Frame By Frame: Hollywood Blacklisting

Wheeler Winston Dixon Author

09/12/2012 Added

632 Plays

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UNL Film Studies professor Wheeler Winston Dixon takes a look at the causes and effects of the Hollywood blacklists of the 1950s and 60s.

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[00:00:13.031]Hi. I'm Wheeler Winston Dixon, James Ryan Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and this is Frame By Frame,
[00:00:19.051]and today I want to talk about a very serious subject: the Hollywood blacklist of the 1940s, 50s and 60s.
[00:00:26.099]The blacklist has its roots in the Great Depression, which was the result of the 1929 crash.
[00:00:33.020]By 1933, 25% of America's workforce were out of work. Jobs simply weren't available.
[00:00:40.077]Thus there was the rise of labor unions, and particularly in Hollywood the major studios resisted this...
[00:00:47.054]because they had been using non-union labor for so long that they viewed any attempt to organize as "communistically" inspired.
[00:00:55.062]At the same time that this is happening, we have Hitler rising to power in Germany,
[00:01:01.096]and the conditions in Europe becoming more and more unstable.
[00:01:04.096]In 1936, the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees for the first time manage to organize unions and close shops...
[00:01:13.084]at studios like Warner Bros., Paramount and MGM.
[00:01:17.057]In 1937, the Supreme Court upheld the National Labor Relations Act, giving them the right to collectively organize and bargain.
[00:01:26.081]In 1938, Congress formed the House UnAmerican Activities Committee to investigate unionization...
[00:01:35.022]basically at the behest of the studios and large corporations that were against this.
[00:01:40.001]And in 1938, we have the first wave of HUAC's accusations against people.
[00:01:46.084]A former communist named James B. Matthews came forward, and this is his only appearance of any note in history...
[00:01:54.098]claiming that James Cagney, Bette Davis, Clark Gabel, Myriam Hopkins and Shirley Temple were all communist sympathizers...
[00:02:05.039]and at the time nobody took him very seriously.
[00:02:08.046]But then in 1939, Stalin and Hitler signed a non-agression pact on the eve of World War II.
[00:02:16.027]And then Hitler momentarily after that attacked Poland and Chekloslavikia.
[00:02:20.080]We, of course, got into the war in 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7.
[00:02:27.044]And at that time the Soviet Union just more or less sat by between 1939 and 1941.
[00:02:32.078]It was only in 1941 that they came into the picture on the side of the Allies.
[00:02:38.015]And during WWII, the Soviets were our allies, but they were very uneasy ones.
[00:02:43.079]Winston Churchill once said, "I would make a deal with the devil in a fight against Hitler."
[00:02:48.096]And that's exactly what was happening here, but for a while the Soviets were our allies.
[00:02:53.000]But what happened, of course, after the war was that Stalin immediately began enslaving all of eastern Europe,
[00:02:59.054]and everybody became extremely afraid of the "Communist Threat."
[00:03:03.061]In 1941, we have an event which leads into this, and that's the great animators strike at Walt Disney.
[00:03:09.093]The Disney studio was a non-union shop, and in 1941 the animators struck seeking better pay, the right to unionize and better working conditions.
[00:03:21.083]Disney resisted and finally left the country because he was so angry about this, and convinced that it was a communist plot.
[00:03:28.067]The strike was settled 5 weeks later, but Disney was extremely bitter, and so were the employees.
[00:03:33.061]And this was really the beginning of the blacklist.
[00:03:36.008]In 1946, the HUAC held formal hearings on the communist influence on the motion picture industry.
[00:03:44.012]And in 1947, the HUAC held 10 days of closed hearings in Los Angeles.
[00:03:50.069]Robert Taylor, Lila Rogers (the mother of Ginger Rogers), Jack Warner and Adolph Mangue were the principle witnesses, or "friendly" witnesses.
[00:04:00.002]In 1947, the Screen Actors Guild signs the Loyalty Oath Agreement... you have to sign a loyalty oath, and if you don't, you don't work.
[00:04:08.004]In 1947, formal hearing begin with Gary Cooper, Walt Disney, Robert Montgomery, George Murphy and Ronald Reagan testifying as friendly witnesses before the House committee.
[00:04:20.029]RONALD REAGAN: We have done a pretty good job in our business of keeping those people's activities curtailed.
[00:04:25.093]In 1947, the HUAC charged the "Hollywood Ten," who included Howard Beberman, Edward Demetrik (who was a very famous Noir director), and Dalton Trumbo with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer their questions.
[00:04:44.051]Also in 1947, a series of Hollywood stars tried to fight against this. They called themselves the Committe for the First Amendment.
[00:04:54.046]And they flew to Washington to try to stop the hearings.
[00:04:57.063]And these people included Lauren Baccall, Humphrey Bogart, Ira Girshwin, Sterling Hayden, John Huston, Danny Kaye and Gene Kelly.
[00:05:08.003]But soon they realized that the forces were just so overwhelming that there was nothing they could do to stop the HUAC.
[00:05:14.012]They folded their tents and went home.
[00:05:16.069]I'm going to read a list of some of the people the HUAC identified as communists.
[00:05:22.062]Edward G. Robinson, who was a fixture at WWII bond rallies, selling bonds...
[00:05:28.052]Charlie Chaplin, Katherine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, Gregory Peck, Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Leonard Bernstein... the composer and conductor...
[00:05:41.004]Will Gear, who wound up later on "The Waltons" playing Grandpa Walton...
[00:05:45.061]Lena Horne, the African American singer,
[00:05:48.018]Langston Hughs, the writer,
[00:05:50.025]Joseph Lowese, the director who fled to England,
[00:05:53.088]Harry Belafonte, Louis Bunelle, the brilliant Spanish director... and the list goes on and on.
[00:06:00.092]When the Hollywood Ten were sent to prison in 1951, Edward Demetrik was the first to crack. He simply couldn't stand the conditions.
[00:06:09.050]He got out and he named names.
[00:06:11.050]And as a result of that, he was put back to work directing "Sniper" and later "The Caine Mutiny."
[00:06:17.031]Elia Kazan, in 1952, also gave friendly testimony before the committee...
[00:06:22.068]And in 1952, Charlie Chaplin leaves the country for England for a promotional tour for his film, "Limelight."
[00:06:31.072]When Chaplin tried to re-enter, J. Edgar Hoover sees to it that he is not allowed to re-enter the United States...
[00:06:38.013]on the grounds that he is a Communist sympathizer, and Chaplin is effectively barred from the U.S.
[00:06:43.030]In 1953, the Screen Writers' Guild allows producers to remove screen credits of any suspected communists.
[00:06:50.069]In 1957, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, excludes anyone on the Hollywood blacklist for consideration for an Oscar.
[00:07:00.028]In 1958, the Supreme Court of the United States rejects the argument that the Hollywood blacklist violated employee rights.
[00:07:09.009]But in 1959, the tide finally starts to turn.
[00:07:13.012]The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decides that screen writers and actors on the blacklist will no longer be prohibited for consideration for Oscars.
[00:07:22.004]In 1960, Dalton Trumbo does the screenplay for Otto Premiger's "Exodus,"
[00:07:27.021]and becomes the first person who was blacklisted, since the beginning of the blacklist, to get a screen credit.
[00:07:33.015]In 1970, Dalton Trumbo delivers his famous "Only Victims" speech before the Screen Writers Guild.
[00:07:40.094]In 1972, Robert Vaughn, best known as "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," writes a brilliant book called "Only Victims,"
[00:07:49.004]which is a study of show business blacklisting, which is the first major book and still is one of the best on that.
[00:07:54.077]In 1972, Charlie Chaplin returns to the United States for the first time since 1952, to receive an honorary Academy Award for his life's works.
[00:08:04.078]CHARLIE CHAPLIN: Oh, you're wonderful sweet people. Thank you.
[00:08:12.032]in 1976, Martin Ritt directs "The Front" with Woody Allen, which is about screenwriters who are forced to work under false names,
[00:08:20.026]and they get "fronts" to front for their work. This is in 1976.
[00:08:24.097]WOODY ALLEN: I don't recognize the right of this committee to ask me these kind of questions.
[00:08:32.017]In 1991, producer Irwin Winkler directs "Guilty By Suspicion" starring Robert DeNiro, which is probably the best account of the blacklist.
[00:08:40.082]But all in all, the blacklist put a lot of people out of work, many of whom were entirely guiltless and were basically just the victim of a vendetta.
[00:08:50.029]But I'm going to leave the last word to Dalton Trumbo who was one of the victims of the blacklist, but who wrote very movingly about it.
[00:08:57.020]And this is part of his very famous "Only Victims" speech.

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cinema
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history
blacklisting
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Frame By Frame: Hollywood Blacklisting

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