Hollywood Celebrates Another Stalinist

Townhall.com ^ | January 5, 2015 | Allan Ryskind

[jazzlite]

...”They don’t think so. They all believe that in the New Order, they will become Commissars, telling the rest of us what to do.”...

That is exactly what they think and they would relish the genocide and the murdering of those who disagree with their hedonism and immorality. We have seen this rodeo many times before throughout history.

[a fool in paradise]

They gathered in clandestine meetings in homes to subvert the nation in support of the USSR (global Communism actually, they also adored North Korea, China, Cuba, Vietnam, Central and South American Communist dictatorships as well) and were angry they got caught.

[Fiji Hill]

In 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union concluded the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which essentially transformed the former enemies into allies and touched off World War II. With this abrupt change in the party line, the Communist parties in the West began doing all they could to stir up anti-war and pacifist sentiment. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the party line again turned on a dime, and the Communist parties in the West went all out to beat the drums for war.

Perhaps the Trumbo movie will describe how he published an anti-war novel, Johnny Got his Gun (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1939) right after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact only to yank it off the market after the Nazi invasion of the USSR--but I'm not holding my breath.

[SandRat]

Read this! Red Star Over Hollywood http://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-over-Hollywood-Colonys/dp/B003X4V0WW

[ifinnegan]

Johnny Got His Gun was probably his Magnum Opus.

A movie that is stupid as all get out to anyone who can see, but can be quite impressionistic to a youngster.

Of course PBS used to show it on TV so naive kids can get their supposed antiwar propaganda.

He and his comrades were wealthy Beverly Hills Communists.

Truly reprehensible people.

[SMARTY]

I don’t get why Liberals STILL call it a Witch Hunt.... when is was definitively proved that hard core Communists WERE in the administrations of at least TWO American Presidents.

[wally_bert]

Lucy was a commie?

[Dr. Thorne]

I was forced to read “Johnny Got His Gun” in high school. It sucked.

[a fool in paradise]

I’ve read a good bit of this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Party-Communism-American-Industry/dp/0761513760/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420558859&sr=1-2&keywords=hollywood+communism

In the fall of 1997 some of the biggest names in show business filled the Motion Picture Academy theater in Beverly Hills for Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist, a lavish production worthy of an Oscar telecast. In song, film, and live performances by stars such as Billy Crystal, Kevin Spacey, and John Lithgow, the audience relived a time some fifty years before, when, as the story has always been told, courageous writers and actors stood firm against a witch-hunt and blacklist that wrecked lives and destroyed careers. Left untold that night, and ignored in books and films for more than half a century, was a story not so politically correct but vastly more complex and dramatic.

In Hollywood Party the complete story finally emerges, backdropped by the great upheavals of our time and with all the elements of a thriller—wrenching plot twists, intrigue, betrayal, violence, corruption, misguided passion, and lost idealism. Using long neglected information from public records, the personal files of key players, and recent revelations from Soviet archives, Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley uncovers the Communist Party’s strategic plan for taking control of the movie industry during its golden age, a plan that came perilously close to success. He shows how the Party dominated the politics of the movie industry during the 1930s and 1940s, raising vast sums of money from unwitting liberals and conscripting industry luminaries into supporting Stalinist causes.

In riveting detail, the shameful truth unfolds: Communist writers, actors, and directors, wealthy beyond the dreams of most Americans, posture as proletarian wage slaves as they try to influence the content of movies. From the days of the Popular Front through the Nazi-Soviet Pact and beyond World War II, they remain faithful to a regime whose brutality rivaled that of Hitler’s Nazis.

Their plans for control of the industry a shambles by the mid-1950s, the Party nonetheless succeeded in shaping the popular memory of those days. By chronicling what has been left on the cutting-room floor, from “back story” to aftermath, Hollywood Party changes those perceptions forever.

“Mr. Billingsley’s book is the best exploration I’ve seen of the Hollywood blacklist and the Communist Party’s role in that conflict. Hollywood Party covers it all with insight, meticulous research, and some wry perceptions.”

—Charlton Heston

“For years we’ve been treated to the left-wing version of the Hollywood blacklist. Now Lloyd Billingsley has provided us with the rest of the story.”

—David Horowitz, author of Radical Son

---

And there is a bit of the blacklist in this book. The author seemed to be against it but had to reluctantly admit that those in question were Communists.

http://www.amazon.com/Right-Here-Our-Stage-Tonight-ebook/dp/B0032UPUJ6/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420559062&sr=1-5&keywords=ed+sullivan+book+television

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

The screenplay for SPARTACUS is more Trumbo than Howard Fast. There is NO Tony Curtis character, no “I AM SPARTACUS” in the book. Spartacus died in the battle, not by crucifixion.

I’ve read Fast’s novel and found I prefer Arthur Koestler’s THE GLADIATORS.
Trumbo did write some good screenplays like LONELY ARE THE BRAVE. One simply has to realize some of the scenes (such as shooting down a military helicopter) are silly.

[drjimmy]

No mention in the article of any of the movies that Trumbo actually wrote for Hollywood. One of the most famous, of course, was Exodus (based on the Leon Uris novel), which is one of the most pro-Israel movies of all time. He also wrote the screenplays for Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Spartacus, Papillion, and Roman Holiday, among other non-Stalinist flicks.

[Zionist Conspirator]

And don’t forget how he ratted on people who requested copies of his anti-interventionist book . . . after the party line had changed.

[a fool in paradise]

http://socialistworker.org/2011/08/11/when-lucy-was-a-red

When Lucy was a Red

One of the best-known figures of television comedy had little-known leftist roots.
August 11, 2011

Lucille Ball listed her party affiliation as "Communist" when she registered to vote in 1936 and 1938. In 1936, she sponsored a CP candidate for the state's 57th district. She signed a certificate that stated, "I am registered as affiliated with the Communist Party." Ball, according to former Communist Party member and writer Rena Vale, who later became an anti-Communist investigator for various government bodies in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., allowed her home to host party educational classes:

Within a few days after my third application to join the Communist Party was made, I received a notice to attend a meeting on North Ogden Drive, Hollywood [Ball's home]. On arrival at this address, I found several others present; an elderly man informed us that we were the guests of the screen actress, Lucille Ball, and showed us various pictures, books and other objects to establish that fact, and stated she was glad to loan her home for a Communist Party new members class.

Unlike hundreds of others who were dragged publicly before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, better known as HUAC, and publicly humiliated, Ball was allowed to meet with HUAC investigators in private. She met William Wheeler, a HUAC investigator, on September 4, 1953, and admitted registering as a Communist, but said she never voted for the party or was ever a party member.

She also denied knowing anything about sponsoring a CP candidate for state office. Her testimony was released several days later. It came to 27 pages. Ball largely blamed her deceased grandfather for the things she had done. She said that she registered as a Communist "because grandpa wanted all of us to" and "to appease an old man."

Arnaz was hysterical in defense of his wife, saying, "Lucy has always had a clear conscience about this. She has never been a Communist, and what's more, she hates every Communist in Hollywood."

------------

Now people can change and denounce their earlier politics but disavowing them is another matter./BLOCKQUOTE

[a fool in paradise]

The witchhunt term comes from The Crucible and there WERE witches in that book too (a woman getting some of the girls to prance in the woods engaging in occult acts). The "scandal" is that those being compelled to testify cannot be counted on being truthful and accusations and testimony should not be enough grounds to convict.

Barring that, the message seems to be "And what's so wrong about being a witch?"

[Red Badger]

WE DON'T NEED NO STEENKING BADGES!

[minnesota_bound]

Bryan Cranston true feelings are coming out. I guess he will give away all those millions of dollars he has to the “masses”.

[minnesota_bound]

#27 well she was a “RED” head : )

[beachn4fun]

Communism in America is about more than freedom of speech...their intent is to change us from a Republic to a communist country.

[Kaslin]

Exactly and we must never allow this to happen

[beachn4fun]

Definitely. And the younger generations need to be made aware of this. I think they are clueless of what hides under “freedom of speech”.