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Cradle Will Rock is a 1999 American historical drama film written, produced and directed by Tim Robbins. The story fictionalizes the true events that surrounded the development of the 1937 musical The Cradle Will Rock by Marc Blitzstein; it adapts history to create an account of the original production, bringing in other stories of the time to produce a social commentary on the role of art and power in the 1930s, particularly amidst the struggles of the labor movement at the time and the corresponding appeal of socialism and communism among many intellectuals, artists and working-class people in the same period.
The film is not based on Orson Welles's unproduced screenplay for The Cradle Will Rock, an autobiographical drama about the production of Blitzstein's musical. Written in 1984, a year before Welles's death, the script was published in 1994; the film has not been produced.
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Plot
At the height of the Great Depression, the Federal Theatre Project, led by Hallie Flanagan, brings low-cost theater to millions across the United States. FTP and other projects of the Works Progress Administration face anti-communist criticism and increasing government pressure led by the new House Committee on Un-American Activities.
In New York City, playwright Marc Blitzstein is working on his new musical, The Cradle Will Rock, but lacks the inspiration to finish it. While attending a public protest, he is visited by two imaginary figures representing his late wife and the famed German playwright Bertolt Brecht. They encourage him to make the play more relevant to the times rather than an abstract concept. He eventually finishes the play, and it is greenlit by Flanagan as an FTP production and attached to director Orson Welles and producer John Houseman.
