TCM tackles a vital subject with its screening of the motion picture “Open Secret” during the upcoming TCM Classic Film Festival April 11-14. 2019. As timely now as when it was first released in 1948,“Open Secret” promotes religious and racial tolerance to a country fighting to accept the very principles upon which it was created. Produced on a much smaller budget than studio films “Crossfire” and “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” “Open Secret” takes a no-nonsense look at growing racial intolerance and anti-Semitism in the late 1940s, fighting back against these loathsome tendencies.

Two years after the United States and its allies crushed the Axis powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan to win World War II and restore dramatic principles of equality and tolerance, fear and hatred of foreigners and “others” was growing among the disenchanted in America. The July 17, 1946, Los Angeles Times reported that the Jewish Labor Committee was beginning a campaign to “eliminate racial discrimination and bigotry among workers.” “It takes a concerted campaign against the conditions which tempt ordinary people to grasp at the dangerous belief that it is the Jews, or the Negroes, or the foreigners who are taking away their economic bread and butter or cultural opportunities. Most antagonism arises from economic insecurity which pits man against his fellow man for jobs, better living standards and social advancement.” The Committee hoped to show that it was economic and political practices which were causing these cuts in wages, not the people.

The TCM Classic Film Festival begins April 11.

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