Questions of personal conscience, individual freedom and social responsibility have often supplied Kazan with his material; in this sense Kazan can be said to have become the victim of his concerns when McCarthyism arose. Despite this ostensible continuity, however, fewer directors reveal sharper changes of emphasis in their careers than Kazan….
In the films of the forties the treatment of moral and social issues is unexceptional. Kazan here is working within well-established genres and a general ethos of post-war optimism and conventional social awareness: Boomerang and Panic in the Streets are documentary thrillers after [Louis] de Rochement; Pinky and Gentlemen's Agreement, part of Hollywood's anti-prejudice cycle. In all of these, the personal sacrifices that idealism demands are only theoretically explored, the costs brought home to neither characters nor viewers…. Like many another liberal film of the era, Kazan's movies are morally complacent. Evil exists out there somewhere; principle and personal passion are reconciled easily; characters discover limitations and transcend them. The community, seen conventionally as small-minded or corrupt, is redeemed by the nobility and industry of the individual. In short, the American way wins out.
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