Posted on 04/18/2005 10:47:45 AM PDT by Liz
In 1947, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) began a series of official inquiries into the penetration of the Hollywood film industry by the American Communist Party (CPUSA).
Major public hearings were held in 1947 and 1951, with smaller hearings throughout the mid-1950s. In the course of these inquiries, dozens of “friendly” Hollywood witnesses denounced hundreds of people as secret members of the Communist Party, while dozens of “unfriendly” witnesses refused to discuss their politics with the Committee. Those who were either publicly or privately denounced as members of the CPUSA found it almost impossible to get employment in the motion-picture industry for at least for a decade.
The most famous victims of the resulting blacklist were the original group of “unfriendly” witnesses, known as the “Unfriendly Ten” or “Hollywood Ten.” These individuals–mostly screenwriters– refused to give political information about themselves before HUAC in October 1947.1
The blacklist functioned in part officially, as demonstrated by a joint public announcement of the motion picture firms in November 1947 that henceforth no studio would knowingly employ any member of the Communist Party, or the members of any other group which advocated the overthrow of the United States government by revolution.
The blacklist also operated unofficially, through instruments such as the irresponsible red-baiting newsletter Red Channels, which named whole swaths of people as subversives. This, for example, ruined the career of the left-wing but non-Communist actress Marsha Hunt. 2
The blacklist also often functioned in secret: jobs just dried up. As a result, “fixers” emerged to get people unofficially “pardoned” by anti-Communist organizations and film industry managers, therefore making them employable again. One famous “fixer” was the fiercely anti-Communist actor Ward Bond. 3
“Fronts” arose as well in the form of people offering scripts ghost-written by blacklisted screenwriters in exchange for official credit for the script and often a cut of the payment. One famous example of such a “front” was Philip Yordan, himself a quite famous screenwriter. 4
Some film careers were totally destroyed as a result of the blacklist system. For instance, Mickey Knox, “the next John Garfield,” was a rising star of the late 1940s, turning in a star performance in the great gangster film White Heat (1949). If you have never heard of Mickey Knox, well, that is the point. Many other careers suffered severe setbacks, such as that of actor Howard Da Silva. 5
Actors and directors suffered more severely than screenwriters because they could not act or direct under assumed names, whereas screenwriters could use the “front” system, which allowed the most talented of them to continue to write. The CPUSA, however, had made its largest inroads in Hollywood among screenwriters, and many screenwriters’ careers suffered greatly or ended.
It is generally not a good idea to attack professional writers because they tend to write, and to write well, to get in the last word. This has certainly been the case with the blacklist. None of the HUAC committee or staff (which originally included Congressman Richard M. Nixon) has written memorably on the events of 1947 and 1951, let alone on the later, smaller investigations.
A few of those who appeared as “friendly witnesses” before HUAC, such as directors Edward Dmytryk and Elia Kazan, and actor Sterling Hayden. have written important memoirs, often defending their conduct and sometimes expressing self-doubt. 6
But such figures are far outnumbered by the self-justifying and bitter memoirs of those who were denounced: Norma Barzman; Walter Bernstein; Alvah Bessie; Herbert Biberman; Conrad Bromberg; Lester Cole; Lillian Hellman; Howard Koch; Ring Lardner, Jr. (and now his daughter Kate); Donald Ogden Stewart; Dalton Trumbo; and Ella Winter. 7
The publication of these works, and more fundamentally the cultural shift in Hollywood to domination by a bien peasant Left that started around 1960 and accelerated in the 1970s, has led to the lionization of the Unfriendly Ten as American “rebels” and martyred “non-conformists.”
Meanwhile, the anger within the current filmmaking elite at those who originally “named names” in the 1940s and 1950s has been unremitting. A now unalterable view of what occurred is held by people who have little knowledge of what it actually meant in the 1940s to be a Communist; that is, a Stalinist. Two examples demonstrate the current political situation.
Long read---rest at link.
Oh I see. So communism was fashionable when Truman declared that in order to protect national security, any American Communist is potentially an espionage agent? And he, of course only declared that to make it more stylish rather than stress the threat of the movement, right?
I'm not denying that Communism was a threat I just don't think that most of the filmmakers blacklisted posed such a threat. And what I said about radical leftism being fashionable back then was true. In various chic and intellectual circles it was. Sad but true.
Sad, but not true. You need to understand more how marketing works. Propaganda is a large part of marketing. Make it sell. Chic sells. What's "in" sells. If something is appealing at a fashionable level, the message is backdoored. Marketing has a large vice in the media. Hence is why the art and film industry was hit first.
Nope, nothing great tonight, but you'll need your new tapes on Friday.I told you all about it in a note.go read your mail. LOL
Perhaps Mr. DaSilva was wronged.
But many men have been sent to prison for crimes they DID NOT commit. THat doesn't mean we should change our minds on theft, murder, rape and the like or the necessity for going after (In some way, shape or form) those responsible.
I would tend to agree with you, but if I'm not mistaken there were a couple of people involved(not necessarily the Ten) that had to do with Trotsky being assassinated by Stalin's agents in Mexico.
I think though, that there would be no controversy had members of a Nazi or fascist party been blacklisted by members of the film industry ('twas not a govt blacklist.) Commies get a free pass, for some reason.
Oh yes, and what great buys I've made at the bookstores. I've found two fantastic bookstores, down there and their sales are remarkable!
You mean that paean to the "common man's" struggle against the evil, hateful forces of Capitalism? ;-)
I was about to say that in my post!
Yeah, but I wasn't kidding.
Yep. William Geer.
A lot of that type of propaganda was out there.
I think the Birdman of Alcatraz was another case. Completely fictionalized account portraying a murderer as sympathetic to advance the ridiculous notion that somehow criminals were pushed by society or were victims themselves.
Not much different from the outright abomination, decades later, of "Murder in the First," which was another ridiculously deceptive film. The person Kevin bacon portrayed wasn't brutalized into murder, he was a MURDERER going in (in the film shown being a thief or something undeserving of time in Alcatraz.)
As a curio/collectible or because of sympathies to Il Duce?
Then again, one COULD make the argument that we should not be examining(unless it leads to direct action) the sympathies/beliefs of entertainers. If a man could write a great film, even if it did reveal some of his biases, does that mean it should be invalidated if it's found he believes something abhorrent?
No. But if he actively works on the part of front groups that advance the agenda of a hostile, alien ideology or State, then yes.
If you see Splinter Cell while you are at that bookstore, please pick it up. I just finished it...and would love to chat on it!
And yes, I'm very interested in your relaxing plans. I've three young ones and am interested in stories of those that sleep through the night to give you an example of how pathetic I am!!!!
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