Reign of Terror (film) United Californian. Producer Walter Wagner, director Anthony Mann, cinematographer John Alton and production designer William Cameron Menzies used their combined talents to make a low budget "epic" using Broadway stars and shooting on sets only costing $40,000. Reign of Terror (film) Reign of Terror (also known as The Black Book) is a 1949 American drama film directed by Anthony Mann and starring Robert Cummings, Richard Basehart and Arlene Dahl. The film is set during the French Revolution. Plotters seek to bring down Maximilien Robespierre and end his bloodthirsty Reign of Terror. Already the most powerful man in France, Maximilien Robespierre
Reign of Terror tide would not turn from them until September of 1792 when the French won a critical victory at Valmy preventing the Austro-Prussian invasion. While the French military had stabilized and was producing victories by the time the Reign of Terror officially began, the pressure to succeed in this international struggle acted as justification for the government to pursue its tyrannical actions. It was not until after the execution of Louis XVI and the annexation of the Rhineland that the other monarchies began to feel threatened enough to form the First Coalition. The Coalition, consisting of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Holland,