Posted on 01/22/2015 1:38:23 PM PST by statestreet
The motion picture is often not only a lively art, but a political art, whether in the controversies surrounding "American Sniper" and "Selma" or stretching back to an 1898 recreation of the sinking of the battleship Maine — with prominent stops in between including, but hardly limited to, "The Birth of a Nation," "Gabriel Over the White House," Dr. Strangelove, "All The President’s Men," and "Frost/Nixon."
The most defined and most spectacular incident regarding the film industry politics, however, involved Hollywood’s New-Deal-era infiltration by the Communist Party USA, a subsequent House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) probe, and the industry-wide blacklist of unrepentant Stalinists that followed.
Conveying that story to modern readers is Human Events Editor-at Large Allan H. Ryskind’s Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters – Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler (Regnery History, $29.99), a powerful indictment of such Communist Party loyalists as the "Hollywood Ten," individuals that popular history (and such films as Woody Allen's "The Front," Jim Carrey's "The Majestic," and the documentary "Trumbo") now paint as heroes.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
McCarthy had nothing to do with the Hollywood blacklist. McCarthy was a Senator, was not in the House.
Did Ayn Rand even see “The Best Years of Our Lives?”
There is no scene in which a returning war hero is bumped from a plane by a rich businessman. What “businessmen?” At the beginning of the film, everyone is trying to get home on military planes carrying military personnel.
True, the hero who goes back to his pre-war job at the drugstore is unfairly treated by his younger boss — but before the war, the boss was a lowly clerk whom the hero had treated badly by calling him “Stinky.” The petulant boss is just getting back at the tormenter now under his thumb. This is hardly an indictment of capitalism, and has nothing to do with the drugstore being a “National Chain.”
And the banker veteran DOES give a veteran a loan to buy a farm without collateral. He doesn’t “refuse.” He doesn’t even hesitate. The banker’s boss wants to hear his reasoning, the banker veteran defends his decision, and the farmer gets his loan. (This is a not-very-veiled defense of the GI Bill).
You would look long and hard before you found a movie so ANTI-Soviet, so anti-everything we were fighting in that terrible war, and such a moving portrait of the promise and genius of America and the American system.
Ayn Rand had no earthly idea what she was talking about. Dead WRONG about “The Best Years of Our Lives.”
It wasn't called HUAC. It was HCUAA (House Committee on Un-American Activities). The Left referred to it as HUAC to make it sound like it was the House Committee that was Un-American.
McCarthy had nothing to do with Communism in Hollywood, per se. His Senate subcommittee dealt with communists in government agencies including “information” agencies. Hollywood was peripheral by them as the House COMMITTEE on Un-American Activities (its’ correct name) held numerous and very revealing hearings on Communism In Hollywood, in Los Angeles, in California and “Communism in the Entertainment Industry” (a very revealing hearing by itself), among other hearings and reports/studies.
Communists and sympathizers remained embedded like red ticks in the entertainment industry for decades (John Randolph and his wife, Jack Gifford, Will Geer, etc.) often protected by former reds like actress Lee Grant and leftists such as Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan and Rip Torn.
The early penetration of Hollywood by the SOviets, in an attempt to influence and partially control the image of the Soviet Union (and coverup its’ communism), was very successful.
The shame is that so many truly talented writers and producers/directors were long-time CPUSA members, dedicated members, and remained so until the day they died.
The greater shame is so many Americans fell for this communist penetration and refused to believe it even when highly regarded actors and actresses testified that it was so.
Even today in academia there is a hardcore leftist contingent who simply refuses to admit that the CPUSA and the SOviet NKVD (John Howard Lawson, etc) literally ran much of Hollywood’s choice of productions and who was hired, during the 1930’s-mid-50s.
Alan Ryskind, and his brave father Morrie, not only have fought “the good fight” both inside and outside of Hollywood, but have provided their readers with names, facts, and dates as to what really happened in this covert battle/battleground, aimed at the American mind.
I’m proud to say that I worked with Alan for years at Human Events newspaper. He was a very good, honest, and professional editor/journalist, and his father was very proud of him, and vice-versa.
Trumbo wrote some of the greatest Hollywood movies - including one of my favorites, Lonely Are the Brave. Very talented and yet given to destroying the freedoms of a country that so blatantly rewarded him. Weird, weird, weird.
Well, Blue, the problem is everyone thinks they’re a movie critic - hence, you get Ayn Rand bloviating about one of the best movies ever to come out of Hollywood. It’s a beautiful movie about a poor man (Dana Andrews), a middle class man (Homer) and a rich man (Fredric March) who all come together to recreate the American dream. You just know that Dana Andrews is going to make it!
A close friend of mine became a good friend of Dmytryk’s during his final years in Hollywood. He was deeply embarrassed and saddened by his own actions during those years. Another talented individual who fell for the lure of communism - only to renounce it. Budd Schulberg, too.
Joe McCarthy has been unjustly vilified to perhaps a greater extent than any other public figure in modern American history.
Perhaps too often, but I'm want to post that captioned pic as a reminder that there have surely been few truer and/or braver patriots in our era.
The traitorous left's kneejerk hatred of him (and any who agree with him) is of itself staggering proof of the very accuracy of his charges .. heaviest flak over the target-wise.
I must admit to ignorance in regard the Ryskinds, and your excellent post has prompted an entry on my 'to do' list to look into them further.
Thanks for that .. and what an excellent thing it is for FR to have among its membership someone with a background such as yours !
(JR, a ping in case you weren't aware of the above re MM)
The history of no country on earth is perfect. Bad things have done by every different group of people since the dawn of history. But embellishing the bad does not disqualify the good that has been done in general. That's what leftists miss. But the Hollywood commies thought their wonderful Stalinist Soviet Union was the dream country. How deluded/crazy can you be to believe that?
Best Years of Our Lives was one of my favorite films.
However, like basically every film, it serves the purposes of the financial power elite.
The elite have set up the sheeple to see the only two possible “sides” as capitalism versus communism.
In truth, it was promoting what the bankers wanted after the war - all the young folks to go into debt as much as they possibly could, like morons.
Ayn Rand played the perfect role in this case in real life of telling the sheeple that the movie was pro-communist and anti-banker, when quite obviously the lender is treated as heroic in this movie, as long as he gives out loans to the sheeple with no collateral.
Did anyone hear about this thing a few years ago where bad debt that was turned into securities which were widely held and traded defaulted ? Remember that ?
The banking elites love government-backed debt, with no care if it defaults because they have placed all the risk on the taxpayer/sheeple.
I could go on line by line about that movie, starting with the title. The whole thing is one big mind-control op.
Especially (makes me laugh now) the scene where the here punches the guy saying that the war was contrived.
They made damn sure to slam the door shut on anyone thinking that WWII was engineered. And, if someone says it was - punch their lights out and be a hero !
If you learn about financial power elite, i.e., new world order, practically every line of this movie will jump out at you as being engineered to mold the little minds of the sheeple in the elites’ post-WWII era.
bump
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