EDITOR’S NOTE: Track of the Vampire was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, July 5, 1969 at 1:00 a.m.
Moscow, 1956. A diplomatic reception at the Polish embassy. Khrushchev steps up to the mic in front of a bunch of Western ambassadors and Communist heavy-hitters like Władysław Gomułka. Instead of making small talk about the buffet, he drops this: “About the capitalist states, it doesn’t depend on you whether or not we exist. If you don’t like us, don’t accept our invitations, and don’t invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!”
Envoys from twelve NATO nations and Israel collectively grabbed their coats, stood up and stormed out of the room
1959. Khrushchev comes to America, and Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson steps up to the podium and fires back, “We do not agree with your widely quoted phrase ‘We shall bury you.” You shall not bury us, and we shall not bury you…”
Naturally, everyday Americans watching this on their cathode-ray tube TVs didn’t take it as a metaphor. They thought the USSR was about to drop a payload of nukes on Main Street. Meanwhile, Khrushchev’s personal interpreter, Viktor Sukhodrev, was probably sweating bullets trying to manage international relations one translation at a time.
Like any good plot twist, film historians and modern translators eventually stepped in to say: Wait a minute, we totally misread the subtitles. Turns out, Khrushchev wasn’t talking about digging mass graves with tactical shovels. In classic Marxist doctrine, it was a long-game ideological flex meaning: “We will outlive you” or “We will be present at your funeral.”
Khrushchev himself eventually tried to clear up the bad press during a 1963 speech in Yugoslavia, admitting: “I once said, ‘We will bury you,’ and I got into trouble with it. Of course we will not bury you with a shovel. Your own working class will bury you.”
In his memoirs, he blamed the whole mess on the media, claiming “enemy propaganda picked up the slogan and blew it all out of proportion.”
As they say in Russia, “Я сказал тебе это, чтобы рассказать тебе об этом.”
Jack W. Thomas only directed one movie. You’re reading about it now. He did write 20,000 Eyes, 13 Fighting Men, Francis of Assisi, Lone Texan and Embryo. But what is this movie, and how did it end up playing Pittsburgh’s Chiller Theater?
Then he made The Challenge, which Columbia Pictures picked up, or so they say. Released as We Will Bury You, it is a compilation of still photographs and newsreel footage that traces the rise of Communism from Karl Marx and his Communist Manifesto to the present day in 1962.
According to IMDb, “Highlights include the early days of Lenin; the sinking of a Russian warship during the Russo-Japanese War; the fight for power between Trotsky and Stalin; Stalin’s political purges, mass executions, liquidation of the Kulaks, and pacts with the Allies; the German invasion of Russia during World War II; Communism in China; the Korean War; Stalin’s death; the coming to power of Khrushchev; the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolution; Khrushchev’s famous “kitchen debate” with visiting Vice President Nixon; Khrushchev in Hollywood during his visit to the United States in 1959; and the rise of Communism in Cuba under Fidel Castro.”
While this is pretty much lost media, save for a poster and a trailer, the film goes from Karl Marx to the Berlin Wall. Despite its ominous title—referencing Premier Khrushchev’s famous quote—the reviewer found that watching it paradoxically offers an eerie reassurance that neither Khrushchev nor anyone else will ultimately bury us.
There are also some cast and crew facts. It was narrated by William Woodson, the narrator of Super Friends, as well as other chances for him to be the voice outside the show or movie. Philip R. Rosenberg (who also did a PA on The Truth About Communism), Maurice Wright (who edited A Name for Evil, Strange Intruder and many other movies) and Alan Presberg (Wacky Taxi) edited it.
In that review, it claims that because it packs so much history into a short timeframe, the sane-sounding narrator often has to settle for cryptic facts rather than deep historical insight. Additionally, some major Communist operations (such as Marshal Tito’s Yugoslavia) are only skimpily depicted, while worldwide espionage is completely ignored. While the film ends with a somber warning that feels small compared to the vast historical parade that preceded it, the creators succeeded in succinctly (if fragmentarily) matching historical facts to archival footage.
There’s also a trailer.
If this ever turns up, I want to see it.
