The California Reich

It was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.^[3][4] It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.^[5]

In his 1978 report John J. O'Connor said the filmmakers "Succeed all too well as their working-class subjects become grotesque parodies of disturbing elements that can be detected in varying degrees at all levels of society." in response to their goal to not portray the communities as monsters. He also said that the "most poignant episodes involves a 10 year old boy who says he does not share his father's philosophy. He goes to youth meetings to please his dad."^[2] In Saturday Review, Judith Crist called the film "a cool, intense, unsensational, and ultimately terrifying study." Crist continues by saying "There is no voice-over. The American Nazis speak for themselves. They are not frightening or funny. They are utterly ordinary and thereby terrifying."^[6]

In Film Quarterly, Mitch Tuchman state that "the material is inherently interesting as a bit of American ethnography", but continued that Parkes and Crichlow have "a horrible ambivalence toward their subjects".^[7] He wrote that the documentary was "unofficially sanctioned by the Nazis and The Jewish Anti-Defamation League finds it too mild in its condemnation."^[7] Portions from the film were used in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers as the speech given by the leader of the "American Socialist White People's Party" during a rally in a Chicago park, as he taunts angry counter-protesters.

• The California Reich at IMDb
• The California Reich at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films