Edward Dmytryk. Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996. viii + 210 pp. $22.50, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8093-1998-5.
Reviewed by Michael Yates
Published on H-Film (March, 1998)
As readers of this journal know, the Holly‐ is clear: the Left in the United States was dealt a wood Ten were the directors, screenwriters, and blow from which it has yet to recover. producers sent to prison for refusing to answer McCarthyism could never have succeeded questions about their political associations before without the active collaboration of the liberals the House Un-American Activities Committee and former radicals who testifed against their (HUAC) in 1947. Their refusal to testify was based friends and comrades--those who, in Victor upon the Constitution's First Amendment that Navasky's telling phrase, "named names." In this guarantees freedom of speech and association. regard, Edward Dmytryk is unique among the pe‐ They could have invoked the Fifth Amendment's riod's players. The director of such outstanding protection against self-incrimination, but this they flms as Crossfre (one of Hollywood's frst flms to would not do, on the very good grounds that they deal efectively with anti-Semitism), The Caine had done nothing wrong in the frst place. The Mutiny, and A Walk on the Wild Side, Dmytryk courts did not accept their free speech and associ‐ was both one of the Hollywood Ten and an in‐ ation defense which thereby upheld their con‐ former. In fact, he was the only one of the Ten to tempt of Congress citations and sending them to recant and then testify as a friendly witness be‐ prison. The Ten were not alone in sufering the fore HUAC. In this memoir, he ofers an account of consequences of the police state tactics now his life and times. Although Dmytryk claims that known as McCarthyism; thousands of others in he feels no guilt over his testimony, he still ap‐ Hollywood, in the schools and universities, in the pears to fnd it necessary to explain it, in great de‐ government, and in the labor movement, were re‐ tail, and with every possible justifcation. What is lentlessly smeared, fred, and blacklisted; some more, this is his second memoir, and he covered were deported, jailed, or forced to seek asylum some of the same ground in the frst one (It's a abroad; and two--Julius and Ethel Rosenberg-- Hell of a Life But Not a Bad Living). were executed for spying. While the causes of Mc‐ There are many interesting stories and anec‐ Carthyism are sharply debated, one consequence dotes in this well-written (but not so well-edited) H-Net Reviews book, from his encounters with the right-wingers sure--made many artistic compromises, were any John Wayne, Ward Bond, and Adolph Menjou, to less authoritarian or any less blind to a hundred his forays in England work when he was blacklist‐ and one atrocities, from the slaughter of Native ed, to his character sketches of communist stal‐ Americans to the deaths of millions of slaves? I warts such as John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, found especially disconcerting Dmytryk's eforts and Albert Maltz, to, of course, his work as a di‐ to distance himself from Maltz, a person who was rector. And while he obviously loathes and pities his close friend, prison mate, and best man. He the Communists, he condemns the Right as well even has the gall to say that the bitterness, anger, and HUAC in particular. However, the underlying and hate which people like Maltz held toward theme of the book is Dmytryk's attempt to cast those who informed is a sign of "inner rot." himself as a double outsider, a man who hated Finally, Dmytryk argues that the evils of com‐ both the yoke of communism and the incipient munism were so great that they aloe warranted fascism of McCarthyism. In other words, he char‐ his HUAC testimony. What makes this argument acterizes himself as the "odd man out." And given so weak is a simple question: was it necessary to this self-portrayal, it is incumbent upon any re‐ name names before the HUAC and the FBI and viewer to evaluate his arguments. thereby aid and abet those bent on destroying our In Naming Names, Navasky suggests four de‐ Constitution (and, inadvertently, ruining the lives fenses which informers have used to justify their of thousands of decent people) in order to con‐ actions: "I didn't hurt anybody;" "They deserved demn Stalinist communism? How is it that some what they got;" "I wasn't responsible for my ac‐ managed to be neither Stalinists nor informers tions;" and "I was acting in obedience to a higher and, at the same time, maintain their commit‐ authority." Mr. Dmytryk uses the frst, second, and ment to the ideals which had motivated most peo‐ fourth of these. Unfortunately, none of them ple to join the party in the frst place? Why not stands up very well to close scrutiny. He says that take the stances of Carey McWilliams, I.F. Stone, he only named persons who had already been Thomas Emerson, and Y.I. Harburg? Dmytryk named. This is not true; he named at least three does not seem to grasp that, when you get down persons publicly for the frst time and one person into the mud with scum like anti-Semitic Con‐ for the frst time ever (Navasky 283). His vivid gressman John Rankin or attorney Roy Cohn, you condemnations of his former comrades and his get pretty dirty. They and their brethren champi‐ assertion that the communists were absolutely oned the very values which Dmytryk claims to de‐ cynical in their defense of free speech strongly spise. What is worse, they had the power to begin implies that they got what they deserved. On to impose their values on all of us. Dmytryk and more than one occasion he blames them more for the rest of the informers only helped them along. his plight than those who instituted the purges Despite my antipathy toward Dmytryk, I rec‐ and the blacklists. Yet what exactly had they ommend his book. The more perspectives we done? Yes, some had been dogmatic and authori‐ have on this historical period the better. I also tarian. Yes, some had been blind to Stalinism. But welcome correspondence from those who have a they had committed no crimes. Dmytryk con‐ diferent take on this book. demns the brutal treatment by the Communist This review is copyrighted by Film & History: Party of writer and communist, Albert Maltz, but An Interdisciplinary Journal of Film and Televi‐ Maltz, himself, accepted the Party's criticism of sion Studies and the Historians Film Committee, his essay on literary freedom. What is more, can it http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~flmhis/. It may be re‐ possibly be said that the moguls of Hollywood for produced electronically for educational or schol‐ whom Dmytryk worked and for whom--I am
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Citation: Michael Yates. Review of Dmytryk, Edward. Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten. H- Film, H-Net Reviews. March, 1998.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=1841
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