The Black List in Hollywood E-Book

Alessandro Roffeni

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Gli effetti del maccartismo nel mondo del cinema. Artisti perseguitati per le loro idee progressiste. La via dell'esilio dall'America verso l'Europa.

Leseprobe

Contents

Titolo

Diritto d'autore

Contents

1947-1960: The big chill

1947-50: The first black list

1951-53: The grip tightens

The slow exit from the tunnel

Men and women on the blacklist

Appendixes

Guide

Copertina

Contents

Start

Alessandro Roffeni

THE BLACK LISTIN HOLLYWOOD

The Witch Hunt Against Filmmakers

Title | The Black List in Hollywood

Author | Alessandro Roffeni

ISBN | 9791222780467

© 2025 - All rights reserved by the Author

This work is published directly by the Author through the selfpublishing platform Youcanprint and the Author owns all rights to it exclusively. No part of this book may therefore be reproduced without the prior consent of the Author.

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CONTENTS

1947-1960: THE BIG CHILL

1947-50: THE FIRST BLACK LIST

1951-53: THE GRIP TIGHTENS

THE SLOW EXIT FROM THE TUNNEL

MEN AND WOMEN ON THE BLACKLIST

APPENDIXES

1947-1960: THE BIG CHILL

When, in October and December 1960, the name of Dalton Trumbo turns up on the American screens as the writer of Spartacus and Exodus, a bleak and shameful chapter of the century starts moving to its end, after poisoning for more than a decade American society and culture through the so-called witch hunt and the black lists associated to it.

Trumbo was just the most well-known of the many writers who, in the past 10-12 years, had been fired by the film studios and, if lucky enough, had been able to go on laboriously with their work only under fake identities or by relying on fronts who got the credits and a part of the income. Of course blacklisted directors and actors could not avail of such stratagems and had to choose between exile and irregular obscure jobs enabling them just to get along.

The credit for giving a push to the blacklist, by showing in the credits the name of this established screenwriter who had not appeared since 1945, went to two determined and combative Jews, Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger, respectively producer-star of Spartacus and producer-director of Exodus. The wind had changed and the time had come to turn the page. But the damage had already been done. Numberless talents – huge, large or small as they were – had been wasted, many lives had been ruined (and in some cases even destroyed), friendships and marriages had been shattered and, above all, the great classical cinema of Hollywood had started to fade away in an atmosphere of hatred, suspicion, bitterness and loss of those idealistic impulses that had nourished and sustained it (certainly not without reticence and conflict) even in the difficult years of the war. And of course, behind and beyond the damage inflicted on the world of movies (and partly on theatre and TV), there was the great tragedy of a country that, fresh from having contributed to saving the world from Nazi barbarism, had spiralled into itself by identifying its new enemies in its former allies of the Soviet Union and, even worse, in all those citizens who dreamed of and were committed to a more democratic and just society.

This degeneracy is not unrelated to a well-marked streak of anti-Semitism, as is clearly evident from the fact that approximately 80% of the filmmakers called to testify by the Committee and/or blacklisted are Jews, immigrants or – in the vast majority – second generation. Even if the former are not numerous, their presence is nevertheless extremely disturbing as they are men and women who escaped Nazi persecution and are now persecuted a second time by the very country that welcomed them, officially for their political affiliations even if it is difficult not to think that their ethnic origins also play a significant role. Among these figures we particularly remember the actors Ludwig Donath, Charles Korvin, Mady Christians and J. Edward Bromberg: the latter two died of a cerebral hemorrhage and a heart attack in 1951, after being blacklisted, at the ages of 59 and 47 respectively.

There are a great many Jewish screenwriters, directors and actors whose parents have fled to the United States from Europe, and the vast majority of them combine a keen awareness of social problems with a strongly left-wing political commitment, and it is from their ranks that almost all the victims of the blacklist come.

The HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) hearings dedicated to the world of cinema begin in October 1947, summoning only 11 “hostile” witnesses, that is, communists or suspected of communist sympathies (but there should have been 19), against 24 “friendly” witnesses, that is, collaborative, in favor of the Committee’s purpose of cleansing Hollywood of any communist presence (or presumed such). Among these stand out the writer Ayn Rand and the actors Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor, Adolphe Menjou and Ronald Reagan, who appears the most moderate of all, while Taylor and Rand are notable for their fierceness.

Of the eight temporarily “pardoned,” the most well-known figures are directors Lewis Milestone, Irving Pichel, and Robert Rossen, who has only recently moved on to directing, after having written numerous successful screenplays. The most prestigious artist of the group of 11 who must face HUAC, the German playwright Bertold Brecht, manages to get by with a brief hearing in which he denies any connection with the Communist parties, and the next day he quickly leaves, returning to Germany. The ten who remain (the famous “Hollywood Ten”), all Americans, refuse to respond, appealing to the First Amendment, which ensures freedom of speech and association, but they are accused of contempt of Congress and, after two years of legal battles, are sent to prison in 1950. Directors Edward Dmytryk and Herbert Biberman - also a screenwriter - will serve 5 months, the other eight defendants, all screenwriters (the best known, as well as the most politically committed, of whom are Dalton Trumbo and John Henry Lawson), 10 months. But in the meantime they are all fired and put on a blacklist: this hard line is officially assumed by the heads and producers of the big studios gathered in a conference at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

While the ten are serving their sentence (during which the screenwriter Lester Cole meets the former president of HUAC J. Parnell Thomas who, guilty of embezzlement, is also serving a sentence in the same prison facility, and, seeing him busy cleaning a chicken coop, tells him, "Still handling the chicken shit, I see"), the Korean War breaks out, with a consequent worsening of the political climate in the USA, which is also contributed to by the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy who, for four years, will be the promoter of a "witch hunt" conducted against the "communists" (but also homosexuals) within American institutions.