John Berry was born on 6 September 1917. He was a very successful Hollywood director. Then, in the 1950s, Hollywood blacklisted him — outted by Edward Dmytryk and others.
There are a couple of interesting things about this. First is that Hollywood showed as much backbone then as all our modern elite institutions are showing toward our rush to full fascism.
Second, John Berry joined the Communist Party in the late 1930s because he supported the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. So he wasn’t exactly some political extremist who wanted to overthrow the US government. But this was and is the way that reactionaries on the right always act. The HUAC hearings were every bit as fake as the Stalin show trials.
Luckily, Berry was able to move to France and work in Europe. It’s interesting that Europe didn’t have the freak-out that the US did. It’s also pretty typical. Authoritarianism thrives on fake problems.
In the early 1960s, he returned to the US where he worked in TV for a few years. After that, he made features — some for TV but mostly for wide release.
Probably his least auspicious was The Bad News Bears Go to Japan in 1978. It isn’t as good as the original The Bad News Bears. Reviews at the time weren’t great but they were reasonably positive. But today, it’s so universally hated that all psychotronic fans should rush out to watch it! I think it’s a sweet little film with a lot to like. And here is an acceptable print from OK.RU:
The Bad News Bears Go to Japan poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.
Is he the same John Barry that wrote the score for several James Bond movies?
Hi Troy! Alas, no. My Berry is dead for one thing. Also, that pesky spelling! I just checked IMDB and there are dozens of John Berrys — but I assume some of them are database errors. Only a half-dozen or so John Barrys!