When I was in school not too many years after this film came out, as I recall vividly, we were taught the evils of totalitarianism (notably of the Communist variety). One of the scariest evils, so we were told, was that people could be made not to exist - not just in the sense of being murdered, but in the sense of being erased even in memory. They did not exist. And they had never existed, even if they had. History books were doctored. Names were whited out of the index. The memory of history changed. That was the great difference between us and them. It could never happen here. We all, patriotic little kids, nodded - not here. Watch this movie and you will see it happen, here. All the characters are played by actors. All except one. One is played by a phantom. He doesn't exist. Of course, he does. He's Lloyd Gough. His character, Kinch, is the central pivot of the entire story, from the first scene. But he has been removed from the cast: no mention of his name.
Lloyd Gough and his wife Karen Morley refused to grovel before HUAC and so were blacklisted. He was also erased, retroactively. They couldn't erase his image, because he was in too many and too important scenes. But they could erase his memory. That they did. They didn't blot out his name from the many other films he had played. But they could have. Why not? It's only a short step from one retroactive erasure to many. Not too hard to reshoot the credits of old films. is it? Didn't happen. But it started. Think about that and be scared. Oh, yes, I forgot. We're past that now, just an aberration of the 1950s. Right?
