Kevin Brianton, Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Larry Ceplair has dedicated his academic life to writing about the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities (HUAC) investigations of Hollywood. Over the past decades, his contribution to understanding Hollywood’s blacklist has been unequaled. His seminal work The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 19301960, co-written with Stephen Englund, is still the standard starting point for the topic, even though it was released nearly 40 years ago. Aside from this foundation text, he has produced many books and papers on the issue.
Ceplair argues that this new book is necessary: “Given the axial changes in the entertainment/media industries (huge enterprises adroitly staying several steps ahead of regulation and control), the admonition to be “woke,” and the “cancel culture,” the time seemed propitious for a book that offered some new thoughts on the motion picture blacklist: its origins, its extent, its duration, its impact, and its future prospects.”(ix). Despite this statement, the book is not a comprehensive reflection of the blacklist in a contemporary context. It is a collection of papers from various dates over the past two decades – some previously published and some new.
Full Review at Film & History 53.2 (Winter 2023), 64 -66.
Cinema history 