Free Republic

Thursday, February 25, 1999 It has been nearly 47 years since Oscar-winning director Elia Kazan appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and denounced eight colleagues as onetime Communists. An age ago in a different world, perhaps, but not long enough for those stung by his betrayal to forgive or forget. So, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences prepares to honor the 89-year-old director of "On the Waterfront," "Gentleman's Agreement" and "A Streetcar Named Desire" with a special Oscar for his body of work, a quiet protest is slowly gathering force in Hollywood against the planned accolade....

AMERICA has produced some great screen directors like: John Huston ("The Maltese Falcon"); Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca"); Orson Welles ("Citizen Kane"); Charles Chaplin ("City Lights"); Billy Wilder ("Double Indemnity"); John Ford ("The Grapes of Wrath"); Steven Spielberg ("E.T."). Elia Kazan must be included in this august group, if only for his 1954 production of "On the Waterfront" which won eight Oscars. That film starred a 30-year-old Marlon Brando, remembered for his earlier Broadway portrayal as the loutish Stanley in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire." But Kazan, who died two years ago at the age of 94, in addition to weighty...

Still On the Waterfront: Long plagued by Johnny Friendlys, dockworkers fight to take back a mob-infested union by Tom Robbins June 27th, 2006 12:21 PM Just south of the Statue of Liberty, the huge white shipping cranes of New Jersey's container terminals arch into the sky. Even in the summer haze, the cranes still dominate the horizon. Their 200-foot-tall white hoists slant up and east, offering a kind of silent salute to the torch clenched in the statue's upraised arm. Most of New York's shipping is conducted on the Jersey side of the harbor now. More than $130 billion in...

Communism, of course, was not a "political belief," but was in fact a conspiracy aimed at bringing down the United States. Studio moguls did not deny Communists jobs merely because of "political beliefs." They simply realized many Americans did not want to feed America's enemies at the box office. It was a business decision. The real blacklist—totally mean-spirited—has been directed against those in Hollywood who cooperated with the Un-American Activities Committee's efforts to root out Communists. Take producer Elia Kazan, for example. He told the House committee on April 10, 1952 that he had joined the Communist Party in the...

When Elia Kazan, one of the twentieth century’s great American theater and movie directors, died two years ago, the obituaries almost all struck the same sour note. As the New York Times put it, in addition to his artistic accomplishments, Kazan committed “what many still consider one of the great ideological betrayals in American performing arts history.” The Los Angeles Times, the movie business’s hometown paper, announced his death with a straightforward page one headline, elia kazan, 1909–2003, but then got down to cases in the subhead: stage and screen triumphs were eclipsed by his testimony against colleagues in the...

Marlon Brando may have possessed the greatest talent of any American actor of the past 100 years, but for most of his career, he wasted that talent. Charley Malloy: Look, kid, I -- how much you weigh, son? When you weighed one hundred and sixty-eight pounds you were beautiful. You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast. Terry Malloy: It wasn't him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, "Kid, this ain't your night....

Oscar Honors a Nazi March 1, 2004 Hitler’s favorite propagandist has finally been rehabilitated. At Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, Hollywood gave Leni Riefenstahl its kosher seal of approval. As it does every year, the Oscars ceremony paid homage and tribute to all of the great actors, directors, composers, and other showbiz types who passed on in the previous year. But along with recently deceased legends like Bob Hope, Gregory Peck, Donald O’Connor, Robert Stack, Buddy Hackett -- and even John Ritter, Ms. Riefenstahl was so honored. Incredibly, the Hollywood audience in attendance gave loud applause in response to the televised...

Oscar Tribute to Nazi Filmmaker Draws Ire 13 minutes ago NEW YORK - A tribute to Nazi-era filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (news) during the 76th annual Academy Awards (news - web sites) rankled a few Oscar-watchers, who argued the propagandist shouldn't have been included. AFP Slideshow: Academy Awards "Are we now giving equal time to Hitler?," Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman told the New York Post. "I don't know what could have been in the mind of the Academy to include her as one of our greatest filmmakers. There are a lot of other dead bigots who don't get honored...

Hollywood's Longest Blacklist By David Horowitz FrontPageMagazine.com | February 10, 1997 At a time when its latest heroes are a fascist (Eva Peron) and a misogynist (Larry Flynt), it is perhaps not surprising that Hollywood is experiencing a crisis of conscience in finding a place in its heart for a patriot like Elia Kazan. Last month, the Hollywood establishment, in the form of the American Film Institute and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, denied Kazan a lifetime achievement award, thereby continuing to shun one of its most accomplished artists. Even the subsequent defenses of the filmmaker that appeared in...

Hollywood Communism and Elia Kazan You usually hear the tune on Oscar night, but not often the lyric, which is more to the point: Hooray For Hollywood Where you’re terrific if you’re even good. When someone’s really terrific, it’s a different story. In a town where everyone from Johnny Depp to Janeane Garofalo is an “artist”, Hollywood doesn’t always know how to deal with the real thing. In 1996, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, mulling over their Career Achievement Award, decided to reject Elia Kazan and honour instead Roger Corman, the director of Swamp Women, Attack Of The Crab...

You’ve heard of the Hollywood blacklist. It’s become the stuff of cultural history, which means it’s also the stuff of propaganda and myth. The story line will be familiar to any faithful listener of NPR: how innocent Americans were labeled Communists and driven out of work, punished merely for their views and associations. A mention of McCarthyism is mandatory at this point. Well, Elia Kazan, the most talented director of his time and maybe his century, was blacklisted in his own way — not because he’d once been part of a Communist cell in Hollywood, but because he’d told the...

Elia Kazan is dead. The brilliant director and story teller who incurred the hatred of the Hollywood left has passed on to what I hope is a far better place. But for many of us he will not only be remembered for his art but also as a courageous man who fearlessly stood his ground against La-La Land's undercurrent of Stalinism and its mindless support of anti-American causes. Even in death his critics cannot leave well alone. Writing in Murdoch's Australian Rosalie Higson accused him of "extreme measures to avoid being black-listed in the '50s" (Master of the Method 30/9)....

When Elia Kazan was presented a lifetime achievement Oscar in 1999, he closed his speech - and the door to his confounding life - with the words "I think I can just slip away." And now he has. Kazan died Sunday in his Manhattan home at the age of 94. Besides his indelible work as a theater director, Kazan leaves behind conflicting legacies as one of postwar Hollywood's most important filmmakers and one of its biggest finks. A former member of the Communist Party USA, Kazan wilted before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952 and named names. Afterward, he...

WHEN ELIA KAZAN, one of history?s greatest film and theater directors, received his Academy Award for lifetime achievement in 1999, more than a few Hollywood glitterati refused to applaud this small man of gigantic artistic accomplishments. The reason: He named names. He had been a member of the Communist Party for two years in the 1930s. He quit when the party ordered a takeover of his theater group and ordered him to follow the party line. Years later when asked to name other party members, he did. The eight names he divulged to the House UnAmerican Affairs Committee already were...

<p>Not everyone is mourning director Elia Kazan, who died yesterday at age 94.</p> <p>Revered by some as a great artist, Kazan is also remembered for his self-motivated testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the early 1950s. Kazan named names, sold out his friends and in the process destroyed lives.</p>

Almost without exception, the obituaries of Elia Kazan, while praising his enormous talent as a director, are critical of his testimony against Hollywood communists. According to some, Kazan, a former member of the Communist Party, should never be forgiven for naming names of fellow party-members before the House Un-American Activities Committee. But Kazan deserves to be honored, not despite his testimony, but because of it. He is worthy of respect and admiration not because we should separate his politics from his art, but because his politics helped preserve artistic freedom for everyone in America. Kazan was the one defending freedom...

Elia Kazan, who presided over a revolution in American acting and directed films that won 20 Academy Awards, died Saturday at 94. His films included such towering achievements as "A Streetcar Named Desire," "On the Waterfront," "A Face in the Crowd" and "East of Eden," but when the Academy gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999, as many as half the audience members refused to applaud -- because he "named names" during the congressional witch-hunt of the early 1950s. Mr. Kazan was a Communist Party member for two years in the mid-1930s. In the McCarthy era, the House Un-American...

NEW YORK (AP) Elia Kazan, Academy Award-winning director of "On the Waterfront," has died, his lawyer says.

ELIA KAZAN DIES AT 94 Director Elia Kazan, who was honored with best director Academy Awards for "Gentleman's Agreement" and "On the Waterfront," but also vilified in some quarters for "naming names" of alleged Communists in the 1950s during the House Un-American Activities Committee probe, has died at his home in New York. He was 94. In 1999, the Motion Picture Academy presented him with an honorary Oscar for his body of work, which revived the controversy among living actors, writers, directors and producers who were blacklisted in Hollywood as a result of the HUAC investigation.

Do you want to see how many Communist there still are in Hollywood? Red's turn out at the Academy Awards to protest Elia Kazan's receiveing a Lifetime Achievement Award. In the early morning hours of March 21, 1999, Hollywood was completing the final preparations for its annual celebration of itself. Workers were laying red carpet and polishing huge statues. Cameramen and reporters jockeyed for position to catch glimpses of Hollywood's royalty as they arrived at the Academy Awards. Over these images we hear news reports that set the stage for what promised to be a uniquely controversial evening. There was...