Reds! Official Fanfiction Thread (Part Two)

My take on west German uniforms, otl these were known as "Wehrsportsgruppe" an assortment of far right german paramilitaries in post war.
640x360.jpg

Heer solders during basic training, circa 1960s.
25.jpg

Civil militia training during the 1970s.
DZoZroEV4AA5YhG.jpg

Heer in parade uniform. Notice the similar aesthetic to the Wehrmacht and SS in many ways, absent absolute taboos such as the swastika and Nazi style iron Reichsadler (though the Hohenzoller/monarchist one is seen as okay to most.)

128a483d0633604611eea2d4cf3f4236-1.jpg

Heer in parade, now a common sight. Notably continues the traditions of the Wehrmacht albiet with monarchist symbolism, however this has brought uncomfortable vibes throughout when it is done to socialist eastern european states, given the fact that this style is retained to the prescent day.
OCC: The previous ones were the far right groups, but these were the west German border police that initially retained wehrmahct style. However in this timeline the heer retains it likely for its entire existence due to prussian chauvinism.
 
Fighting Your Passions (By Bookmark 1995)
I haven't made a contribution in a while. This is one I thought would be silly as hell. Note that if the author sounds biased, it is because she is a Cuban refugee with a certain attitude toward capitalism.


Fighting Your Passions: The Silliest and Sexiest Abstinence Propaganda Film


The Daily Worker

March 15, 2012

Maria Acosta

Since the end of the Second World War, the Blue bloc has long used propaganda to instill within its youth that horrid lie that carnal freedom is a sin and that the vapid amassment of wealth is itself a virtue. Generations of potential revolutionaries have been programed to regard their sexual desires as a sin and to regard mass wealth and self-isolation as "closer to human nature."

Among the many tools the capitalists nations have used to control the masses is sexual education. While Red nations offer not only objective instruction but an assurance to the young that sex is a part of life, many Blue nations instill within a young people a sexual education that is at best mechanical and at worst paternalistic and manipulative.

In many nations that have consumed the empty opiate of religious governance, sexual education is abandoned in favor of ineffective abstinence-only education. Many films are presented to their youth to promote this ineffective strategy. Some are grim propaganda which exaggerate the risks of sexuality as a fear-mongering tactic. Others push outdated and archaic notions of "sexual sinfulness," claiming non-reproductive sex will destroy the family unit.

However, some are even unintentional comedy, like the Rhodesian film Fighting Your Passions. The film first reached America in the 1980s, brought by veterans of the Southern African conflict as trophies of war.

Like much of the media of Rhodesia, Fighting Your Passions is Blue propaganda that is not only ineffective in promotion but verges on self-parody.

The premise of the film is that a bunch of male Rhodeisan soldiers being told stories by an elderly officer to warn them about the dangers of "Red licentiousness." Each of the four stories told exaggerates the numerous fabrications pushed by blue nations while unintentionally adding a comedic and sexual edge.

The officer narrates, his thick Rhodesian accent adding to the unintentional silliness: the first story features a once brave and strong soldier, described in an ironically homoerotic fashion, "transformed into a homosexual" after being held captive by the Reds. After less then two days of "torture" (which consists of watching gay porn), the brave soldier is wearing red dresses and make up, giggling, and sipping tea from a saucer. The apparent message of the segment being that tea and laughter is somehow a gay aphrodisiac, I suppose? Which is odd, considering the Rhodesians often boast about tea in their attempts to kiss up to their "mother country."


The second segment features another "brave" soldier who, due to red seduction, has become a corrupt adulterer who neglects his family. The "loving" family is, ironically, very miserable. The wife is an obnoxious bat who forces her husband to buy her expensive clothing, while the children are aggressive brats who want cake. The most ridiculous scene shows the second soldier about to begin an orgy with two lustful and eager women. The narrator's words about the "misery" of the second soldier are contrasted with the passionate joy the soldier and his two female soldiers as they begin what they call "the ritual". The message from this segment being that orgies make a person...deeply happy yet miserable and will save you from an unhappy marriage?


The third segment discusses another infamous and sickening fabrication: that licentious behavior leads to rape. A third brave soldier becomes a rapist after giving into his passions. Or at least that is what the narration says. The "rape" scene looks like the most awkward wrestling match ever, which the various grunts by the soldier and woman he is "violating" sounding more like pain from a paper cut, and their breathing sounding more like they went for a light jog.

The final segment shows the dangers of porn. The last soldier, who was portrayed as a diligent and hardworking man, has become an addict to chocking the chicken after reading one magazine, locking himself up in the bathroom for hours on end. Yet when on the can, the soldier, who is only shown from the chest up, lets out grunts that aren't orgasmic, but sounds like a person who needs a laxative. He pauses from his grunts and says to the camera the immortal line "Orgasms have made me Commie," before returning to dealing with apparent constipation.

The film ends with the elderly soldier lecturing his charges that the only love they should have is for their "country."

Like a lot of Rhodesian propaganda, the film's message seriously backfires in many cases. Sometimes promoting the very thing it argues against, to being a ridiculous and unintentional parody of the ridiculous myths that Blues promote about Red sexuality.

For any good comrade looking for laughs and another way to make fun of the Rhodies and their reactionary madness, Fighting Your Passions would be welcome at any anti-reaction party.
 
Fang Of Dougram (By 1965 Timelord)
Fang Of Dougram

After the major success of the joint Japanese-USAR animated giant robot series Mobile Suit Gundam, came a whole slew of more giant robot anime series from both Japan and USAR. The next major series that benefited the joint anime project was Fang Of Dougram. The plot of this series focus the future of Communist endeavors into interstellar space where a very fertile Earth-like planet is found and made into a planetary colony. But man's itinerant evil nature to corrupt things has still thrives in man's heart but held back by ideas of Socialist governing. Then a military coup erupted on said planet and a young male teen must fight back first to free his world and then fight against his father, the United World Soviet Federation First Secretary(premier) for independence. Meanwhile, an evil fascist agent acting as a deputy party member works his way to destroy all that Communists have work to free themselves from their worst nature and a better future. But this plucky lad is not alone in this fight as he gathers a group of friends to form a guerilla squad and a giant mecha code-named Dougram:cool: to part of this centerpiece.

The major part of the fan merchanise is the top-table miniature war game is Battletech - Explaining World Of Dougram.;)
 
Last edited:
ANNIHILATOR (1985) (By Mr.E)
Annihilator

Directed by Paul Verhoven

2035. Paris. A CERN laboratory is testing an experimental time machine, managing to send in a dog, and bring it back alive. Just as the scientists are celebrating, a gang suddenly raids the compound. Their leader, Marcel Chantoux (Gerard Depardieu) forces the scientist to prepare the machine to send a person back in time, despite the protests of the lead scientist, who claims they aren’t at that stage.

Chantoux and his gang raid the warehouse of military contractor Omni (which supplies the Franco-British government with advanced weapons), and steals a strange orb, placing it in a lead suitcase.. He returns to the lab, where the scientists are forced to reactivate the machines and send him back in time.

Back in Omni headquarters, Marcel Chantoux is formally introduced as a criminal and terrorist who had stolen an anti-matter bomb from their warehouse. His group seeks to destroy the foundations of civilization, and “build a new one from its ruins.” While they can’t speak to his exact actions, they determine that he has gone back to the year 1985, and a raid of their office reveals plans for the Paris Opera House.

The board argues as to their response. The anti-matter bomb was a secret contract with the government, and releasing information might compromise national security. Omni executive Calvin Dinger (Michael Caine) proposes a solution that would not cause much publicity or panic.

Dinger leads the “Annihilator Special Law Enforcement” program: another government co-lead project, which gives law enforcement special enhanced suits to combat a variety of threats ( including “organ dealers, video pirates, Marxist radicals and infiltrators, anti-corporate activists, fifth columns, and other threats to good capitalist society”), and “annihilate” them without any sort of recourse due to intense secrecy.

The recruits for this program are police officers from across Europe who have been severely injured or compromised in a way that they could no longer function in their typical capacity. Such is the case for Antoon Pettinga (Rutguer Hauer), an Amsterdam police officer injured fighting against “leftist insurgents” who blew up the building they had seized, leaving him armless and legless (it’s also implied his penis was blown off). He was then recruited into the agency (with the implication that he may not have been lucid when he agreed to do so), and has become their most effective operative, managing to make 45 “annihilations” in only one year.

“No. 34”, as he is called, travels back to Paris in the year 1985. He is mostly regarded with indifferent bemusement by the locals, but sees Marcel at a coffee shop. Marcel has several weapons that are able to slow 34 down as he makes an escape. He manages to get into the sewer, and evade 34.

34 is confronted by Paris police, who arrest him on account of destroying the coffee shop. When 34 is uncooperative (his programming is specifically for police in 2035 to realize he is an “Annihilator” and release him), Detectives Louis and DeJardis (Gordon Sumner and Alfred Molina) attempt to take off his plating.This activates his defense protocol. He escapes the police department, but is damaged by the gunfire, and is hit by Christina LeClair (Claudine Auger), a businesswoman, which further damages him. 34 begs her to hide him from the police. She does so in her car, telling the police that he escaped into the sewer.

LeClair takes him back to her apartment, and has him recover in her bathroom. Her son, Fernand (Jerome LaRue*) finds him. The two have a conversation, before Christina leads him away.

Marcel, meanwhile, reaches the opera house, and rig the bomb up the foundation. He then confirms that the Franco-British Prime Minister and Robert Anger (Daniel Day-Lewis), his young aide, will be there. Anger would go on to find Omni Corp in 1994.

Back in Omni Corp headquarters in 2035, since 34 is lost, Anger orders a new Annihilator to go in and finish the job “with efficiency.” No. 50 (Julius Okio*), a Nigerian policeman severely injured while handling an accident in a chemical factory owned by Omni, is sent to destroy both Chantoux and hunt down 34, and kill him as well.

Fernand begins to bring various electronics to 34 to help him fix himself. He and Christina also begin to bond, with 34 describing his life in the Netherlands, his fiancee, and how he feels having basically lost everything.

Louis and DeJardis, having survived the attack, attempt to locate 34, but instead arrest Marcel (when they see him and remember witnesses’ description of a man fleeing the scene.) While he is being processed, 50 arrives, and attempts to kill Marcel. However, he suddenly flashes back to the incident (where it’s implied Omni mercenaries killed workers left behind), and when Louis and DeJardis (thinking 50 was 34, due to his armor) attempt to subdue him, Marcel escapes.50 brutally kills DeJardis, while Louis barely survives.

34 sees the report in the news, and realizes that the agency has sent 50 to eliminate him to ensure that there was no evidence of the annihilation. When he sees that Anger is going to be at the Paris Opera House, he realizes that Marcel plans to destroy him and the PM there, though he doesn’t know why.

Despite not being fully healed, he heads to the Paris Opera House, with Christina in close pursuit. He reaches the Paris Opera House, and dispatches security. He then reaches the basement, and finds Marcel.

Marcel taunts him, calling him a “machine,” “A soulless automaton” “A product”. Marcel finally gets in 34’s face, asking him to kill him right there. 34 complies, slowly twisting Marcel’s head while he continues to taunt him, finally snapping it.

34 is about to leave for his own time when a malfunctioning 50 arrives. Suicidal because of his memories and his intense pain, he reactivates the bomb, prepared to take Omni down with him. 34 and 50 engage in an intense battle, which disrupts the performance above. Christina manages to find 34, and 34 saves her life when 50 launches a rocket. Anger comes to witness the battle, and 50 decides to murder Anger right there and then for the pain he endured, brutally beating him to death. The scars appear on the 2035 Anger. While 50 is distracted, 34 defuses the bomb. While Christina asks him to save Anger’s life, 34 stands by until finally shooting 50 in the head before he can deal the final blow.

34 and Christina leave the scene, and 34 finally starts to call himself “Antoon”. He and Christina kiss, as emergency services get to the Opera House. Meanwhile, back at Omni, Anger, now disabled because of his beating, chews out his employees for allowing it to happen. Dinger manages to convince him to calm down, saying that they have more “Annihilators to deal with our ‘little problem’ [34]”.
 
Corner Store of the Damned (By traveller76)
Happy Halloween everyone!

Corner Store of the Damned

Created By: Roland Sutherland, Miltiades Babic, Millie Nanuli Winthrop

Starring: Roland Sutherland, Miltiades Babic, Millie Nanuli Winthrop, Rostom Medved, Hodiyah Freja Segreti, Tory Jojo

Country of Origin: Franco-British Union

Original Language: English

Number of series: 4 (2001-2005)

Number of Episodes: 28

Created by the comedy team of Sutherland, Babic and Winthrop the Corner Store of the Damned started as a skit and then became a short play while the three writers attended university together and were part of the comedy troupe The Ones That Shall Not Be Named. In 2000 the team graduated and Roland Sutherland submitted the idea to the EBC on a dare from Miltiades and Millie. All three were surprised with the positive response from the EBC and in May 2001 the series began filming. Using older sets and having access to the vast archives of costumes and makeup the program was filmed on a very low cost budget. While the budget was low-cost the writing was not, combining characters from a variety of horror and science-fiction programs, books, films from the past half century with a jokes about current affairs and life. According to Millie Winthrop the idea was 'What if the monsters and aliens on TV were real and where did they shop? What did they do after they were defeated or stranded on Earth?"

After the first season 2001-2002 the series would be picked up both across Europe and even in the Comintern with the team visiting various Science-Fiction and Horror conventions. Within a year the program had become a cult favorite and various official and unofficial versions of the program appeared in various countries. Reruns of the program continued after the series end in 2005.

Season 1: While attending University and looking for a work, James Gallager (Roland Sutherland) takes a temporary job at Moldark's, a corner store located in a poor and run down part of town. Despite the location the store is clean and well stocked with a variety of odd substances and products. He meets with Victor and Pearle Larus (Miltiades Babic, Millie Winthrop), the couple who run the store during the day. James is assigned to the 'Graveyard' overnight shift from as testing period since the employee turnover rate is high. When he reports to work the next evening, he meets Edgar Damion (Tory Jojo), his co-worker and Manager. During the shift he sees various creatures from zombies to aliens come in, purchase products and leave with little problem. When he remarks about this to Edgar he says that this is normal and that is the regular people that create the most problems. He also meets Moredecai Moldark (Rostom Medved), the owner who seems to dislike 'regular people'.

Season 2: A year later and James has been promoted is a regular on the overnight shift with Edgar and the 'usual customers'. A new female employee, Minerva (Hodiyah Freja Segreti) joins the group and becomes friends with James and Edgar. She is also going to the same University as James and her major is Engineering instead of Business like her father wanted. While working at the store Minerva starts to take an interest in James and fends off Edgars attempts. While talking to James she is amazed he is friendly and treats the various monsters and aliens with the same respect as regular humans. One evening when a drunk begins to verbally harass a child monster James throws him out. However the drunk return with a gun and in a burst of speed Minerva disarms him. After the police arrive and take the would be robber away she reveals she is a vampire and that her father is Moredecai and she had feelings for James.

Season 3: Moredecai is discussing Minerva's future after the robbery. Moredecai wanted Minerva to learn the family business but once again humanity has to destroy everything. Minerva respond that what happened to her mother and back in the old country was a different situation than now. When her father forbids her from seeing James she agrees somewhat. James is transferred to the day shift with Victor and Pearle but soon begins to miss Minerva and Edgar. He sees Minerva at University and finally asks her about why she is avoiding him, she agrees to meet him one evening at a local bar. At the bar she explains that her parents are vampires who left Romania at the end of the Second World War as the Comintern was advancing and various nationalist and religious groups were waging a guerrilla war. When they landed as Britain as refugees with the other monsters they were treated poorly and discriminated against. The monsters ended up in government housing but due to poor health care Minerva's mother died in childbirth. This created Moredecai's dislike of humans and opening a store to serve monster's only. James explains that while humanity can be cruel not all humans are that way and that he wants to date Minerva no matter what she is.

Season 4: Minerva and James begin to date and attend various horror and science fiction conventions where Minerva becomes popular due to her looks and costume. If fact she recognizes many of her father's friends from various films and television programs. When one of Moredecai's friends, a mummy, sees James and Minerva talking and holding hands at a convention he calls Moredecai. When James walks Minerva home one evening he asks her to wait till after he graduates University and presents a wedding ring. At that moment Moredecai attacks James and says that monsters and humans cannot exist together. Minerva steps in and both father and daughter fight each other while James is wounded. Both Minerva and Moredecai are arrested and James is taken to the hospital. When James is asked if he wants to press charges he declines saying that Moredecai was simply being a father. Later he meets with Moredecai and says he was being honorable and that he will quit his job and that all humans are not like those who chased them out of Europe. Moredecai says he will hold James to his promise to Minerva and that fathers can be overprotective monsters of those they love. James says wait till you meet his parents.


Epliogue: Minerva, James, Moredecai and James's parents are visiting a Horror Convention with Moredecai attracting attention for his costume and 'wonderful acting'. Moredecai is actually surprised at the attention.

Welcome to TV Land 1950-2000, Jubilee Productions (2017)
 
Eastman Kodak Pictures (by Mr.E)
Special thanks to @Mr. C and @Time slip for their help on this.
Commonpedia.co.syn

Eastman Kodak Pictures

Eastman Kodak Pictures (sometimes referred to as “Eastman Pictures”; known as “ Kodak International” from 1967-1988) was an American-British film company and a subsidiary of the Eastman Kodak Company. Formed in 1919, it was an offshoot of their film stock division, meant to enter a market they already had some influence in. With larger budgets provided by their parent company, they would make large scale epics and adventure films, which would become some of the biggest hits of the 1920’s. They would relocate to their acquired studios in United Kingdom following the Second American Revolution, alongside their parent company. They would remain a prominent force in the British (and later, Franco-British) film industry for 30 years. Eventually, as RKO and Paramount began larger pushes into the European market in the 1960’s, Kodak struggled, though kept afloat by their parent company, who rebranded their film division, “Kodak International”. However, by the 80’s, their parent company, suffering its own financial difficulties, would merge with Ilford Pictures, and as a result, in 1984 the studio was sold, first to the Maggie Pie corporation, and, after a disastrous 8 years, merged with Associated British Picture Corporation to form Imperial Pictures, a subsidiary of Phillips.

History

Having already contributed nitrate film stock since 1916, Kodak decided to enter the film market to capitalize on their control over their own film stock. George Eastman made a deal with several theaters across the country to distribute films that were made in-house with Kodak film stock.

Thanks to their more privileged position in comparison to other upstart film organizations, they could pursue more ambitious projects with enough star power to make them hits. In 1921, they produced the feature The Life and Times of Pancho Villa, starring the titular Mexican revolutionary himself as the lead. The film’s co-producer was a struggling director named David Wark Griffith, who took footage from several small films he did with Villa during the Great War. Griffith had made several films, but floundered for several years when he attempted to stage a large scale adaptation of Thomas Dixon’s Reconstruction era historical novel The Clansman, that ended up becoming a victim of the drive towards wartime propaganda. While he would direct the acclaimed invasion film, Olympus has Fallen, his vision of an epic feature film remained dormant. However, he would be given the reigns of a large project, an adaptation of an acclaimed and beloved Biblical novel.

Ben-Hur: A Tale of Christ, starring Rudolph Valentino in the titular role, would be a gigantic success in 1922, helping usher in a new age of epics to capitalize on its success. Kodak would ride this wave with ease. Using the pull power of producer Thomas Ince, they made lavish, star studded adventure pictures set in exotic locations. “FROM THE DESERTS OF ARABIA TO THE TUNDRA OF RUSSIA”, one ad for the studio boasted.

They even began to dip into more special effects heavy work, with 1925’s The Lost World featuring the then-almost life like stop motion models of Willis O’Brien. “Obie” was also recruited to do the effects for their adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough’s The Land That Time Forgot two years later, and Skylark, an adaptation of EE “Doc” Smith’s science fiction stories.

However, they were not free of their own troubles. Thomas Ince himself was forced to testify in front of the Fish Committee due to the studio enlisting known communist or communist sympathizers to help with their films, and the release of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Volga Boatsman, a fairly sympathetic portrayal of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War. Ince insisted that they were “full, unashamed capitalists”, and highlighted his relationship with Vice President William Randolph Hearst as evidence of his “capitalist soul”[1]. At the same time, Eastman Kodak was also fighting the tide of unionism both for the main company and its film division, calling in Pinkertons to suppress the strikes and helping in enforcing the Breen Code. One of the biggest blows was the death of their star Rudolph Valentino in 1926, who had become an icon of the burgeoning Uranian movement due to his open homosexuality.

In 1928, Kodak purchased the Pathe film studios in the UK. The same year, their documentary Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness won one of the first Academy Awards. Ultimately, the Depression would hit the studio hard, and already with communist sympathies and strikes rising in Hollywood, they began to move their operations to those purchased studios in the UK. Indeed, some of their next big feature King Kong (made by Chang directors Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack with effects by O’Brien) was made in the United Kingdom. When the Revolution came, Kodak promptly left for Britain, and set up their headquarters there with their UK Studios. Their Hollywood lot was collectivized and renamed “The Burbank Film Collective”

With the death of Ince during the Civil War, a new studio chief was needed. Luckily, Eddie Mannix, general manager at MGM who had followed them to the UK, had left due to disputes between him and the studio’s new partner Alexander Korda. Kodak successfully lured him to head up the studio and make use of the new British environment.

Under Mannix (called “Kodak’s Little Mussolini”), they were able to compete with the MGM-Korda machine. However, because of Mannix’s overbearing style, they failed to attract many of Korda’s regulars, relying on a stable of stars from Europe. However, their European relocation also allowed them to experiment more with color film, using their previously developed two-color Kodachrome process. Eventually, they were able to create color films on par with the now widespread Technicolor, and use them to make even bigger pictures to sell to audiences

During the war, they churned out propaganda films, including The Last Plantagenet to promote the newly formed Franco-British Union, and even some pro-American features like Red Trails and American Songbook. Ayn Rand would single these films out as evidence of pro-communist sympathies in the Franco-British film industry.

After the war, Kodak would rely on its stars like Hedy Lamarr and Maureen O’Hara, called “the Queen of Kodachrome”[2] because of her long time affiliation with the studio. However, they would find new competitors. The Rank Organization, having recently purchased Universal, and RKO, owned by mogul Howard Hughes, were making in-roads in the Franco-British film industry. They would also find new allies. In 1955, they would distribute the adaptation of the television serial The Quatermass Experiment, done by Hammer Films. In 1958, Hammer’s Castle of Frankenstein would be a hit for them and Kodak, starting off the popular Hammer Horror films. That same year, they opened their first French studio, and enlisted Jean Renoir to produce the epic film Mekong, adapted from Pierre Boulle’s memoir of the same name[2].

The death of Eddie Mannix in 1960 was devastating for the studio output, as was a failed attempt to start a theater chain. As a result, they turned towards distributing Eurospy and horror pictures from continental Europe and the Soviet Union, and downgrading their traditional exotic pictures, instead loaning their second unit teams to the EBC for nature documentaries. As for their own output, the rise of the counterculture and Swinging London gave rise to “hip thrillers” and beach movies, attempts to appeal to urban youth in London, Paris, West Rome etc, coinciding with their parent company pitching themselves as a “camera for the young”. Instead, while “Camera for the Young” was a success, the films mostly became the subject of mockery or parody.

The traditional area of recruitment for Kodak, continental Europe, was also dwindling, with MGM-Eon offering bigger deals for their James Bond series, and even Mosfilm and some American studios recruiting politically active thespians for Spanish-based productions.

A new regime, led by Indian producer Ismail Merchant, tried to return the studio to its bread and butter during the 20’s and 30’s, starting with A Passage to India directed by Satyajit Ray and John Boorman’s The Man Who would be King. These new Indian set films would both start off a colonial nostalgia wave and a new Indian studio to help the making of these colonial features. This coincided with a name change to “Kodak International”, to emphasize the new studios abroad in 1968.

The biggest hit of 1969 was Planet of the Apes , directed by Francois Truffaut and based on another Pierre Boulle novel, and produced by Kodak International and Pathe. As part of the agreement to make the film, Kodak was to back Truffaut’s Alfred Hitchcock homage, The Rio Conspiracy. However, while filming in Bonn in 1972, three separatists from the Red Army Front kidnapped Truffaut, and tried to extort his family and Kodak for cash as well as the release of artists languishing under the “Exploitation Act” in West Germany. While the Bundeswehr was able to rescue Truffaut, the lack of security on set hurt the studio’s reputation.

The colonial wave would evolve into a trend of Victorian and Edwardian-set movies in the 70’s, including Tess of D’Urberville, Howard’s End and Pride and Prejudice, which were disparagingly called “Tasteful Cinema” by some (criticized for their sterility and stuffiness), but were massive successes at the box office. Notably, they once again worked with Hammer in 1972 with the Victorian set The Reign of Dracula.

Still, their penchant for exotic features continued, primarily with the new fangled spy thriller. Notably, they received official FBU distribution rights to Stern, a 1976 Maxine Kaplan adaptation produced by the ESCI affiliated Vertov Collective.[3] The critically acclaimed Indochina drama, The Night of the Jungle would sweep the BAFTAs and became the biggest film in the FBU in 1979.

The beginning of the end for Kodak Films largely centered on corporate politics around its parent company, since their films had continued success with their brand of Victorian movies as the aftermath of the 1979 Crisis raged on. Chariots of Fire and The Flying Singh, about the 1924 and 1956 Olympics respectively, would win the BAFTAs and the former even received an Oscar nomination.

However, Eastman Kodak itself was steadily losing out in the new battle for digital photography, and in 1984, merged with Ilford Photo to form Kodak-Ilford Ltd. The merger would not be able to accomodate the studio, so they auctioned it and its assets as a package. It was eventually purchased by the fast food conglomerate Maggie Pie[3], though Kodak would continue to license the name for brand recognition.


The entire studio was restructured, firing Merchant, and shutting down the Victorian sets. Instead, the studio became more focused on contemporary comedies or thrillers to sell Maggie Pies under the guise of filmmaking.

While some classics, including an adaptation of Douglas Adam’s The Nifty Galactic Handbook and The Final Solution with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in their last filmed appearance together as Holmes and Watson (and the last to use the iconic Merchant sets), emerged from this period, the Maggie Pie era saw the output plummet and the remaining films largely generic, cheap affairs, a far cry from their luxurious hayday. Notably, they were involved in the notorious flop, Battlefield Earth, an RKO co-production based on the eponymous novel by Dianetic Church founder L. Ron Hubbard (who served as lead producer), through Maggie Pie’s deal to produce toys for the film. They also produced The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, containing massive Maggie Pie product placement, and regarded as the worst of the series.

With this fall in quality, eventually Maggie Pie sold off Kodak to the private equity firm the Bernard Group, who merged it with Associated British Picture Corporation to form a new company, Imperial Pictures, which still utilize the studios purchased in 1929. The library and the rights to series like Planet of the Apes was sold to MGM-Mirror, under the Kennedy Group.[4]

[1] Google “Thomas Ince”, and you’ll get the in-joke

[2] Special Thanks to @Time slip for the nickname.

[3] Bridge on the River Kwai OTL

[4] Fictional American spy Rachel Stern and her creator Maxine Kaplan , as well as Maggie Pie, courtesy of @Mr. C

[5]Media conglomerate owned by Cuban-British congresssman-turned-businessman Edward “Ted” Kennedy
 
Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation (By Mr.E)
An expansion of a previous piece I did.
Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation

The headquarters of the Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation in London has a massive golden statue of Howard Hughes in a pilot suit standing outside its front doors, pointing to the Thames. It is fitting, given the story of HWBC is really his story and how he exploited nationalistic feelings, capitalism, and anti-communism to form an empire within an empire, one which continues to prey on the fears of jingoists to this day.

Howard Robards Hughes, Jr was only 19 when he inherited the massive fortune of his father, a Texas drill bit tycoon. Using his fortune, he would launch a career as a film producer (winning one of the Oscars with The Racket) and eventually going into aviation with Hughes Aircraft. Hughes would pack up and leave for Britain when Norman Thomas was elected. Hughes Aircraft would become one of the biggest aircraft manufacturers in the United Kingdom, and during the war, would produce the Hughes H-Series of bombers, and the Hercules H-4 transport vehicle. He would also go on to buy majority of the Cuban airline Transcontinental & Western Air (TWA) by 1944, and start offering passenger flights across the Atlantic as the war winded to a close.

Hughes, however, decided to get back into the industry that brought him into fame. He would steadily buy shares in the struggling Havanawood poverty row studio RKO, before seizing complete control. This also marked his growing investment in Cuban and Jamaican casinos and real estate, propping up the Hughes name as the largest landowners in the Caribbean.

Hughes was by most accounts, a neurotic, often eccentric millionaire, often going by his whims. So, when the Television Act of 1956 privatized many Franco-British stations to promote “free enterprise”, Hughes bought several of them solely because his favorite films and Cuban television shows were not being played on the EBC.

One of those shows was Private Opinion, hosted by Robert W. Welch, Jr. Once an executive at his brother James’ candy manufacturer, the Revolution drove them to Cuba. The strong anti-communist lost his will as his beloved country fell to the scourge of communism. Eventually, he would find solace in faith, eventually becoming a evangelical preacher of “capitalism”. He would give sermons in the late 30’s while still working at the candy company, become a chaplin in the Cuban Navy, and rise to become a personal spiritual advisor to MacArthur and Secretary of War Edwin Walker. Thus, he would gain a syndicated feature in Life/Time Magazine in 1948, and in 1955, a nationwide program was commissioned showing his sermon to a national audience. Private Opinion saw Welch tell his audience (both in-studio and outside) about the dangers and evils of communism, and the need for a Christian faith “armed with the weapon of free enterprise” to destroy it. It was largely remain this combination of bog-standard preaching and bog standard propaganda for the first few years of its existence.

Hughes would place the new stations under his control to the new “RKO-TV” division, which would supply them with imported Cuban films and television shows. By 1960, Hughes owned a large share of the Franco-British television stations, and would expand into other areas, including documentaries and sports. Some original productions came into being, including, notably, a six-part miniseries adaptating We the Living. Hughes’ interest soon went to the news media in the Franco-British Union. Hughes was a particular fan of The Daily Mail, a strongly conservative paper long run by Harmsworth family, which he felt was the only paper to truly dedicate itself against communism. Still, he felt that some “adjustment was needed”, and bought out shares of the Daily Mail and General Trust, which ran the newspaper.

Hughes, associated romantically with some of the biggest stars of Britain and Europe, including Hedy Lamar and Olivia de Havilland, finally tied the knot with Marie-Claire Bonnel*, a French actress of some renown, in 1953. Resulting from this was the 1954 birth of Marianne Hughes.

The early 60’s were decidedly not good for Welch. His sermon grew increasingly erratic, speaking of communism as an “ancient, satanic conspiracy”, and eventually started calling said conspiracy the Illuminati, a secret society with its origins in the Garden of Eden and philosophers of ancient Greece. Since he did in-house production through the “Robert W. Welch Television Corporation” and he never advocated any anti-state activity, the distribution companies kept the show on the air, albeit editing out some of the more bizarre assertions (including that British Royal Family were part of the leading council of the Illuminati. In a 1962 show, Welch claimed that God would ensure the survival of MacArthur as long as communism remained on Earth. A few months later, with MacArthur’s death, he claimed that the Communists had assassinated him in secret. Soon enough, the theories focused primarily on President Robert Kennedy. Welch claimed that Kennedy was a high ranking MDSS agent known as “Raven”, who was controlled by J. Edgar Hoover to assassinate MacArthur and sublimate the Americuban government back under American control. His rants grew more bizarre from there, including his father being an Irish mob boss and a crypto-communist who poisoned MacArthur. Thus, in 1964, Private Opinion was taken off the air for its inflammatory rhetoric against the President (and for promoting dubious health products).

Hughes was outraged by the cancellation, and subsequently offered to have RKO-TV distribute Private Opinion for both FBU and Cuban audiences. Welch signed a deal that would seal its continued distribution and came back on the air in July of 1966.

Emboldened, Welch’s sermons now focused on the insufficient response of the Franco-British Union to the threat of communism. Eventually, Welch would host a second program, which would be produced by the renamed “Robert Welch News Company”, helped by Hughes’ funding. Independent News was infamous for its intense support for the Indochina War. (Monty Python’s Flying Circus notoriously satirized Independent News as Maybe It's News ) This turn towards open conservatism was also marked by Hughes seizing complete control of the Daily Mail in 1967 in a hostile takeover, prying it directly from the hands of the Harmsworth family that started it and shutting them out. Hughes largely kept the editoral stance the same, only adding in a rotating column from one of Welch’s supporters (including Fred Trump and Revilo Oliver).

With the combined success of Independent News and Private Opinion, Robert Welch would slowly rise through Welch News, now partially owned by RKO itself, into RKO-TV, and direct more attention to his own pet conspiracies, now increasingly bizarre. Noah Dietrich, Hughes’ longtime confidante and lawyer, warned that Welch was erratic and untrustworthy, but Hughes maintained faith in his new hero. Indeed, Hughes himself was gradually becoming stranger and more bizarre and reclusive. This lead to his divorce in 1969 and his daughter becoming distant, instead going off as a celebrity in her own right as a teen. He had also abandoned his English estate in favor of the Hotel Tropicana in Georgetown. He would rewatch movies like Ice Station Zebra and Topaz hundreds of times in a loop, and buying gallons of coconut water and ice cream.

Still, the two kept in contact, and in 1970, the two discussed having a news network that could contrast the “communist-leaning” EBC or the “socialist” Voice of Europe[1], and bring a “pro-civilization” perspective.

They were given a lucky test subject in 1971, when a TWA flight was accidentally shot down near Maine, and the occupants were held up in Bangor airport for several hours to get connecting flights. Independent News and The Mail portrayed the incident as the Reds kidnapping people and holding them hostage. The strong reaction showed the market for this sort of coverage.

Hughes, Welch, and Dietrich would spend the early seventies hammering out this vision of a conservative news network, untethered by leftist sentiment. The new development of cable and satellite was decided to gain a wider reach worldwide instead of just the Franco-British Union. At the same time, Hughes and Dietrich agreed that Welch should probably stay off the air for now, because of his insistence that the FBU was part of a socialist conspiracy, which conflicted with government contracts for Hughes Aircraft and TWA. Thus, Private Opinion was given guest spots, while Welch was made director of programming and production, effectively taking him and his opinions off the air.

After developing a series of programs that would make a full line-up for a dedicated news channel,(including Red Channel, The Nation, and Daily Mail TV), the Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation went on the air on January 5th, 1975, making a considerable waves for its open attacks on Communism, detente, the ongoing Bolivian and Indochina Crises, and on the counterculture in London, Paris, Bonn, West Rome, etc. While said counterculture was quick to seize on it and its quasi-fascist nature (producing parodies widely distributed by recording), it soon garnered a viewership amongst Cold Warriors and Powellites, many of whom believed the government had been “surrendering” to the Communists. Pundits like Powell himself, American ex-prisoner and writer Barry Goldwater, and Ayn Rand would all get a chance to air their own “commentary (Rand advertising her colony in Northern Canada on the air was considered a memorable moment on British television, according to a 1999 Empire Magazine poll). Goldwater would go on to host his own talk show (Breakpoint with Goldwater) in 1976, where he would engage with a variety of politicians on a variety of issues.

Howard Hughes died en route from Georgetown to a Kingston hospital for a bypass surgery in 1976. Dietrich would assume control of his various companies and assets, including RKO-TV and The Daily Mail. With Ted Kennedy’s own Global News satellite network rising as a competitor, Dietrich would transition the network to satellite, and make his own 24 Hour News station. Dietrich would also ensure that the increasingly erratic Welch (at this point, sending journalists to find evidence of the Illuminati in Spartan ruins) was kept out of official production as much as possible.

Now 23, Marianne Hughes was a regular at Monaco, and mingled with the Prince on a regular basis. While the tabloids linked the two romantically, she would ultimately fall in with a very different individual. While at a yacht party with a friend, she noticed an old man telling a grand tale of the war. The friend, Sarah Folger, heiress to the Folger Coffee Company, recalled the scene:


“We overheard him, and saw a group of people enraptured by him. He was telling the story of saving a group of British sailor during the war, while commanding a submarine. He just had this charisma, this presence, that attracted people. He would talk and people would listen to him. When he was done, he came up to Mary, and they started talking. She ended up wanting to talk more so much, he took her to his organization”​

L. Ron Hubbard had been scuttling between a Dianetic Church owned property in Spain and an apartment in Monaco, since the Franco-British Union opened an investigation to the finances and practices of Hubbard and his church. As his followers in the FBU continued the legal battle against the government’s investigation, he was recruiting more people, primarily fellow tax exiles in Monaco, to help keep the Church afloat.

He and Marianne became closer, and in 1978, she formally joined the Dianetics Church. With her wealth, she rose through the levels, before eventually becoming a high ranking member by 1980. Dietrich, sensing that Hubbard was a shady figure with a dubious past, began to dig into the Church, hiring private investigators to dig as much dirt on it as possible, and ordering some of the news programs to cover the church and show their internal corruption as much as possible.

By that time, Welch’s paranoia had reached fever pitch, believing that 1979 was a smokescreen conspiracy by the Illuminati to ensure that the birth of the anti-Christ isn’t noticed. Upon learning that the FBU had retracted the tactical nuclear bomber headed towards the restive Quebec City, a furious Welch stormed the set of The Red Hour with Lord Richard Cecil, pushed him off the seat, and angrily yelled on camera about how the FBU had “key members of the Illuminati” inside that were conspiring to ensure that the “Satanic World Order” by staging the entire crisis. The broadcast was cut in minutes, and Dietrich would fire Welch then and there.

Dietrich would die in 1981, without completing his investigation of the Dianetics Church, and legal wrangling prevented his papers from coming out, meaning much of it remains locked. (Bits would leak over the years, including Dianetics story of Xenu). Soon, a mandate was handed down to ensure all mentions of Dianetics were eliminated from the air. Marianne would get RKO to back L. Ron Hubbard’s film Battlefield Earth. She would name her first son, Lafeyette, born shortly after Hubbard’s death in 1985.

The 80’s would see Hughes expand, first into continental Europe, and then Algeria, Nigeria, Ethiopia, India, Cuba, and Australia. All would follow the same anti-communist viewpoints, but tailor it towards the local markets. The hope was to create a worldwide conservative brand.

New head of programming, Andrew Neil, continued the line during the wars and conflicts of the 80’s, heavily criticizing ant-nuclear and anti-war groups and protests, and being unabashed about support union suppression and privatization. By now, their lack of objectivity and open support for government policies earned them criticism from commentators. Ted Kennedy and Robert Maxwell, rivals of the operation, would use some of their publications to attack their stance. In 1985, journalists including Emile DuMont and Henry Kerrigan [2] (The latter having himself profiled Hughes during the war) signed a petition condemning Hughes-Welch for “journalistic negligance” and “degrading the political discourse not only in the Franco-British Union, but in international markets”. This didn’t stop their expansion into documentary film and book publishing through the Mail. That same year, Robert W. Welch died in his London apartment, living off his shares in his brother’s candy company and still in his production company. James would sell off the latter entirely to the HRH Corporation.

In 1988, Red Channel would attract criticism for their interview of David Icke, president of the Dianetics Church, who was in the midst of criticism for the Church’s systemic attack on the government and demand it be recognized as a religious institution, as well as massive attacks on journalists and critics. Icke defended the organization and denied the claims. This coincided with the Daily Mail publishing articles alleging that the National Association of Mental Health was conducting experiments to drive people insane and destroy their will. These were later revealed to be given by the Dianetics Promotion Section, a propaganda arm of the Church. This coincided with Marianne’s subsequent power plays within RKO to ensure that Dianetics was ignored.

In 1991, HRH reorganized their various properties, separating Hughes-Welch from RKO-TV. As the wars of the 80’s winded down, HWBC would double down on the culture wars, bringing on Mary Whitehouse frequently to discuss “video nasties” and the “violence on the EBC, ITV, Galaxy, and Canal”, and frequently mentioned crime and drug problems within working class, immigrant neighborhoods, tying them with communist activism in those communities. In 1994, Red Channels would spark controversy by claiming that “confidential reports” from the Joint Foreign Service revealed that several union leaders were secretly part of a Comintern spy ring. The resulting lawsuit would see them lose £110 million. They would invoke further controversy by stating that Ted Kennedy and the late Robert Maxwell were “assets of DeLeon-Debs”, and that Kennedy’s purchase of Maxwell’s publishing empire was part of a consolidation of American assets in the FBU.

1996 would see them launch a website, along with the Daily Mail’s. 1997 would see them launch a separate Daily Mail Business Network. 2000 would see HRH purchase Minute and Le Figario, and subsequently launch Le Figario TV in HWBC French sections, replacing French translations of Daily Mail TV.

After Independent News host Peter Hitchens blasted Tony Blair in 2006, Blair launched heavy criticism to HWBC, stating that they represented the lowest standards of television. In 2011, the history of Hughes-Welch was dramatized in an EBC miniseries, Truth in Journalism (referencing a quote by Robert Welch outlining the mission of a conservative station), and in 2014 in the American film News Wars (focusing on the rivalry between the EBC, and news groups owned by the Kennedy Group and HRH).

HWBC continues to broadcast their unabashed conservatism, and have continued to hold some political influence, with former Parliamentarians and Lords making regular appearances to comment on various issues. Lafeyette Hughes, the grandson of Howard Hughes, is the current president of the network.



[1] A government operated radio station aimed at Comintern nations

[2] Fictional journalists created by @Bookmark1995 and @Aelita respectively
 
Last edited:
An expansion of a previous piece I did.
Hughes-Welch Broadcasting Corporation


-snip-

Howard Hughes basically creates TTL Fox News. He then has a daughter who marries L.Ron Hubbard and comes to believe in Dianetics?

That is...not actually surprising.
 
She doesn't marry Hubbard, but the two have a very close relationship in the years before his death.

Oh...

Anyways, Hughes having a neurotic daughter is an interesting idea all the same.

BTW, does Hughes still endure his 1947 plane crash. That was the thing that ultimately sealed his descent into madness.
 
Fox News/Sky News coming a couple of decades earlier and then falling in the pocket of the Church of Scientology? Man, that's a truly dystopian setting. Just imagine where it's all heading to when the social networks in the FBU and the rump "United States" kick off. Thank the inevitable laws of history for the Comintern, I guess.
 
Fox News/Sky News coming a couple of decades earlier and then falling in the pocket of the Church of Scientology? Man, that's a truly dystopian setting. Just imagine where it's all heading to when the social networks in the FBU and the rump "United States" kick off. Thank the inevitable laws of history for the Comintern, I guess.

Again, it isn't that surprising. Fox News is an organization that seems to pull facts out of smoke, so it makes sense for them to fall into the pocket of people who make careers doing that.

Radical socialism and capitalism are more existential threats to each other TTL.

I can imagine that political polarization is MUCH worse compared to OTL, especially with proto-Fox news.
 

xsampa

Banned
How does the Comintern plan to deal with Algeria's white minority? Expulsion as IOTL is certainly an option, but I assume with the UASR as the working model of how to reconcile settlee and native populations, a different option will be chosen.
 
How does the Comintern plan to deal with Algeria's white minority? Expulsion as IOTL is certainly an option, but I assume with the UASR as the working model of how to reconcile settlee and native populations, a different option will be chosen.

How would they even get into Algeria? They're not at war with France.

Also the UASR isn't really a model for solving white minority rule, all it does is try to make amends for a long era of white majority rule. All the settlers in Algeria would be first generation so there's a lot less reasons against just sending them back on their way to France.
 

xsampa

Banned
How would they even get into Algeria? They're not at war with France.

Also the UASR isn't really a model for solving white minority rule, all it does is try to make amends for a long era of white majority rule. All the settlers in Algeria would be first generation so there's a lot less reasons against just sending them back on their way to France.
I meant in the postcolonial era as part of a policy to turn dominions Red
 
THE BLONDE DEVIL (By Mr.E)
The Blonde Devil (2013 miniseries)
3 episodes

Richard Heinz was a 20 year old WFRA soldier captured with his unit in Belarus in 1942. He was held at the infamous Maly Trostinets POW camp, near the Free American State.
Given his fairly Nordic appearance and German heritage, William Dudley Pelley selected him as to go through the process of brainwashing, steadily broken through torture, shown anti-Communist propaganda, and is molded into a fanatical Nazi American guard at the camp by Pelley himself.
Heinz was called “The Blonde Devil”, because of his extreme brutality, beating the enslaved citizens nearly to death for any indiscretion, mutilating many of the prisoners for amusement, and doing unspeakable acts towards his fellow POWs and those deemed inferior. The successful transformation from “Judeo-Bolshevik soldier to fighter for the Aryan race” is touted by Pelley and Silber Legion head Virgil Effinger and he was given commendations by the two.
As Comintern advanced deeper into Belarus in 1944, and Effinger began to execute other brainwashed POWs they had converted, Heinz caught wind of what was happening, and escaped before he could become the next victim. He subsequently disappeared, with little trace of where he went or what happened to him
Even for survivors of the notorious Maly Trostinets concentration camp and the horrific Free American State, “Richard the Black” or “the Blonde Devil” remained a ghastly memory, his sadistic actions and physical appearance inscribed in their memory decades later….


In 1977 DeLeon-Debs, a Shoah survivor named Sonia Gertler holds back tears as she recounts the brutal death of her brother at the hands of a cruel Maly Trostinets prison guard named Richard the Black, a converted American POW, who beat him for falling down at work from starvation. Section 1 agent Yana Berlin, a young member of the “Axis Criminal Task Force” made by several intelligence agencies to hunt down remaining Axis war criminals still in hiding, has been assigned to record Sonia’s story to add to various stories about Richard the Black and his brutal crimes, to help identify and locate him to be brought to trial.

Berlin and Shin Bet agent Donald Greenbaum head to East Germany to interview a Hiwi at Maly Trostinets named Georges. Georges and Richard worked as guards at the camp and later helped maintain the crematorium. Georges recounts, himself shaken by the memory, how Richard would bring in people who were still barely alive to burn. He goes on to explain that after he himself left Maly Trostinets, he eventually came across Richard in occupied Hungary shortly before Hitler’s capture (and Georges’ own capture by American forces). During their discussion, Heinz said he was likely headed to England, noting that he could disguise his identity and slip away from the WFRA. The identity was “Heinrich Wagner”. Heinz’ brother Martin (determined to bring his brother to justice, despite just being a postman) tells Berlin that name is likely, given their fathers’ name was Heinrich, and Richard was into classical music. The two agents begin scouring London in search of evidence for Heinz’ location.

In 1991 Toronto, Gertruda Tomorov, a young nurse named at the Toronto Commune for the Elderly, tends to a 71-year old retired plumber named John Demme, who has osteoarthritis. Demme, while pleasantly sarcastic and calm, is fairly evasive about his past, avoiding any questions about his relatives, only giving an address in Ottawa as the home of his brother. Tomorov checks the address, but finds no actual location. Attempting to dig further through archives to find more info about him, she makes a startling discovery: John Demme was a 17-year old who was killed with his parents in a house fire in Ottawa in 1939.

In 1978, Berlin, Greenbaum, and fellow Sec1 agent Lewis House manage to gain information about “Heinrich Wagner” in London, but find no information beyond 1953. A former neighbor said he was evasive and reclusive, especially about his oddly Americanized English, though recalled a conversation where he discussed possibly moving to Brazil for “the sun.”

Berlin scour the archives of the Hudal exposure in search of any sort of resettlement plans, but is frustrated by the lack of info. Eventually, she does find records of his immigration to London, but little else. The former neighbor calls House and Greenbaum regarding a postcard she had received in 1960 from “Heinrich Wagner” from an address in Quebec City.

1992, Tomorov reports John Demme to MDSS Section 7 for identity fraud. The agent assigned to it, Terri Sawyer, digs into Demme’s recorded life. Reportedly, he first started using the Demme name in 1956, while living in Ottawa, in order to get an ID. He was able to get a plumber’s license in Toronto after vocational school using this ID in 1960, and lived in relative peace, despite the eventual osteoarthritis in recent years. Co-workers said he was “pleasant enough”, if a bit reclusive and strange, often found staring at the pipes for no reason, listening to white noise, and seemed unemotional most times, merely doing his job without any real hobbies. One who visited his home, noted it was sparse, no family photos, or anything distinguishing. He explained a strange American accent by stating he was a refugee from America after the Civil War. Despite this, not enough detail exists to show any indication of his real identity. Sawyer does log his information into the new MDSS database for others to use.

1982: The anti-Heinz team has more trouble accessing the Quebec City archives until the Red Turn. Even then, “Wagner”’s entry and some early jobs are listed, but by 1958, he had disappeared off the map and no one, not even those who remember him, seems to know where he is. However, one did remember seeing someone like him during a visit to Ottawa some years earlier. Nevertheless, the search atrophies from the lack of evidence, with the members steadily taking other, more concrete assignments. By 1987, even Berlin has given up hope of finding Heinz, especially since all traces of him or his various aliases vanish after 1958. Martin attempts to convince Berlin to continue, but she says that there is so little to work with, and it’s likely he had died at some point. She does direct him to donate blood samples in case something comes up.

1993, enough evidence exists for Demme to be questioned. He initially denies that he had stolen the identity, but after evidence and grilling, he confesses to finding the name in an old newspaper and finding the birth certificate to use. He is arrested when he refuses to reveal anything else other than the lies he had spouted for 30 years and attempts to avoid his photo being taken, and his story of defrauding both the Canadian and American governments reaches front page news in The Daily Worker.

In 1989, the investigation into Richard Heinz is shut down, with the members accepting that he had likely disappeared. Many are disappointed, but Berlin keeps a hot-line up for any tips that might lead to his arrest. In 1993, Sonia sees Demme’s photo in the Daily Worker, and recognizes him as the man who killed her brother. She calls Berlin, who sends a clipping of the article to Martin, who also sees his brother in the photo.

Martin heads to the Toronto jail where John’s being held. John doesn’t recognize him at first, and the two have a conversation, Martin more and more tense as he steadily recognizes his brother. Slowly, Martin reveals that his name is Marty, and tells the story of how his brother was captured in Belarus. It dawns on John who he’s talking to right after Martin leaves.

A DNA comparison between John and Martin from their respective investigation confirms that “John Demme” was in fact, Richard Heinz, his identity theft an attempt to hide himself from prosecution. The one-time unassuming Toronto plumber is subsequently deported to the Soviet Union to stand trial for his actions in Maly Trostinets.

With no recourse, Demme finally admits that he is in fact the one called the Blonde Devil, pleads guilty and is sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 2000. Before his death, in 1999, he and Berlin sit down for an interview, where he gives a full account of what happened after Maly Trostinets. Of his excursions in Eastern Europe, emigrating first to London, then Canada, where he threw off investigators by stealing the identity of a deceased teenager and using that as an alias. He admits that, by the time of the Red Turn, he was certain that the trail of “Richard Heinz” had gotten cold enough that he didn’t feel the need to flee again, hence why he stayed and worked in Toronto. He doesn’t answer when asked if he regrets anything he ever did.
 
Top