suppose I loved this film because I was in the first British production Of The Cradle Will Rock at London's Unity Theatre in 1951 and the film brought back poignant memories of my salad days. Our production was brought about by a phonograph record which described the events in the film, the theatre lock out and the success of John Houseman and Orson Wells in getting it on stage. We loved the music and Bill Owen directed it for a very successful production. It's so rare these days to get an adult film in cinemas that this was a rare treat. My only regret is that so much of the wonderful music and especially the wonderful lyrics in the original show were either omitted or truncated. I only wish that some film producer had the courage (and the money)to make a film version of the original show. So much of it is still apposite today, like Reverend Salvation's religious justification for an unnecessary war.