The "Hollywood Ten"

Since most of my writing this time of year is papers for college classes, I thought I'd post them and see what Gather has to say.  This one is in response to the question: Name the "Hollywood Ten" and explain why they were investigated by the House Unamerican Activites Committee and what impact that investigation had on their careers."

I'd also like to point out that my main reference for this, the book "Hollywood On Trial" by Gordon Kahn is an amazing read!  If you substitute "terrorist" for "communist", it is also seriously scary.

The Hollywood Ten were: Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo.

Biberman and Dmytryk were film directors; the others were authors-- of screenplays, novels, plays, and magazine articles. Trumbo had been nominated for, and Lardner and Maltz had received, Academy Awards for their screenplays. These were men highly respected in their industry.

"There is no peace. The war we thought we won has not been won. Two world wars have left the world less safe for democracy than it was....A militant, aggressive Communist Russia has its spies, agents, saboteurs hard at work in every country, including our own.," according to H.V. Kaltenborn, news editor of NBC Radio, in a 1947 broadcast. (1.)

These fears led Congress to form the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives, or HUAC. Chaired by J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, the committee included John McDowell of Pennsylvania, Richard B. Vail of Illinois, and Richard M. Nixon of California.

As Chairman Thomas put it, "This committee under its mandate from the House of Representatives had the responsibility of exposing and spotlighting subversive ailments wherever they may exist. It is only to be expected that Communists would strive desperately to gain entry to the motion picture industry simply because the industry offers such a tremendous weapon for education and propaganda." (2.)

The hearings began with testimony from witnesses who included J.L. Warner of Warner Brothers Studios, Louis B. Mayer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and stars like Robert Taylor, Robert Montgomery, Gary Cooper, and Ronald Reagan. When asked if they "knew of any communists," most named at least a couple of names, basing their "knowledge" on hearsay and sometimes on personal malice.

Although at the beginning of the process, Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, had promised that ?As long as I live I will never be a party to anything as un-American as a blacklist,? (3.) a blacklist was indeed established.

The Hollywood 10 were originally nineteen, designated as ?unfriendly? witnesses. Of these nineteen, the men who were eventually indicted for contempt of Congress were those who refused to answer the Committee?s questions about their membership in particular organizations, and about their political beliefs. They argued that the Committee was unconstitutional, and was attempting to abrogate their rights under the First Amendment. They lost.

After fighting in the courts for three years, each of the Hollywood Ten spent a year in prison. HUAC, now under the chairmanship of Senator Joseph McCarthy, continued to subpoena witnesses and ruin careers. The blacklisted screenwriters still wrote, under assumed names, until 1959 when Dalton Trumbo was hired to write screenplays under his real name.

Why did the Hollywood moguls, who promised publicly that there would be no blacklist, cave in and allow one?

?. . . the retreat of the producers was dictated from above -- from the great banks, holding corporations, insurance companies that form the financial complex that controls the motion picture industry. . . . .The real controlling interests of this industry are not so much interested in the freedom and creativeness of the motion pictures. They are interested first in making money from films. But they are also interested, and perhaps increasingly so, in using films both as a medium to protect their privileges and their plans for expanded markets . . . ." (4.)

(1.) Editors Of Broadcasting Magazine. The First 50 Years of Broadcasting. Washington DC: Broadcasting Publications, Inc., 1982. P.84

(2.) PBS Documentary. Newshour "The Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist" Corporation For Public Broadcasting. 30 Dec. 1899 http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec97/blacklist_10-24html.

(3.) Kahn, Gordon. Hollywood On Trial. New York: Boni & Gaer, Inc., 1948. P.6

(4.) Ibid P.195-196