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Do you want to see how many Communist there still are in Hollywood?...Protesting Kazan's Award
PBS ^ | 9/3/2003 | American Masters

Posted on 09/03/2003 11:33:08 PM PDT by quietolong

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 the normal buzz about Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Outfit. But this year, along with the manufactured glitz and glamour, there was an anger and vitriol nearly fifty years old. Elia Kazan, one of America's great directors, was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, and this honor had divided Hollywood.

Now eighty-nine years old, Kazan's impressive body of work includes such late 1940s and early 50s films as ON THE WATERFRONT, EAST OF EDEN, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT, and A FACE IN THE CROWD. On the surface, the controversy is straightforward. In 1952, Kazan appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and named eight of his old friends from the Group Theater who in the 1930s, along with him, had been members of the American Communist Party.

Many in Hollywood are still outraged about that time in U.S. history when people who were blacklisted by the studios-writers, directors, and actors-never worked again, fled the country, worked under aliases, or even, in one extreme case, committed suicide.

Five hundred protesters gather outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with placards that read "Elia Kazan: Nominated for Benedict Arnold Award," "Don't Whitewash the Blacklist," and "Kazan-the Linda Tripp of the 50s."

Kazan's testimony was a bitter pill for many on the left. It was widely perceived that, unlike so many others, Kazan had an alternative to naming names: the Broadway theater. Broadway did not have a blacklist. Its financing was too diffuse, which made it impossible for a few men to institute a blacklist as had been done in movies, radio, and television. Besides, there was no director more in demand in the theater than Elia Kazan. For those looking at Kazan's actions from the other side of the blacklist, Kazan's decision to name names was not about principle, it was about money.

Norma Barzman, Lee Grant, Jules Dassin, Walter Bernstein, all victims of the blacklist, among others, cannot forgive Kazan for what he did. As Barzman explains, "His lifetime achievement was the destruction of lives." Abraham Polonsky, himself blacklisted in the 50s, has this to say: "I hope somebody shoots him. It will be an interesting moment in what otherwise promises to be a dull evening."

But Kazan has his champions-some who think he was right to do what he did, others who think his body of work important enough to justify the recognition. "I think it's very brave of the Academy to honor him," said actor James Coburn, himself nominated for Best Supporting Actor. In fact, there are many in Hollywood who support the Academy's decision to honor Kazan, among them Karl Malden, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, and Martin Scorcese.

One of Kazan's defenders is Arthur Miller, much to the disappointment of many on the left. Miller is one of the heroes of the McCarthy Era. He defied the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1956, and refused, unlike Kazan, to name those whom he knew to be "fellow travelers." For this he was held in contempt of Congress, fined, and sentenced to jail time.

And yet, Miller sided with those who believed Kazan should be honored. "My feelings toward that terrible era are unchanged," he wrote in The Guardian, "but at the same time history ought not to be rewritten. Elia Kazan did sufficient extraordinary work in theater and film to merit acknowledgement."

At the time of Kazan's testimony in 1952, no one was closer to the Director. Kazan had directed two of Miller's plays: All My Sons, and Death of a Salesman. Miller had written a screenplay about the Brooklyn waterfront, "The Hook," for Kazan to direct. They even had an affair with the same woman: Marilyn Monroe. According to both men they were "like brothers," "the same fellow." And yet, when Kazan named names, their friendship was irrevocably torn. For ten years the two men did not speak to each other, would not acknowledge each other's existence.

Yet during that period of estrangement, Miller and Kazan did speak to each other through their work: Miller condemned the hysteria of the McCarthy era in his play "The Crucible," Kazan justified the role of the informer in his Academy-Award winning film On the Waterfront, Miller disparaged the informer in "A View from the Bridge." Shortly after the Broadway premier of "Bridge" Miller was called before HUAC where he, unlike Kazan, refused to name names. A whole era can be seen through the lives and works of these two men.

Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan never regained the close friendship they shared in the late 40's and early 50's. Too much had intervened. In fact, the two men had come to embody the deep divisions that tore this country apart during the McCarthy era. Miller, who struggled at the time so mightily with his personal moral failing, emerged as the exemplar of courage in face of the Red scare. He has even taken on an aura of saintliness over the years. Kazan occupies the other end of the spectrum: a man defined almost entirely by his decision to name names. For many, Kazan's brilliant career-all that he contributed to the theater, to film, to letters-will be tainted by a single decision he was forced to make some fifty years ago.

That friendship, and its sundering, is the primary focus of None Without Sin. Through Miller and Kazan, the film explores the blacklist: its origins, the key agents of the Red Scare, and the damage done not only to those subpoenaed, but to America's political system as well. But unlike the debate that swirled around the Kazan Oscar, None Without Sin paints a portrait of this time in appropriate shades of gray, finding-in the words of the blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo-"neither villains or heroes." The film not only considers the motivations of those who defied or capitulated to HUAC, but also examines those who were truly responsible for the suppression of legitimate dissent in this era: men like Parnell Thomas, Joseph McCarthy, Francis Walter, and the Hollywood moguls who instituted the blacklist.

Go to the PBS American Masters Web sight for more on the show

(Excerpt) Read more at pbs.org ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: eliakazan; hollywoodblacklist; hollywoodcommunist; hollywoodleft; huac; mccarthy; pbs; redscare
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A good show that If you can see thought (and put up with ) the Lefties drool about the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Portrays the influence and numbers of Communist in the Theater and Hollywood.

The fact that Five hundred protesters gather outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion over this almost 50 years later. Shows the Red Infestation embedded there.

Joe McCarthy was right! The Red Scare was, And still is for real!

Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies,.....Or... Joe McCarthy was more right than he ever knew

1 posted on 09/03/2003 11:33:09 PM PDT by quietolong
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To: nutmeg
read later bump
2 posted on 09/03/2003 11:37:40 PM PDT by nutmeg (Is the DemocRATic party extinct yet?)
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To: quietolong
I just saw "Secrets, Lies.." this past weekend for the first time. I couldn't believe the gall of Ted Hall's wife. What a piece of work.
3 posted on 09/03/2003 11:38:54 PM PDT by lainie
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To: quietolong
One of the Red Diaper Babies was movie director Rod Lurie, who wasn't even born when Kazan took his stand. Incredibly, Lurie attended West Point. We are all fortunate he didn't make a career of the Army.
4 posted on 09/03/2003 11:52:25 PM PDT by Pelham
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To: quietolong
Thanks for posting this.Many books have been written about the insidious invasion of our government ,intellectual life and entertainment industry by the communists.

It took a flame throwing leggy blond to rouse the left to a fever pitch of denial again and hopefully make the younger generation aware that it wasn't a witch hunt.

The communist threat was real,it is dangerous,it created great harm to this nation and is still a threat..It parades under different names.Read Treason by Coulter.
5 posted on 09/04/2003 12:29:51 AM PDT by MEG33
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To: MEG33
"was real" should be written as "is real"
6 posted on 09/04/2003 5:26:43 AM PDT by Maelstrom (To prevent misinterpretation or abuse of the Constitution:The Bill of Rights limits government power)
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To: Maelstrom
Notice my interspersal of was and is.That was to affirm the dangers of the past and of today. The danger is real today.
7 posted on 09/04/2003 5:31:07 AM PDT by MEG33
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To: MEG33
fair enough!

and

BUMP
8 posted on 09/04/2003 5:35:47 AM PDT by Maelstrom (To prevent misinterpretation or abuse of the Constitution:The Bill of Rights limits government power)
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To: quietolong
Quite telling that these leftists protest Kazan, but have no problem giving a best director award to a fugitive child rapist.
9 posted on 09/04/2003 8:03:09 AM PDT by Mercury OKC
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To: Mercury OKC
Which one is that? you can't keep track of all the pervs there:(
10 posted on 09/04/2003 6:50:27 PM PDT by quietolong
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To: quietolong
Polanski
11 posted on 09/05/2003 6:17:31 AM PDT by Mercury OKC
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To: Mercury OKC
Speaking of the Devil

(Child Rapist) Polanski receives Academy Award statue (from Harrison Ford)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/978441/posts

At first I was thinking of the perv that Disney had make there kid movies.

12 posted on 09/08/2003 11:07:20 PM PDT by quietolong
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To: quietolong
Bump for Coulter's "Treason". Necessary background.
13 posted on 09/08/2003 11:16:37 PM PDT by Spirited
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To: MEG33
Kazan testified not because he was scared, because he saw the movement for what it was. He was a hero.
14 posted on 09/08/2003 11:19:25 PM PDT by Hildy (SUCKER: Short-sighted Uncompromising Conservative Kool-Aid-drinking Elitist Republican.)
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To: quietolong
Why oh why do the media continue to tie Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Senator, who worked in the U.S. Senate, to things he had nothing to do with, for example, committees in the House of Representatives, more specifically, the House Un-American Activities Committee?

Are they supposed to believe that we are really that stupid?
15 posted on 09/29/2003 12:22:02 PM PDT by BaBaStooey
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To: BaBaStooey
Yes
We know better! But what about the other 80% of people
16 posted on 09/30/2003 1:48:21 AM PDT by quietolong
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To: BaBaStooey
I have read Coulter's book, "Treason", and you cannot begin to understand how scheeming and dangerous the Left and Rats were to the national security of this country, until you read this book.

'Treason' brings to light many things, facts, information, and the people behind the communist spying.

These people are scum for what they believed then, and what they continue to belive now.
17 posted on 09/30/2003 5:44:30 AM PDT by LibFreeUSA
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To: LibFreeUSA
I bought Treason the day it came out, and read it in about 2 days. I love Ann...I have her other books too.
18 posted on 09/30/2003 8:21:30 AM PDT by BaBaStooey
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To: quietolong
If you want to know why there are so many "Lefties" in Hollywood, you need look no further than the charter of the Writers Guild of America.

It is a Forced Unionism "worker-for-hire" Trade Union, not a "guild".

No screenwriter owns his copyright. If you sell a screenplay to the studios in Hollywood you are forced under law to surrender your copyright!

There are zero independent screenwriters in Hollywood by force of law.

This is why all content of Hollywood plays tilt left. Only leftist content can get made because the studios own the copyright!

Hollywood has been hard-wired leftist on purpose since 1937.

19 posted on 12/07/2003 7:45:20 AM PST by Aggressive Calvinist
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To: Hildy; doug from upland
.

...Freepers "doug from Upland" & "ALOHA RONNIE" were there...

...supporting the Heroism of Pro-America ELIA KAZAN's...

...Lifetime Acheivement OSCAR.

...T'was all truly UNFORGETTABLE.

.
20 posted on 12/07/2003 7:45:41 AM PST by ALOHA RONNIE (Vet-Battle of IA DRANG-1965 www.LZXRAY.comN)
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