Political significance of a Butcher in Love: the 1956 Karlovy Vary international Film Festival, Marty (1955) and the Restoration of Contact between Hollywood and Czechoslovakia during the Cold War
Abstract
During its pre-1989 history, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival had been aplatform for cultural and economic exchange not only between "the socialist camp countries", but also between East and West. The manifestations of these exchanges and their implications for industrial, cultural and Cold War histories have not, however, been explored by historians.
Drawing on extensive research in the US and Czechoslovak archives, this paper explores the role that both the US-produced drama Marty (1955), which was selected for the 1956 festival, and the Karlovy Vary Film Festival played in the renewal of contacts between Hollywood and the Communist-run Czechoslovak film monopoly. Marty was selected because it was seen to pave the way for the renewal of business relations between those two parties following afour-year estrangement.
Marty, it was assumed, had the capacity to serve Hollywood's economic objectives, to serve the political interests of the US State Department, and to avoid alienating Czechoslovak Communists. Key factors were its independent production origins, critical success and socialist-friendly yet pro-American themes.
The case of Marty's selection allows for broader consideration of the hitherto overlooked forces that shaped Hollywood's Eastern European operations and the early Cold War history of the festival.