Big Jim McLain
Big Jim McLain
House Un-American Activities Committee investigators Jim McLain and Mal Baxter come to post war Hawaii to track Communist Party activities even though belonging to the party was legal at the time. They are interested in everything from insurance fraud to the sabotage of a U.S. naval vessel.
Mister Arn reviewedJune 5, 2025
“Big Jim McLain” is a clear product of early Cold War paranoia, with John Wayne playing a HUAC investigator on a mission to root out communists in Hawaii. The film wears its agenda proudly, less a story than a sermon, casting Wayne as the embodiment of American virtue. It's heavy-handed, unapologetically propagandistic, and as a movie, it simply doesn’t hold up.