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Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been the Front for a Blacklisted Writer? May 7, 2009 Joshua Altman Professor Becker

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Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been the Front for a Blacklisted Writer? May 7, 2009 Joshua Altman Professor Becker Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been The Front for a Blacklisted Writer? May 7, 2009 Joshua Altman Professor Becker BEHIND THE BLACKLIST In 1947 the Cold War helped to create an Iron Curtain across Europe and a Red Terror across the United States. Film, centralized in Hollywood, California fell first under suspicion of communism, and the motion picture industry became the target of congressional investigation. Actors, directors, and producers in Hollywood, including then actor and future president Ronald Reagan, accused ten of their peers of Communist or leftist leanings. These ten entertainers testified before the House Committee on Un- American Activity [HUAC] on September 23, 1947 as the first unfriendly witnesses. Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo became immortalized as the Hollywood Ten. Congressional investigations nearly destroyed the film careers of these ten men; however in a way that is not properly appreciated, they managed to find outlets for their work by fighting for free speech and by submitting their scripts under the names of writers cleared by HUAC. HUAC began its investigations with its creation in 1938 only to have them held up by World War II 1. During the pre-war HUAC years, entertainment film was a largely unregulated industry. Unlike radio and then television, people enjoyed movies on film reels in large movie palaces and not by tuning their receiver to the proper government licensed frequency in their own home. Early in the history of the medium motion 1Gladchuk, John J. Reticent Reds: Hollywood Communists, the HUAC Purge, and the Seeds of Social Revolution (1935-1953). Fullerton, CA: California State University, Fullerton, n.d. http://proquest.umi.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/pqdweb?index=1&sid=3&srchmode=2&vinst=PROD&fmt=6& startpage=1&clientid=31812&vname=PQD&RQT=309&did=766838601&scaling=FULL&ts=1233082042 &vtype=PQD&rqt=309&TS=12 (accessed January 27, 2009).1. -1- pictures’ detractors saw it as subversive; it was the first “interactive” mass media, in that it involved more than reading 2. When the Hollywood Ten appeared in front of Congress in 1947, the Supreme Court did not consider motion pictures as protected first amendment speech, based on the Supreme Court 1915 decision Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio which stated They [movies] are mere representations of events, of ideas and sentiments published and known, vivid, useful and entertaining no doubt, but, as we have said, capable of evil, having power for it, the greater because of their attractiveness and manner of exhibition… It was this capability and power to require censorship before exhibition, as it does by the act under review. We cannot regard this as beyond the power of government. 3 Until 1952, when the Supreme Court overturned Mutual Film Corporation , the government’s power to censor movies remained intact. The House of Representatives tried numerous times to instigate investigations into Un-American activity after the October Revolution in 1917. In 1938, Congressmen Martin Dies and Samuel Dickstein introduced a resolution to “investigate ‘the extent, character, and object of un-American propaganda activities in the United States. 4’” Dies did not intend to legislate, seeing that Congress could not do so effectively, but to expose subversive activity and allow the American people to pass their verdict. 2 Starr, Paul. The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2004.295. 3 McKenna, Joseph. Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio. Supreme Court of the United States. February 23, 1915. Retrieved March 23, 2009. http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true &risb=21_T6120536476. 10. 4 O'Reilly, Kenneth. The Bureau and the Committee: A Study of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, The House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the Communist Issue. Marquette University, 1981. http://proquest.umi.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/pqdweb?index=2&did=749308391&SrchMode=2&sid=4&Fmt =2&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1240967088&clientId=31812 (accessed April 29, 2009).61. -2- Dies’s committee, on which he did not serve but helped establish, did not begin its inquiry by investigating Hollywood, but by investigating Nazi activities in the United States. The Committee’s scrutiny of right-wing organizations focused on the German- American Bund (organization) in concert with the Department of Justice 5. In his dissertation The Bureau and the Committee: A Study of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, The House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the Communist Issue, Kenneth O'Reilly explains how the Committee and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover took different approaches to leftist (communist) and rightist (Nazi) organizations 6. Censorship remained a tool for the federal government beyond 1952 (albeit a very limited one). As a rule, Congress did not question Hollywood figures who appeared as witnesses about the content in their current work, but for their beliefs, and for what might make it into a future work 7. Congressional hearings focused on the organizations that these people belonged to and for which publications they wrote. Questioning of the unfriendly witnesses did not broach whether a film had themes or was in fact “evil.” James L. Baughman wrote in his book The Republic of Mass Culture: Journalism, Filmmaking, and Broadcasting in America Since 1941 that very few writers attempted to incorporate communist ideology into their films. These same writers championed 5 O'Reilly, Kenneth. The Bureau and the Committee: A Study of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, The House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the Communist Issue. 64 6O'Reilly, Kenneth. The Bureau and the Committee: A Study of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, The House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the Communist Issue. 66. 7 Baughman, James L. The Republic of Mass Culture: Journalism, Filmmaking, and Broadcasting in America since 1941. 3rd. Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006. 37. -3- American capitalism and democracy in their scripts. In cases where writers did attempt to include party ideology with their scripts, they were rarely, if ever successful 8. Many writers accused of authoring communist films never received another screen credit during their lifetime, though scores continued to write. This does not mean, however, that they never had the opportunity to write another line. Albert Maltz utilized fellow writer and future HUAC witness Michael Blankfort as a front to continue to write and publish scripts. HUAC cleared Blankfort of wrongdoing and Communist ties, thus Hollywood producers and studio executives allowed him to continue publishing under his own name. The arrangement between Maltz and Blankfort differed from using a pseudonym, since Blankfort was a known industry writer. Maltz used the pseudonym John B. Sherry at various points throughout his career including on the film “The Beguiled ,” which was written and produced after the Blacklist 9. The story of Maltz and Blankfort departs from the image of blacklisted writers who faced banishment from the Hollywood community and supplants it with the story of two career writers who both continued to work during the Blacklist era. 8 Baughman, James L. The Republic of Mass Culture: Journalism, Filmmaking, and Broadcasting in America since 1941.37. 9 Canby, Vincent. "The Beguiled (1970) April 1, 1971 Clint Eastwood Is Star Of Siegel's 'The Beguiled.'" The New York Times , April 1, 1971. http://proquest.umi.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/pqdweb?index=0&did=79702178&SrchMode=2&sid=1&Fmt= 10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1241574122&clientId=31812 (accessed May 5, 2009). -4- SELF-CENSORSHIP Hollywood writers, producers, and directors who populated the unfriendly witness list lost their careers not by punitive measures imposed by Congress, but by the Hollywood studios in a successful effort to prevent stronger legislative oversight of the industry. “Hollywood” existed under the umbrella of many different organizations, including the Writers Guild, the studio executives, and the various unions which represented actors, producers, and directors. Representatives from each of these groups, lead by the powerful studio executives came together in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York to issue the Waldorf Statement, effectively beginning the formal self- censorship in Hollywood 10 . Their statement overtly denied employment to the Hollywood Ten until they would take an oath renouncing their communism, or otherwise redeem themselves. Furthermore, the statement announced that the studios would not employ any individual with Communist leanings, or allegiances to any other subversive organization 11 . Eric Johnston, a key individual responsible for the Waldorf Statement, and President of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said “Creative work at its best cannot be carried on in an atmosphere of fear. We will guard against this danger, this risk, and this fear 12 .” 10 Palmer, Tim. "Side of the Angels: Dalton Trumbo, the Hollywood Trade Press, and the Blacklist." Cinema Journal 44, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 57-74. http://www.jstor.org.proxygw.wrlc.org/stable/pdfplus/3661125.pdf (accessed April 30, 2009).57. 11 "Hollywood's Response." In McCarthyism: The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History , edited by Albert Fried, 46. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997. 12 Doherty, Thomas. Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2003. -5- The statement pledged never to employ “subversives” in the industry’s first steps towards censorship. Executives followed up their document by reissuing pre-World War II films which joked at the Soviets’ expense, and then produced new anti-communist films 13 . Thomas Doherty, in his book Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture compared the anti-communist films during the Cold War to the anti-Nazi films from World War II.
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