Regarding Blacklists
by Burt PrelutskyOnce upon a time there was a blacklist in Hollywood. Liberals still refer to it as McCarthyism, but they can’t even get that right. Joseph McCarthy was a U.S. senator and had nothing to do with Hollywood. It was the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that conducted the star-studded hearings in Los Angeles. But I guess HUACism doesn’t have quite the same panache.
The congressmen on the Committee weren’t trolling for Russian spies, but only for publicity. They worked hand-in-hand with a sleazy publication called Red Channels, which purported to identify actors, writers and entertainers, who were Communists, subversives and fellow travelers. Red Channels was the brainchild of an opportunistic grocery chain owner named John G. Keenan, who found there was more fun and profit in extortion than in selling cans of corn. On more than one occasion, Red Channels got the names wrong. But even when they got the names right, sometimes the folks named had done nothing worse than voiced opposition to Nazi Germany prior to America’s entering World War II.
Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo
But every victim of the blacklist wasn’t just a premature anti-fascist. Most of them in Hollywood took their marching orders from a screenwriter named John Howard Lawson. Jack Lawson, a man born to run a gulag, was head of the Communist Party in this town. The Party members prided themselves on being pro-democracy. They showed it by contributing sizeable portions of their Paramount, Universal, Warners, MGM, Columbia and 20th Century-Fox salaries to Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Politburo.
When screenwriter Albert Maltz, like Lawson, one of the Hollywood Ten, dared to write an article for the New Masses, stating that a writer’s main responsibility was to his art and not to the Party, Lawson led an intervention of Maltz’s friends and colleagues. For several hours, they verbally bludgeoned him in his own living room. The result was that he caved in and wrote a second article for the magazine in which he essentially pleaded temporary insanity.
These days, there is another blacklist taking place, but they’re calling it a graylist because the victims are scriptwriters who made the stupid career decision of allowing themselves to become gray-haired or, in some distinguished cases, even bald.
Back in 1999, a class action suit was initiated by about 150 of us. Today, there are over 600 aging writers who are plaintiffs suing the various studios, networks and major talent agencies, for conspiring to blacklist WGA members on no other basis than age.
Some people might find it ironic that Hollywood’s liberals, who are still inflamed over a blacklist that took place 60 years ago, not only condone it in America, but practice it every day of their lives.
For those of us involved in the lawsuit, it’s been an interesting decade. Those of us who don’t play golf find it helps fill the time. The lawyers for the other side have done everything in their power to delay a court judgment. The masochists among us particularly enjoyed the interrogatories. Not only did they want us to recall the date of every meeting we ever had with any of the defendants, but what was said, by whom, if we got the assignments and, if so, when was the script shot, when did it air and how much were we paid. Some of us have a hard time recalling what we had for lunch.
It’s quite obvious that the defendants figure time is on their side, that all they have to do is wait us out and we’ll start dropping like flies, like very old flies. Fat chance! What they haven’t considered is that the lawsuit is providing some of us with the will to live that we might otherwise not have.
Not to sound too cynical, but when I saw Abe Polonsky leading a picket line composed of unrepentant Commies outside the Academy Awards in 1999, and saw Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Nick Nolte, and a few other Tinseltown pinheads, sitting on their hands and sneering when 90 year old Elia Kazan came on stage to collect his honorary Oscar, it merely reminded me once again how hypocritical, rude and self-righteous the liberals in this town can be.
In spite of “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” “Boomerang!” “Gentleman’s Agreement,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “East of Eden” and “On the Waterfront,” Hollywood’s political elitists couldn’t get over the fact that 50 years earlier Kazan had, as they say, named names. What’s more, he made no secret of the fact that he was proud to have named the names of those he regarded as the enemies of his adopted country.
As we all know, the patron saint of Hollywood, a town devoted to back-stabbing and betrayal, is Lucrezia Borgia. And the truth is, if Elia Kazan had named fascists, Nazis or even conservatives, instead of Communists, they’d have erected a statue of him at the corner of Hollywood and Vine.
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39 Comments
You’re defending McCarthyism??? Really? So, you feel that it would be acceptable to blacklist or even jail people according to your own personal perception of their politics? Real Americans don’t blacklist, pal.
Very nice post – I guess my question would be – is this why the entertainment industry believes and acts upon getting involved in politics includng using the media to express their views? I always thought if the entertainers want privacy – then that is what they should do – privacy – that would include their religious, political, product and anythng else that does not include their profession (meaning big screen, little screen, music, broandway -etc). You can’t stand up and scream one thing – and then send a message stating another – Swaying the American Public because one entertainer is being swoon over by a group of teenie boopers is a little over the top.
Every time I see the documentary albeit swayed to provide the views of the producer, writers etc, I have the utmost sympathy not only for those targetted, but for those that lived in fear of believing they were next on the list.
Nice post.
Wonderful history lesson that sets the story straight. I’m not sure “Pete” read the piece thoroughly but I found your message not a promotion of blacklisting, rather, an expose’ of the hypocritical, non-inclusive, closed-minded ways of the Hollywood Left. As a person who tasted a small sample of Hollywood’s aversion to other ways of perceiving life through characters, I sense the boot is finally being pried off the neck of free expression in Hollywood.
Ummm…did you even read the article Pete? And I quote the first paragraph: “Liberals still refer to it as McCarthyism, but they can’t even get that right. Joseph McCarthy was a U.S. senator and had nothing to do with Hollywood. It was the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that conducted the star-studded hearings in Los Angeles. But I guess HUACism doesn’t have quite the same panache.”
Now, I’m going to phrase this in simple terms–the author simply stated that McCarthy was not the one dealing with Hollywood. That it was the House Un-American Activities Committee that carried out those hearings. McCarthy was a SENATOR. He DID conduct as series of hearings–but he primarily focused on the military and government–although the hearings he sat in on did deal with some cultural elements. The author DOES NOT support blacklists of any kind–whether it was the sort instituted by groups supporting HUAC’s and Red Channel’s efforts or the current, much more insidious blacklisting and ‘greylisting’ going on in Hollywood–and the media as a whole.
Lucrezia Borgia really would make an ideal symbol for the Left–as does Lady MacBeth–”Out out damned spot!”
Nicely done again Burt. You seem to be able to piss off the liberal moon bats, and get them bouncing off their playpen bars. It’s truly amusing to watch these lemmings regurgitate their uninformed, bush league talking points. You dared to inject facts about “McCarthyism, one of the sacraments of liberal dogma, touché.
Great article. Keep up the good work.
Why hasn’t the news media picked up on the lawsuit?
Nicely done again Burt. You seem to be able to piss off the liberal moon bats, and get them bouncing off their playpen bars. It’s truly amusing to watch these lemmings regurgitate their uninformed, bush league talking points. You dared to inject facts about “McCarthyism, one of the sacraments of liberal dogma, touché .
Yeah Pete uh huh. Tell me do you actually read?
Interesting artical. Its funny when the whole HUAC hearings are actually explained in their historical context the leftist throws out the word McArthey. Pete a little civics lesson. The US Legislative branch has two houses: The US House of Represenatives that represents the population of each state and the States are represented by the Senate. The Founders created the Senate to be a more deliberative body. It has since because a far more politically motivated body as we can see by the constant need of our Senate to keep teh status quo. But I hope this lesson helped. Oh and again just for a reminder Joseph McArthey was a US Senator. Not a congressman. Make that a mantra lefties. McArthey Senator not a House member.
Senator McCarthy investigated Soviet spies/moles in the FDR and Truman administrations – NOT Hollywood players.
When the Venona papers were released in 1995, everyone McCarthy had investigated was proven to be a spy for the Soviet Union.
Washington didn’t create the Blacklist, the studios did.
Got all that, Pete?
Much to the chagrin of the National-Socialist left wing, when the KGB documents were declassified, it turned out that no one was falsely accused by Joe McCarthy.
McCarthy, in fact, was right all along.
Pete – January 13th, 2009 at 5:29 am
“You’re defending McCarthyism??? Really? So, you feel that it would be acceptable to blacklist or even jail people according to your own personal perception of their politics? Real Americans don’t blacklist, pal.”
Of course they do. Look at the “anti-semitism” charge (which means anyone who disagrees with sacrificing the US for Israel’s objectives.) Look at Hate Crime laws.
House Un-American Activities Committee was a congressional committee Chaired by two Democrats; John W. McCormack and Samuel Dickstein.
I thought only shiftless, lazy minorities were the ones who blamed other people for their own lack of success? This is absolutely pathetic. What do you want, affirmative action for conservatives in the movie studios?
Let’s see… you conservatives spend the last 8 years demonizing smart people and liberals and creatives as being faggy girly men who aren’t “real” Americans and then begin a CAMPAIGN in which you incessantly whine and cry about how unfair an industry is to conservatives.
Corporations are conservative. Stop pretending they are not.
“Liberals still refer to it as McCarthyism…”
I’ve always wondered what you call a witch hunt that keeps turning up witches.
“As we all know, the patron saint of Hollywood, a town devoted to back-stabbing and betrayal, is Lucrezia Borgia.
My nominee for Big Hollywood ‘Best Line of the Year’ so far.
(Pardon my language)
PETE! Did you read the f%&$ing essay. Did you read the second paragraph?
Did you read any of it?!?!
As to the lawsuit. First, I thought conservatives scorned litigation of this kind, and saw it as a kind of judicial affirmative action? Second, this isn’t about discrimination. It’s about what the market will bear, also known as capitalism. It sucks sometimes, and it’s hard to face the fact that your work no longer carries the value it once did. But it happens to everyone in this business. (And it happens to actors and actresses far more than anyone else. And a hell of a lot sooner.) Rather than attempting to ennoble one’s unemployment, why not sit down and write?
One good thing about a spec script. The work, and nothing but the work, is what counts. Nobody ever turned down a script because it was too old.
Why is Trumbo is sitting in a tub (full of water, I assume)? Is he trying to stay cool, like E.G. Robinson in Key Largo, using this technique to overcome writer’s block, or just posing for a picture becuse it looks cool?
Funny how whenever “McCarthyism” is mentioned no ever mentions that Bobby Kennedy worked for the HUAC.
Pete – So how long have you been beating your wife?
Your article doesn’t make much sense. You say the blacklist was a good thing in the 1950’s because [you know] they were commies. But now another kind of blacklist is going on and it’s bad – namely older screenwriters are getting the shaft. Then you wind up by saying how dare Hollywood sit on their hands when Kazan got an award.
There is a lack of focus to your piece.
Blacklists are either good or bad. You can’t have it both ways.
I will note that I protested at the Awards that year and I actually made the sign that Abe Polonsky was holding. Trust me, he was not an ‘unrependent Commie’. He was a screenwriter who was blacklisted because of his political beliefs, which were closer to Liberal than Left [there is a difference]. You have to admit that is wrong. No one should ever be blacklisted for beliefs.
Now consider this. The people whom Kazan named lost their jobs and suffered because of it. Kazan merely had to ’suffer’ minor applause and some protesters. Big difference.
More importantly if Dalton Trumbo or Polonsky or any of these so called ‘commies’ were given an award I am most certain a bunch of Conservatives would sit on their hands too. So let’s not pretend like Conservatives are more genial and kind.
Bif, Thanks for noting Bobby Kennedy’s lust to be the chief counsel for HUAC. The guy that got the didn’t fare any better with modern Liberals. Roy Cohen, the object of hate in the incoherent play “Angels in America”.
As for Dalton Trumbo, It makes it tough to watch “The bridge on the river Kwai” and “Spartacus”. Good movies with a unrepentant Communist as the writer.
So, in other words, it’s hypocritical for an industry to criticize a blacklist based on politics because they blacklist because of age. Got it. Of course, if one reads the articles AND comments, it seems that some of you don’t particularly object to blacklisting based on politics that you disagree with.
By the way, Oscar..Dalton Trumbo didn’t write River Kwai.
Oscar, Dalton Trumbo didn’t write Bridge on the River Kwai.
Um I believe that when an American who knowingly supports with money, and other goods and services the government of a nation set on America’s destruction as the Soviet Union is then that person committed TREASON! Hence Trumbo, Lawson etc. were traitors. Just like anyone taking up the cause of Al Queda, or any terrorist regime that has been proven to be an enemy of the USA. How hard is that for people to figure out? And no its not being in opposition to a war. Lots of people hated FDR but when America was attacked they put aside party loyaltys for the greater good of the country.
Thanks Burt: I listened to the anti-McCarthy crap for many years without a dissenting voice that it must be true. What a nice surprise to see have someone publically set the record straight. Having knowledge of history and truth may account for the blacklist assassinations of the greybeards, too. Great article.
My step-grandfather was a KGB agent sent to Hollywood in the ’30s to infiltrate the film business. When Stalin cracked down on soviet jews in ‘48, he became disillisioned and tried to leave the party. He met with an unfortunate “accident” but the family has always believed he was murdered by the KGB, ditto my grandmother (she knew too much). The idea that it is somehow new that Hollywood is a hotbed of leftism/marxism or turned left in the ’60s is inaccurate. The studios created the blacklist and the left has exploited and profited by it ever since.
All of you should read ‘Red Star Over Hollywood’.
Stephanie, yeah LOTS of people hated FDR, that’s why he cruised in four consecutive Presidential Elections.
First off, I’d like to thank those of you who had nice things to say about the article. Especially those of you who set some of the liberals straight about what I actually wrote.
Next, I wish to respond to Harley. I have no idea where you got the notion that conservatives are opposed to litigation or class action lawsuits. When they’re frivolous, we’re against them. When they set out to punish wrongdoing, why would we object? What’s the alternative? Machine guns?
You suggest that I and other older writers who were frozen out because of ageism should just write, write, write. You seem to assume we didn’t. But if you are as savvy as you claim to be, you would know that without agents to submit one’s scripts, they have no chance of reaching the right people. And if you were paying even the slightest attention, you would have noticed that agencies, along with studios and networks, are the defendants in the case.
To suggest that because writers are in their 50s or 60s or older, they can no longer write, suggests that you have confused scriptwriting with playing shortstop for the New York Yankees or are simply an arrogant lout.
Furthermore, I suspect that if the group that had been discriminated against consisted of blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Native Americans or homosexuals, instead of merely being gray-haired or no-haired, you would be entirely sympathetic to our plight.
Sincerely, Burt Prelutsky
Cuneo–I meant to respond to your legitimate query. Dalton Trumbo made it a practice to write while sitting in his bathtub. The photo Big Hollywood used to illustrate my piece is a well-known shot of the man who scripted “Spartacus” and “Exodus,” but not “Bridge on the River Kwai.” That superior script was written by fellow blacklistees Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson.
Regards, Burt Prelutsky
One of the most ironic things about the HUAC hearings was perhaps their single most famous victim was the most patriotic filmmaker in the history of Hollywood: Frank Capra. It was revealed in the hearings that Sidney Buchman, screenwriter of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” was a member of the Communist Party, so they then investigated Capra. Here was the evidence against Capra: 1. “It’s a Wonderful Life” The villain is a banker. Anti-capitalism! 2. “Mr. Deeds Goes to to Town” Deeds wants to give his fortune away to the poor. Communism! 3. “Meet John Doe” The villain is a caricature of William Randolph Hearst. Anti-conservatism! 4. “State of the Union” Direct criticism of HUAC. Anti-HUACism! (It didn’t matter that Myles Connolly, co-writer of the film was a staunch Republican.) Eventually, Capra caved in and named names, but by then, the damage was done. He worked in TV for a few years (remember “Hemo the Magnificent?” That was Capra.), but his last two films in the late 50s were flops and he retired. As John Ford said in a letter to Capra, “If they can go after you, who can’t they go after?” (By the way, I’m not defending Communism; I’m just agreeing with Mr. Prelutsky that HUAC was a bunch of clowns that couldn’t shoot straight.)
Excellent piece Mr. Prelutsky!
“Tinseltown pinheads” become/remain pinheads into adulthood because, in my view, they have been comforted by the intellectual cowardice popularized by the self-satisfied childhood indoctrinations of their wordsmith mentors.
Sadly, as Jack Prelutsky notes: “Rational discussion doesn’t always work because [their] fear is great, terror has worked on many, and amongst the wordsmith elite, cowardice is the usual response.”
http://tinyurl.com/22jjsl
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ROBEROO’s right about “Red Star Over Hollywood”. When read in conjunction with Victor Navasky’s “Naming Names”, and Marc Eliot’s “Reagan: The Hollywood Years” one will acquire a comprehensive overview of an all too often mischaracterized/vilified era.
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Best of luck on the class action suit!
A.S.
OOPS!
Not “Jack Prelutsky”. But, Stephen Rittenberg, MD
Great column Burt.
It never ceases to amaze me how your truly logical words can bring out such vitriol from the left.
There are only so many writers who have this rare gift to truly cheese off the left, You, Ann Coulter, Jonah Goldberg, and a handful of others.
So far BH has snagged 2 of the 3 mentioned.
I may start reading your stuff here instead of townhall since we seem to have fewer trolls and astroturfers here so far.
)
Jackpine Savage: Thanks for the kind words. But don’t give up on Townhall. They print those pieces which wouldn’t fit on a site devoted to the Hollywood scene every Monday and Friday, although you are certainly right about the TH liberal trolls who load up the string with their absurd comments that 99% of the time have nothing to do with what I wrote. At least the Big Hollywood trolls generally remain on topic.
Regards, Burt
“his last two films in the late 50s were flops and he retired.”
Very minor quibble: Pocket Full of Miracles (1961). I didn’t know about good old Hemo, though.
Mr. Prelutsky, you have remarkable patience.
Rants and posts on current practices in Hollywood are some tasty red meat, but I really enjoy reading the town’s history for context. The industry was transformed into what it is today. It happened at the same time similar changes were happening in other media, in our religious institutions and in our schools. I hope somewhere in this story, maybe in dozens of somewheres, we will see just how this Gramscian infection took over. Once we know how we became sick the cure will seem much closer.
Thanks BH, another great article that needs much followup. For followup on this topic (CPUSA) There are 3 great books that are very credible in detailing the history, success & failure (until now) of the Communist plans to remake/destroy this country. If nothing else, read the Amazon excerpts and reviews for yourselves:
1.The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors by Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel.
2.Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies by M. Stanton Evans
3.Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia’s Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War by Pete Earley
One can spot the posts of the “useful idiots”, a designation given them by their late Supreme Leader, Lenin.
Interesting how they viscerally attack McCarthyism and “blacklisting” while defending the blacklisting that goes on today. Heston once remarked there are more conservatives in the closet in Hollywood than gays.
By the way UI’s, be careful when you invoke Nazis. Your friend, Joe Stalin, was allied with Hitler the leader of the National SOCIALIST Party. It was Mussolini that was the fascist.
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