Elia Kazan, Movie Director, Oscar winner, HUAC witness, dies at 94

The Hollwywood Reporter ^ | 9/28/03

[lowbridge]

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.

[quietolong]

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

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

[scabbage]

Isn't Ed Harris the actor that plays a man?

He plays a man but isn`t one in real life. Ed Harris.."Bush ain`t a man... a man don`t tell a woman she can`t have an abortion"..So let me get this straight Ed, you support killing American babies but not terrorists or tyrants. Your either with us or your with the terrorists. Ed Harris; Terrorists-check

[Dr. Thorne]

I've always been grateful that Marxists and Soviet spies landed on the blacklist and didn't have the Silver Screen on which to pour out their vitriol and hatred for America.

Think of the damage they might have done had they not been blacklisted!

[Rastus]

Why don't you address the fact that you are now in day one of realizing that SENATOR McCarthy had NOTHING to do with the HOUSE UnAmerican Activities Committee. That's been pointed out to you above, but it seems you've chosen to ignore it. Another lesson you might wish to learn is that the blacklist did NOT come from the HOUSE UnAmerican Activities Committee. There was no force of law behind it. That was the decision of the studios, in reaction to the overwhelming public support for the hearings and the general climate of disgust for these Communist bastards. A business decision. The Hollywood Ten were actually punished by the government, but that was because they actually violated the law. And, truth be told, with a little more will on the part of the government, some of these individuals could have been prosecuted for their associations. You are free to hold communist beliefs, but you are not free to join the Communist Party of the era when it has pledged to work to overthrow the government of the United States of America.

So, tell me . . . are you as worked up about the HOUSE UnAmerican Activities Committee investigating the Ku Klux Klan? Was that wrong?

[netmilsmom]

Oh thank you!
I love Google!

[Austin Willard Wright]

Err....um...McCarthy had nothing to do with the Hiss case.

[eleni121]

Your clueless ravings about the first amendment notwithstanding - Kazan knew the Commies far better than you ever will - he had been a member in the 30's. He was aware that at the time, there was a real threat to democracy from the reds and he knew that the red cabal in Hollywood was responsible for the danger that America was in.

He is a true patriotic hero and even more - a wonderful talented artistic genius.

[eleni121]

The cure for bad speech is good speech.

I forgot to add that not only are you clueless about Kazan the filmmaker you are a Pollyanna about what the Commie threat represented in the 1950's.

Let me add: that goes for the threat they represent today too.

[eleni121]

An absolutely remarkable and moving film - America America. Not sappy - but restrained in its understanding of the terrifying edginess of the dhimmi role of Christians in Muslim Turkey.

Kazan was not afraid of poking his critical magical finger at the naive foibles of the Christians as well.

But they certainly didn't deserve to be exterminated.

[Tribune7]

It was a good movie.

[anniegetyourgun]

An excellent point, TILH. Such is the scum that exists in our so-called entertainment world.

[at bay]

..."the blacklist did NOT come from the HOUSE UnAmerican Activities Committee. There was no force of law behind it."

Have you seen the movie the great american hypocrite Bobby DeNiro starred in as a director who refused to cave in to HUAC? The FBI through Hoover directives, hounded anyone and any company or union that it perceived as communist leaning. The force of law was that organized and perpetal harrassment. If you want to worry about the internal threat commies in this country pose and crucify people like me who disagree with your assessment of "Gadge" fine, but where were you when I was hitting the streets every week countering the latest "A.N.S.W.E.R." bs? (I remember one 12 year old girl in Stockton holding an "ANSWER made poster and her reaction when I questioned why she was there and did she know that sign had come from the Socialist Workers Party. She listened intently until her mother literally had to drag her away.) That's my job, not the government's. Next time there's a big rally in SF sponsored by the SWP maybe you'll join me (I was there with 700 watts of Bogen PA mounted on the top of my car with 2 minutes of an Iraqui women countering their lies with the truth). But should anone ever drag me to some commitee, maybe headed by Schumer or some other puke, and asked me who loaned me the speaker system, I'll take their contempt of Congress award and wear it like the badge of honor it is.

[at bay]

anone=anyone.....anyone at all.....

[at bay]

perpetal=perpetual, as in "The government, through the use of a perpetual tyrant, J Edgar Hoover, harrassed anyone whose opinions it disagreed with, through an organized program called COINTELPRO. It didn't matter whether you were communist or not, only that Hoover disagreed with you. He would have his agents write anonymous, cowardly letters in an attempt to chill the first amendment rights of his victims.