One film which broke the anti-communist mould was Samuel Fuller’s Pickup on South Street (1953). Image courtesy of eMoviePoster
Kevin Brianton
Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University
In the early 1950s, conservative forces in Hollywood began to see that their anti-communist cinematic efforts had been failures. The films were not popular at the box office and the critical responses were poor or weak. During the Second World War, the reverse was true. Hollywood had made many popular anti-Nazi and anti-Japanese films during the Second World War at a furious pace. There were no anti-communist equivalents of Casablanca or Mrs Miniver. Somehow these anti-communist films did not work. My Son John had an established and acclaimed director in Leo McCarey working from his own script, its main star Robert Walker was still basking in his triumph of Strangers On A Train, the celebrated stage actress Helen Hayes had returned to the screen to play John’s mother and Dean Jagger had recently won an academy award for Twelve O’Clock High (1950), yet the film was a complete disaster. Accoldades were in short supply. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences did nominate McCarey for an Oscar for Writing (Motion Picture Story). Even with the star power of John Wayne, Big Jim McLain, was the twenty-seventh most successful film of 1952, grossing $2,600,000.
The reasons for their failure lay elsewhere. When Cecil B. DeMille was appointed to the State Department’s International Motion Picture Unit as a consultant to make cold war films in 1953, he decried the lack of support for anti-communist pictures.
The American
Government would not arm its soldiers with guns made by amateurs. Neither should it arm … (the State)
Department with films by amateurs.[1]
DeMille claimed that the Soviet Union had spent $14 billion on propaganda while the United States spent $75 million. The Soviet Union was producing better propaganda than the United States. He argued that more resources were needed to win the propaganda cold war. Yet the studios had poured in considerable resources for anti-communist films and none had worked. The films were not allocated second rate talent. Directors William Wellman, Gordon Douglas, Leo McCarey, William Dietrele, William Cameron Menzies, Elia Kazan, Samuel Fuller, Anthony Mann, and Josef von Sternberg and others represent a group of highly talented people. It was not the lack of talent which caused their failure or the pace at which they were cranked out by the studios.
After
the release of Walk East on Beacon
and other anti-communist efforts, the New
York Times film critic Bosley Crowther lashed out at Hollywood for its
failure to make effective anti-communist films.
He argued that the United States was in a state of confusion and anxiety
over the threat of communism and he wanted Hollywood to ‘clarify the realities
of the situation and the true extent of domestic peril.’ Crowther thought that the plots of the film
were reworkings of old ideas and reflected a deeper problem in the film
industry.
(In Hollywood) no one,
resenting aspersions, dares raise a clear contentious voice. Caution is king. Intellectually Hollywood is paralyzed.
In this grave state of
apprehension, it isn’t likely that the people out there are going to come
through with any … literal dramatization of the actual shape of the Communist
peril. Indeed it is not very likely that
anyone will henceforth want to touch the subject of communism with a ten foot
pole. Not only is it ticklish as a
topic, but pictures about it have proved conspicuously unbefitting as far as
the paying public is concerned.[2]
One film which broke the anti-communist mould was Samuel Fuller’s Pick Up on South Street (1953). It was not an easy film to make. According to Lisa Dombrowsi, in her book The Films of Samuel Fuller: If You Die, I’ll Kill you, the script ran afoul of the the PCA, for “excessive brutality and sadistic beatings, of both men and women”. Although a revised script was accepted soon after, the studio was forced to shoot multiple takes of a particular scene in which the manner of Jean Peters and Richard Kiley frisk each other for loot was considered too risqué.
The film begins when a pickpocket Skip McCoy, played by Richard Widmark, stole some microfilm from the purse of Candy, the former mistress of communist Joey. The film contained a secret chemical formulae and Candy attempted to get the film back from McCoy for the psychopathic Joey. She falls in love with McCoy whole doing so, but McCoy was not interested and wanted to sell the microfilm back to the communists for $25,000. He eventually also falls in love with Candy, but only after he found out that she would not betray him to the communists. He was enraged when Candy was beaten and shot by Joey. He followed Joey and dealt out a savage beating in revenge.
McCoy
was not interested in seeking revenge until he has his own personal motives to
do so. When an FBI agent asked him, ‘Do
you know what Communism is?’ Skip replies ‘Who cares?’ They press him to act out of patriotic
motives and he refused.
McCoy was not interested in seeking revenge until he has his own personal motives to do so. It is his love for Candy – not his political interests – that drive his revenge.
Detective: If you refuse to co-operate you’ll be as
guilty as those traitors who gave Stalin the A-bomb
Fuller later argued that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had lunch with him and studio head Zanuck, and was told that he detested Fuller’s work and especially Pickup on South Street. Hoover particuarly did not like Widmark’s character saying “Are you waving the flag at me?”, He did not approve of the the scene of a Federal agent bribing an informer and other things. “Zanuck backed Fuller up, telling Hoover he knew nothing about making movies, but removed references to the FBI in the film’s advertising.” It is simple to identify Hoover’s annoyance. McCoy was only interested in money. He said to Candy: ‘So you are Red. Who cares? Your money is as good as anybody’s.’ The film was a clear break from any other anti-communist film of the time. Indeed it turned everything on its head. The criminal world looked down on communism. Moe, who informed on Skip for $50 to the police, refused to give Skip’s address to the communists because ‘even in our crumby kind of business, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere’.[4] Moe doesn’t even know why she doesn’t like communism. She says ‘What do I know about commies? Nothing? I know I just don’t like them.’[5]
Most
other anti-communist films defended the role of the informer. In Pickup
On South Street, the stance on informing was reversed.
Director Sam Fuller was laughing at the seriousness of patriotic films and in doing so produced one of the most eccentric and individual anti-communist films of the 1950s. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster
Moe:
Some people peddle apples, lamb chops, lumber. I peddle information. Skip ain’t sore. He understands. We live in a different kind of world. Once in while he gets how under the collar if I sell him short.
Moe was in informer to the police and yet despised informers to communists. The hero of this film was a unrepentant and unpatriotic criminal. The law enforcement agencies appeared to be flat-footed and easily misled by the criminals. The police even needed informers like Moe to round up suspects. Fuller was laughing at the seriousness of patriotic films and in doing so produced one of the most eccentric and individual anti-communist films of the 1950s. The communism angle is so slight that when the movie was released in France, the dubbed soundtrack changed the villains from communist spys to drug dealers. The French title “Le port de la drogue” can be translated as “Pier of Drugs”. [7]
Fuller repeated the formula of personal, rather than political revenge, with Richard Widmark leading a submarine in Chinese controlled waters, in Hell And High Water (1954). Widmark was a mercenary who would sell his services to the highest bidder. The submarine crew uncovered a plot by the Chinese to have a disguised B29 drop atomic bombs on Manchuria to blame the United States for starting a nuclear war. Widmark couldn’t care less until his most loyal crew member was killed by a communist prisoner. Only after his friend’s, did he become committed to stopping the communist plot. Critic Nicholas Garnham argued that ‘the Fuller protagonist is always caught in a crossfire between warring totalitarian organizations.’ Pickup on South Street finished 62nd in the Variety rankings for 1953.[8]
[7] For a discussion of Fuller’s anti-communism and his views on national identity see Nicholas Garham, Fuller, Secker and Warburg in association with the British Film Institute, 1971, pp. 106 – 133.
My Son John was a serious attempt to alert America to, what director Leo McCarey considered, a dangerous and pressing threat. The film seemed to have absorbed the political tensions of Hollywood during that strained time. From its opening scenes, it was a gloomy tense depiction of strangling the American family. Image from eMoviePoster
Kevin Brianton
Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University
The links between sexuality and communism were seen in other films, but none more pointed than My Son John (1952) which linked political subversion to sexual activity. Producer, writer and director Leo McCarey was one of the leading anti-communist campaigners in Hollywood,[1] and his film My Son John was a serious attempt to alert America to, what he considered, a dangerous and pressing threat. McCarey was a staunch anti-Communist and had joined Wood in testifying to HUAC in October 1947. He had directed Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St. Marys (1945), which were very popular films with Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley. McCarey told HUAC his films were not successful in Russia because they contained God. He wanted Hollywood to produce anti-Communist films as it had done in the Second World War against fascism. In 1952, McCarey would do just that and direct one of the more feverish anti-Communist films in My Son John – the final political messages of which were fashioned by DeMille. The film seemed to have absorbed the political tensions of Hollywood during that strained time. From its opening scenes, it was a gloomy tense depiction of strangling the American family.
The story began as Ben and Chuck Jefferson, played by James Young and Richard Jaeckel, went off to fight in the Korean War. They were blonde clean-cut American boys who played football. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.
The film witnessed the return of Helen Hayes – the first lady of american Theatre – after 18 years away from the screen. The story began as Ben and Chuck Jefferson, played by James Young and Richard Jaeckel, went off to fight in the Korean War. They were blonde clean-cut American boys who played football, while their brother John, played by Robert Walker, was dark haired and read books. John worked at some mysterious job in Washington. Their mother, played by Helen Hayes, was distressed that he did not return for their farewell party. When he did return, Hayes was shocked to learn that he scoffed at his father’s membership of the American Legion. Suspicions increased when he told his parents that he believed that Bible stories should be taken on a symbolic rather than literal level.
With
the evidence mounting fast, his mother Lucille, played by Helen Hayes, made
John swear on the Bible that he was not a communist. He was quite happy to oblige because he was
an atheist and was not afraid of eternal damnation by making such an oath. The Bible was also used in a scene where
John’s father Dan sang John a song he composed for his American Legion Friends.
He
then bashed John over the head with the bible when he laughed. The scene appeared to be strongly influenced
by a similar scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 version of The Ten Commandments, where a mother read the story of Exodus from
the bible to her two sons. One son also
scoffed at the reading and was struck over the head by the other son with a
newspaper. In an earlier draft of the
screenplay of My Son John, the father
struck John when he scoffed at the commandment about honoring your
parents. The similarity was no accident
as DeMille’s political speech writer Donald Hayne wrote the original drafts for
the final speech by John Jefferson.[3] To scoff at the ten commandments was the
equivalent of extolling communism for DeMille who saw them as the moral basis
to fight communism.[4] Furthermore, to scoff was direct proof of
communist tendencies, hence the father’s righteous and violent reaction.
Director Leo McCarey watches Robert Walker and Helen Hayes. The relationship between Mother and Son was a bizarre subtext to this anti-Communist film. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster
DeMille
exercised absolute control over his staff and it would be impossible to believe
that Hayne wrote the speech without DeMille’s direction, approval and
consent. DeMille’s writers considered
themselves to be ‘trained seals’ who merely translated the director’s thoughts
onto paper.[5] Even though he has not listed in the credits,
it is clear that DeMille had a great deal of power within Hollywood’s
anti-communist community and that power extended to influencing the
anti-communist content of films of other directors.
John’s
father Dan, played by Dean Jagger, swore that if he even thought his son was a
communist, he would take him into the back yard and shoot with a double-barrel
shotgun. McCarey’s depiction of the
all-American father was drunk, violent, and stupid. Throughout the film, the father was extremely
hostile to John’s intellectual achievements, and yet the mother’s character was
even worse. She hovered on the edge of a
nervous breakdown and there were several hints to her being menopausal. In an earlier draft of the film, the message
was clear that she was going through a ‘stage of life’ and needed to constantly
take pills.[6] When the mother heard that John was being
investigated by the FBI for being communist, she regarded it as solid evidence
that he was guilty. In the draft script, she actually collapsed before
testifying that her son was a communist.
The audience was meant to conclude that her communist son was undermining
her mental and physical health. It would
be easier to believe that these demented parents led their children into
communism.
Like I Married a Communist, My Son John linked intellectual activity to communism. John was constantly compared with his blonde brothers. They played football and were doing their patriotic duty in Korea while John was an intellectual and a traitor. T seemed failure to play football was one of the key elements of becoming a political subversive. The mother recalled going to a football game to see Ben and Chuck play. As she supported their football team, she would turn to John and barrack for him in his own personal football game. The audience was told that John’s brothers were pulled out of school to pay for John’s education. These ideas neatly fitted with the anti-intellectual atmosphere of the McCarthyite investigators. It was a time when the word ‘egghead’ became a pejorative term for intellectuals.[7] While making the film, McCarey told The New York Times:
(My Son John) is about
a mother and father who struggle and slaved.
They had no education. They put
all their money into higher education for their sons. But on of the kids gets too bright. It poses the problem – how bright can you
get?
He takes up a lot of
things including atheism… The mother only knew two books – her Bible and her
cookbook. But who’s the brighter in the
end – the mother or the son.[8]
But
there was something more sinister than intellectual curiosity which led to
communism. In his review of the film
Bosley Crowthey in the New York Times wrote that intellectuals were seen as
‘dangerous perverters of youth.’[9] It was not only in the field of ideas that he
was corrupt. John’s twisted relationship
with his mother indicated murkier reasons for the descent into the abyss. Nora Sayre noted that John was deceitful and
charming toward her and there was an undisguised hostility towards his
father. His performance was as close as
Hollywood would dare come to that of a homosexual.[10] The father looked on in disgust when he met
his professor from his old University.
In the early draft of the screenplay, Dan says to his wife: ‘Did you see that greeting? I thought they were going to kiss each
other.’[11] John’s communism was the result of a
combination of anti-athletic, intellectual and homosexual tendencies.
In
the original screenplay, John’s mother was in a position to put John in prison
for his communist activities. She could
not bring herself to testify against John to the FBI and collapsed and was then
put into a hospital. The draft
screenplay was incomplete, but it did include notes of a speech where John
renounced his communist past while making a speech to a high school. The speech, which incriminated him, was made
even though the FBI was unable to convict him.
John was arrested and taken to prison.
In the final scene, he visited his mother in hospital and told her of
his return to the ‘side of the angels’.[12]
The
film required a different ending as Walker died before the end of My Son John. Some hasty rewriting was needed, and McCarey
used some outtakes from Strangers On A
Train given to him by director Alfred Hitchcock to spin out an ending.[13] To complete the film. John went through a remarkable conversion to
capitalism at the end of the film and was immediately gunned down by his fellow
communists beneath the Lincoln Memorial.
In
the film from the 1930s through to the 1950s, the figure of Lincoln was used to
bolster the political viewpoints of the filmmakers. Abraham Lincoln was the most deified on the
Presidents in the American popular imagination.
In Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939),
the dejected Smith returned to fight the corrupt politicians in the Senate after
seeing a small child in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Director John Ford repeatedly used Lincoln as
an icon of fundamental American wisdom in films such as The Iron Horse (1924) and Young
Mr Linclon (1939). In Cheyenne Autumn (1964), the Secretary of
State, played by Edward G. Robinson, looked at a picture of Lincoln, while
pondering the fate of the Cheyenne
Indians, and said ‘What would he do?’ and the problems of Cheyenne Indians
were soon resolved. Lincoln was also
used to support the closing anti-communist message in I Was a Communist for the FBI and The FBI Story (1958).
Lincoln
was once again the icon of traditional American values. John’s death at the feet of the memorial
showed that his political conversion and redemption was complete. He had paid his price for becoming a
communist. In the original script he
cried out: ‘I am a native American
communist spy – and may God have mercy on my soul!’[14] The final film made John pay for his
communism with his death. At the
conclusion, a tape recording of his planned speech was played to a graduating
class.
I was going to help to
make a better world. I was flattered
when I was immediately recognized as an intellect. I was invited to homes where only superior
minds commuted. It excited my freshman
fancy to hear daring thoughts … A bold defiance of the only authorities I’d
ever known: my church and my father and my mother. I know that many of you have experienced that
stimulation. But stimulants lead to
narcotics. As the seller of habit-forming
dope gives the innocent their first inoculation, with a cunning worthy of a
serpent, there are other snakes waiting lying to satisfy the desire of the
young to give themselves something positive…[15]
The
concluding speech described communism as an addictive drug. This did not explain why John was able to
break his addiction so easily. During
his final speech a ray of light shines down on the stage indicating God’s
approval, when John asked for God’s mercy, it was surely given.
The
final speech was quite different form Hayne’s original script.[16] Hayne wanted to emphasise that the laws
against communist agents were weak and the FBI could not have convicted
John. He gave up any chance of escape
and confessed that he had been passing secrets to the Russians.[17] McCarey, however wanted to drive home the
inherent evil of communism. McCarey’s
draft for John’s final speech was extremely close to the final film and it
seemed that Walker’s death did little to change its direction.
Once again, communism was expunged by a severe act of contrition. Both Robert Ryan in I Married A Communist and Robert Walker in My Son John had to perform this painful act to clear themselves of communism, just as those in Hollywood had to name names before the HUAC investigations in order to clear themselves. McCarey’s depiction of communism was the blackest of the 1950s. It was as an addictive drug peddled by intellectuals with homosexual tendencies to young impressionable minds. The thin academic air of college was a breeding ground for these delusions. Young people who wanted to do something positive may fall victim to its clutches. Yet the alternative in McCarey’s world was not much better. Violent and threatening, verging on psychotic, fathers and neurotic mothers were the all-American couple. These parents would sacrifice their children to the authorities through guilt by association. He film rationalized that the techniques used throughout America and Hollywood were necessary and desirable. It argued that being investigated was the same as being guilty; that authorities were impeccable in their research and pursuit of enemies and never made mistakes. John’s confession at the end of the film justified the physical and mental battering he had received from his mother, his father and the authorities. The confession was a justification of HUAC’s investigations and the stance taken by the studio heads. When the film was released, it was not surprising that DeMille said it was a great film and showed that McCarey was a great American.[18] The film was, however, universally condemned by film reviewers. My Son John represented the low water mark of Hollywood’s dealing with communism and the film did not make Variety’s list for the year despite some heavy advertising.[19] Most reviewers slammed the film, aside from Bosley Crowther in The New York Times who praised some aspects of it; but even he had grave concerns about its political dogmatism.
Bernard Dick focuses on Leo McCarey’s anti-communist film My Son John (1952) in some detail in his book The Screen is Red. The film’s production fell into a shambles with the death of lead actor Robert Walker, and an ending of sorts was created – with some unheralded assistance by Cecil B. DeMille and Alfred Hitchcock. The remaining film is uncomfortable to watch; it contains one disturbing scene in which an angry father attacks his communist son for laughing at his conservative jingoism. Despite the contrived conclusion, Dick describes McCarey as a master of plot resolution. He argues that McCarey gave viewers an ending that was “dramatic and reflective,” [117] providing an accurate description of America in the early years of the Cold War. His respectful analysis is at odds with both contemporary reviewers and later critics, who see it as a mixture of hysterical anti-communism tinctured with a vague homophobia – along with some disturbing ideas about motherhood.
[3] Draft of final speech of My Son
John, Cecil B. DeMille Archives, Box 439, Folder 10, Brigham Young University,
Provo, Utah.
[4] A full discussion will be in the
chapter on biblical epics.
[5] Quote from unnamed writer in
Motion Picture Daily, 16 December 1949.
Accounts of DeMille’s legendary treatment of writers can be found in Ring Lardner Jr., ‘The Sign of the
Boss’, Screenwriter, November 1945,
and Phil Koury, Yes, Mr DeMille, G.P.Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1976.
[6] Undated draft script of My Son
John, Box 439, Folder 10, Cecil B. DeMille Archives, Box 439, Folder 10,
Brighan Young University, Provo, Utah.
[7] William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream A Narrative History
of America 1932 – 1972, Bantam, New York, 1975, pp. 625 – 626.
[8]New York Times, 18 March 1952.
At the end of the original script, John asks his mother to bake cookies
for him in prison.
[10] Sayre, Running Time, p.96. Walker’s
performance is close to his acclaimed role of Bruno in Strangers On A Train where again his performance had strong
homosexual overtones. See Donald Spoto, Art Of Alfred Hitchcock, Dolphin, New
York, 1976, p. 212 and for a differing view see Robin Wood, Hitchcock Film’s Revisited, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1960, pp. 347 – 348. McCarey did claim that Hitchcock was a strong
influence for the film, New York Times,
9 April 1952.
[11] Draft script of My Son John, p.
11 Box 439, Folder 10, Cecil B. DeMille Archives, Box 439, Folder 10, Brigham
Young University, Provo, Utah.
[13] Walker died after being
prescribed some sedatives by doctors after emotional outbursts on the set of My Son John. He had a history of problems with alcohol and
had suffered a nervous breakdown in the late 1940s. David Thomson, A Biographical Dictionary of the Cinema, Secker and Warburg,
London, 1975, p. 595.
[14] Hayne, Donald John’s Speech, 2
June 1951, Cecil B. DeMille Archives, Box 439, Folder 10, Cecil B. DeMille
Archives, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
[16] Hayne, Donald John’s Speech, 2
June 1951, and Leo McCarey, Leo John’s
Speech, 10 August 1951. Cecil B.
DeMille Archives, Box 439, Folder 10, Cecil B. DeMille Archives, Brigham Young
University, Provo, Utah.
[18] Cecil B. DeMille to Leo McCarey,
3 April 1952. Cecil B. DeMille Archives,
Box 439, Folder 10, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
[19] The film’s advertising focused
on a non-existent sex scene. The film
was condemned by most film reviewers at the time. One belated defence of the film is in Leland
A. Poague, The Hollywood Professionals:
Wilder and McCarey, London, Tantry Press, 1980.
Walk East on Beacon was based on an article by FBI head J. Edgar Hoover called Crime of the Century which was published in Reader’s Digest in May 1951. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster
Kevin Brianton
Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University
In 1951 FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was offered $15,000 for the rights to his article in Readers Digest which was based on the Fuchs-Gold case. Hoover had written – or it had been ghost written – the article called Crime of the Century which was published in Reader’s Digest in May 1951. British atomic scientist Karl Fuchs and American Harry Gold gave nuclear secrets to the Russians. Hoover refused the offer but granted the movie rights. His biographer Curt Gentry argued that Hoover refused the money because of the links between the case and the controversial Rosenberg trial. Gentry said that Hoover only arrested Ethel Rosenberg as a ‘lever’ to get Julius to confess. A decision he greatly regretted. The FBI’s anti-communist stance was shown in Walk East on Beacon .[1] The FBI is depicted in glowing – if somewhat – ridiculous terms throughout the film. The New York Times wrote: ” Chief J. Edgar Hoover’s story, “The Crime of the Century,” is an absorbing affair, as the law, utilizing such varied aids as hidden cameras, lip readers, television equipment and the Coast Guard, efficiently tightens the net around its elusive quarry. And, in the course of the chase, it becomes increasingly obvious that the F. B. I. cooperated in the production.” Like Big Jim McLain, which praised HUAC, Walk East on Beacon praised the Bureau. It was released with publicity material which said the country was in danger and citizens should report espionage, sabotage or subversive activities, the chattering of aircraft for flights over restricted areas, suspicious individuals loitering near restricted areas, foreign submarine landings, poisoning of public water supplies, possession and distribution of foreign-inspired propaganda, unusual fires or explosions affecting vital industry, suspicious parachute landings and possession of radioactive material.[2]
HUAC had begun its investigation by interviewing selected labor and industry leaders in the film industry in March 1947. Listening to anti-communist figures in Hollywood did not provide HUAC chair J. Parnell Thomas and investigator Robert Stripling with enough evidence to proceed with a full investigation. They needed the FBI, which had been building up a massive dossier of communist involvement in Hollywood over the past three years. At first, Hoover declined to support the venture because he did not want HUAC linked to the FBI, but Thomas and Stripling promised discretion when they contacted Los Angeles FBI agent R. B. Hood for support. Under this agreement, Hoover arranged to assist the committee on the basis that the FBI remained unidentified. With this assurance, Hoover testified to it in an open session on March 26, 1947, where he declared “the aims and responsibilities” of the HUAC and the FBI were the same: “The protection of the internal security of the Nation.” Hoover used the opportunity to argue that the Communist Party was penetrating many “public opinion mediums,” particularly the film industry, and that it would achieve its goal of capturing American institutions through infiltration of the unions and creative outlets. Hoover said, “I would have no fears if more Americans possessed the zeal, the fervor, the persistence and the industry to learn about this menace of Red fascism. I do fear for the liberal and progressive who has been hoodwinked and duped into joining hands with the communists.” Hoover’s testimony to HUAC was a clear blurring of the lines between liberals and radicals. Congress further ordered that 250,000 copies of Hoover’s address were to be printed and distributed. The FBI and HUAC were now allies. The FBI would gather the evidence and the committee would disclose it. By making films about these entities were certainly trying to appease their new political masters.[3]
The plot was the unlikely plan about the blackmail and kidnapping of a scientist working on an important new computer called Falcon. Throughout the film, the FBI was depicted as a highly efficient organisation following up hundreds of leads. One such lead gives the name of a possible communist agent. The suspect was followed by FBI agents to the Polish freighter where he was substituted by an agent from Moscow who was able to use his papers. The Russian agent in turn was then followed by a series of FBI agents. The communists were involved in a complex plot to extort important mathematical formulae from a scientist Dr Krayer. The scientist’s son had been captured in East Germany and the communists told Krayer that he would be safe provided that the critical information he was working on was handed on to their agents.
Communists who left the party or who pretended to leave were subject to constant recall. One party member was threatened with blackmail after he was tracked down by his colleagues. He said that it was impossible to leave and informing to the FBI meant death.[4] Those who pretended to leave the party were only sleepers waiting to be activated by Moscow. Those people lived and worked in the community and could not be detected. Nevertheless, the FBI appeared as a ruthlessly efficient operation with thousands of agents working around the clock to stop subversion. The audience was reminded that foreign agents in the United States were given great freedoms. A list of agents who have been ‘sleeping’ for years before being activated was repeatedly shown.
The FBI enjoyed strong publicity from the film. The film was released with publicity material which said the country was in danger and citizens should report espionage, sabotage or subversive activities, the chattering of aircraft for flights over restricted areas, suspicious individuals loitering near restricted areas, foreign submarine landings, poisoning of public water supplies, possession and distribution of foreign-inspired propaganda, unusual fires or explosions affecting vital industry, suspicious parachute landings and possession of radioactive material. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster
Most of the film was about setting up an elaborate web to send the information to Moscow. The web included exchanging papers in parks, taxi cabs, airport lockers and other means. When this complex apparatus fell apart, the communists adopted the more direct route of kidnapping the scientist and smuggling him out of the country. The film ended with the capture of all the communist agents, but with a warning that hundreds of other plots were being hatched across the United States. The audience was told that a small group of highly trained communist agents can do the damage of millions. Yet, as critic Nora Sayre points out, these communist agents were grossly incompetent, allowing themselves to be followed, bugged and filmed at every turn.[5] When one communist courier was told that he was being followed by the FBI, he immediately walked over to the agent and said: ‘You’re FBI and I know you are following me.’[5] The stupidity of the communists may be explained by the scientist who attacked the communists saying that ‘minds in chains cannot think.’[6]
The
film claimed that the United States was blessed with great freedoms and this
could lead to its undoing. The message
of too much freedom, and freedoms being abused, was repeated in The FBI Story (1958) which also had the
backing of FBI head J. Edgar Hoover and Big
Jim McLain (1951). Despite those
comments, communist agents appeared to be subject to intensive surveillance
around the clock. They were filmed in parks, bugged in their houses, have their
mail opened and were constantly followed.
All this was in response to a single anonymous tip that a person may be
a communist. The FBI said that hundreds
of tips were received every day giving rise to an image of surveillance in the
United States of Orwellian dimensions. Walk East on Beacon was an image of
society where the only way to survive was in the hands of the FBI. Freedoms had to be given up to retain
freedom. The film was ranked 88th
in the Variety rankings taking in
$1.3 million.[7]
[1] See Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and His Secrets, Norton, New York, 1991 and Ronald Radosh and Joyce Milton, The Rosenberg File: A Search For Truth, Vintage, New York, 1984.
[3] Athan G. Theoharis, The FBI & American Democracy: A Brief Critical History (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 89. O’Reilly, Red Menace, 89–91. Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 154–159.
[4]Walk East on Beacon, (d) Alfred Werker, Leo Rosten.
In Jet Pilot, John Wayne played an American pilot who takes the Russian defector on a tour of American military bases and demonstrated the United States military prowess. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.
While the mood of the United States was anti-communist, cinema depicting the politics was not popular. Perhaps one of the main reasons for the failure of the anti-communist message in American cinema was the amount of studio interference in these films. There were often trivial reasons for the failure of the films.
Director Joseph Von Sternberg was listed as the director of Jet Pilot, which begun production in 1950, and was finally released in 1957, and was produced by Howard Hughes. Von Sternberg had been Hollywood directorial royalty in the 1930s, but his fortunes had declined by the early 1950s. RKO had already flopped with I Married A Communist and The Whip Hand, and its third attempt at anti-communist propaganda almost failed to get a release. The plot was about a Russian pilot, played by Janet Leigh, who defected to the United States. John Wayne played an American pilot who takes the Russian defector on a tour of American military bases and demonstrated the United States military prowess. He then faked a defection to feed false information to the Russians. The pair fell in love and she helped him escape back to America. Von Sternberg loathed the picture and resented the amount of studio interference.
“I was told, step by step, day by day, movement for movement, word for word, precisely what I was to direct … My name is on the film as director, and there are other names also to which are given credit are just as shadowy, but the names of all those who had a finger in the celluloid pie are mercifully omitted.”[1] Studio interference played a key role in the poor quality of these films particularly at RKO.
The Big Lift (1950) was one of the few anti-communist films with a liberal view of the world.
Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.
Not
all anti-communist films were unbalanced in their approach. The Big
Lift (1950) was one of the few anti-communist films with a liberal view of
the world. It focused on the story of the
Berlin Airlift in 1949 when the Russians blockaded the city and the western
allies began supplying Berlin with all its needs from the air. It was depicted as dangerous work and the
film showed a quiet confidence in America in dealing with the communists. The airlift was physically and mentally
demanding on aircrews who were forced to work long hours to supply the city
with food and coal.
One
of the airmen, Danny MacCullough, played by Montgomery Clift, spent a day in
Berlin and travelled through the Russian sector to see the life of ordinary
Berliners. Russian soldiers searched a
railway carriage for smugglers and one man informed on a women for smuggling
coffee. The coffee was confiscated and
the Russians left. The crowd in the
train was about to vent its anger on the man, when he revealed that he was a
carrying a huge parcel of coffee and gave the woman, twice the amount she was
smuggling. The Russians were shown as
strong but think-headed and easy to deceive.
In a separate incident another American airman Hank, played by Paul Douglas, debated the merits of the American system with a critical communist. She said that American democracy was a farce as the results were determined by big business. Hank argued that in the 1948 election, President Truman was written off by the newspapers and just about everyone else. But in the end, Truman was elected by the people, despite what a big business and the papers were saying. This was an interesting scene as it was one of the few where the merits of communism and capitalism were actually debated. The debate was slanted against the communists, but it was clear that writer and director George Seaton was not afraid of communism and felt it could be dealt with through intelligent debate and, if necessary, through the sensible use of force. At a later time, he spoke about his research for this film, and of being held by the Communists for 56 hours on a dirty train with his wife and daughter after attempting to enter Berlin. Seaton quoted the organizer of the airlift General Lucius D. Clay, who said that if we “resort to totalitarianism to defeat totalitarianism we have lost our democratic soul by doing it.” Seaton’s film even contains some comedy which was lacking in other anti-communist films of the period. Seaton’s effort would be the final liberal statement from Hollywood on communism for some time. The film was ranked at 91st by Variety for 1951.[2]
The anti- communist plots of some films were often absurd. In Tokyo Joe (1949), a plot to return Japanese militarists was described as ‘communist inspired and communist directed’. This ludicrous idea was either a last minute rewrite of the script or a dubbing of the original soundtrack. From internal evidence I the film, it appeared as though the words were dubbed at some late stage. The voice of the General talking to Humphrey Bogart goes oddly deep while this was being said. The words were also spoken when the camera was focused on Bogart. This suggests dubbing as it would be difficult to synchronise the General’s mouth movements with his speech. In either event, the communist element plays no logical part in the film at all. Communism was not mentioned again.
[1] Joseph von Sternberg, Fun In A Chinese Laundry, Secker &
Warburg, London, 1965, p. 282.
[2] Variety, 3 January 1951. A film called Destination Moscow is listed at 88th. The film is not listed in Halliwell’s Film
Guide, 5th edn, Paladin, London, 1986, but it would be reasonable to
conclude that it was an anti-communist film.
Senior Lecturer, Strategic Communication, La Trobe University
I Married a Communist was one of the most distinctive of the early anti-communist films. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.
The initial failure of anti-communist films deterred some filmmakers. A Hollywood producer John Sutherland scrapped plans for anti-communist film Confessions of an American Communist after he found that exhibitors were ‘indisposed towards films touched with propaganda’.[1] But the major studios were not deterred and a series of anti-communist films followed in 1949 including The Red Menace, The Red Danube and I Married a Communist.
I Married a Communist or Woman on Pier 13 (1949) was one of the
most distinctive of the early anti-communist films. It was the second of Howard Hughes’ attempts
at an anti-communist film,[2] and was an important film
for RKO, as the New York Times noted, because it signaled the switch at the
studio from its traditional liberal views Hughes’ ultra-conservative values.[3] The film was beset with production problems,
the screenwriters had to ensure its attacks on communist unions were not seen
as attacks on all unions. Making the
distinction was proving difficult. The
writers had to create a story about industrial unrest on dockyards without ever
mentioning the word ‘strike’. Instead
they had to contend with ‘walk-out’, or ‘work stoppage’ or ‘tie-up’. Actors Merle Oberon and Paul Heinreid were
pressed into appearing in the film and then walked out.[4]
The
film was also used as a political barometer for RKO directors. Joseph Losey along with 13 other directors
were offered the job before it was picked up by Rovert Stevenson. Losey told that the film was the ‘touchstone
for establishing who was a “red”’.
Directors were offered I Married a
Communist and if they turned it down, they were blacklisted. Nicholas Ray was also one of the directors
offered the film. He began working on
sets and on the script thinking that the film was so idiotic that it would
never be made. When he realized that it
was going to be produced, he walked off the set.[5] Ray later claimed that he told Hughes that
the film was a ‘loser’ and wanted nothing to do with it.[6]
After
its first disappointing commercial screenings, the film was retitled The Woman on Pier 13, in the hope that a
hint of sex and mystery on the waterfront would attract the crowds.[7] Despite the screenwriting problems about unions,
the film was, in large measure, a smear campaign against the head of the West
Coast Longshoreman’s and Warehousemen’s Union Harry Bridges. The union leader was born in Australia and
FBI head J. Edgar Hoover tried hard and failed to have him deported.[8] The choice of Bridges as a target by the
studio may also have been made because of the links between the ILWU and the
Hollywood’s 10’s Dalton Trumbo who had been a noted supporter of the union
leader for many years.[9] In return, the ILWU had also been a strong
promoter of the Hollywood 10.[10] The ultra-conservative director Cecil B.
DeMille had said that Harry Bridges should be in jail and wanted laws to stop
him from having a ‘stranglehold on a critical American industry’.[11]
The
film focused on Brad Collins, played by Robert Ryan, who played a reformed
communist. He was blackmailed by his
former colleagues who threatened to tell his wife and employer of his communist
and criminal past. Ryan, who worked for
the waterfront management, was forced to prolong a litter union dispute on the
waterfront. His brother-in-law Don Lowry
was indoctrinated by the communists to lead the waterfront union towards
confrontation. The communists acted by
manipulating key agents in sensitive positions.
With agents in management and in the union, the communists inflamed and
prolonged an industrial dispute which caused economic damage to the United
States. They did this because Moscow had
ordered that the docks had to be ‘tied up for 60 days’.[12] Eventually Lowry became aware of he communist
plans and was killed by them. Angered by
Lowry’s murder, Ryan fought and exposed the communist ring, but while regaining
his honour, he lost his life.
Throughout
the film, the structure of the Communist Party was not made clear; the leader
Thomas Gomez took his orders from a shadowy figure on a telephone. The appearance of this shadowy figure who
directed operations from behind the scenes, and who was never caught, was one
of the consistent images in anti-communist films. The figure appeared to be rich and wealthy; a
member of the establishment. The film
implied that communists were present throughout society and their senior
officials occupied high levels of power.
This hinted that the officials were connected with the Democrat administration.
Former
communist membership could be an instrument of blackmail. If Ryan’s communist past – which included
murder – were discovered, he was told he would lose both his wife’s love and
his career at the shipyards. This was a
clear attack on those Hollywood radicals who defended their party membership on
the grounds of a youthful indiscretion.
Party membership was a lifetime commitment, regardless of the intentions
of the individual. Once a member of the
party, it took an extreme act of contrition to remove the taint. I
Married a Communist can be read as Hollywood’s version of its own internal
politics. The hysterical tone of the
films and the slimy depiction of communists was a reflection of how the moguls
saw the communist threat. In one scene,
an FBI informer was killed by the communists and this was a calculated insult
to those who refused to testify.
Informing on communists was depicted as an act of bravery. Those who attempted to purge themselves of
their past were the only ones who could be free from the taint of communism,
just as those who did not recant before the various committees could ever again
be trusted.
Exploration
of the reasons for becoming a communist were confined to those weak-minded
young men who were seduced – both literally and metaphorically – by
communists. The script of I Married A Communist claimed that one
party member can indoctrinate a thousand Americans.[13] The means of indoctrination looks to be
sexual in nature. Critic Nora Sayre has
noted that there was a common figure running through the anti-communist films
called ‘the Bad Blonde’. The role of the
blonde was to seduce ‘impressionable’ young men into joining the Party.[14] Certainly as the communist agents Nixon[15] and Christine discussed
indoctrination of Lowry in I Married A Communist, they equated it with
seduction.
INTERIOR
DARKROOM-NIGHT
We begin on
Christine’s hands rinsing a short piece of Leia film in tray-pull back as she
hands the film to Nixon, who slips it in viewer and studies it closely.
CHRISTINE: (in moment) Important?
NIXON: (continues
studying film) Very. As a matter of
fact, it’s what I’ve waited for – for he last eight months. (still studies film while questioning) How
close is young Lowry to his brother-in-law?
CHRISTINE:
Very close. Why?
NIXON: (still studies
film) In that case – I’ve changed my
mind about him. Continue with his
indoctrination. I’ll inform headquarters
you personally guarantee he’ll be delivered for use when and if he’s
needed.
Christine takes this
with mingled reaction: pleasure about Don, puzzlement about Nixon’s new
purpose. She smiles answering:
CHRISTINE: (with
slight mockery) Why – that will be a very interesting assignment- that I will
enjoy very much.
He gives
her an unreadable side-look – hands strip of film to her.
NIXON:
Destroy it.
She drops film I tray
– takes bottle of chemical from shelf.
Nixon exists. Christine pours
acid on film. Fumes and vapor rise. She still smiles – about herself and Don.[16]
Anti-intellectualism
was another theme of I Married a
Communist. In one scene, communist
agent Nixon reminded Brad Collins of his communist past.
Nixon
sits – opens briefcase – rummages through folders.
NIXON: (during this
action) I’m a student of contracts.
They’re what makes this country of ours fabulous to the rest of the
world. (finds what he seeks) On one hand, we have Bradley Collins – the great
success story. On the other – here I
have the record of a very unsuccessful young man named Frank Johnson.
Brad shows no visible
reaction – asks:
BRAD:
Who’s he?
NIXON: He was typical
of the lost generation – produced by the 30’s.
He left school – ambitious, strong, intelligent – hunting a job, to make
his start up ladder. Unfortunately –
there were no jobs.
BRAD:
(calmly) Why tell me about him?
NIXON: I’m coming to
that – Mr. Collins. (consults documents) Embittered – and violent by nature –
Frank Johnson joined the Young Communist League – then became a full fledged
member of the Party… (seem to skip through document – hitting only the salient
details).. Party card listed Frank J… Agit-prop activities, strikes in New
Jersey … Very prominent in strong-arm work .. Then suddenly – broke all
connections with the Party and disappeared … Reason unknown.
He stops – puts folder
down – removes spectacles in a gesture we’ll learn is characteristic. With spectacles off, Nixon is a changed man:
cold, hard, the complete “intellectual”
NIXON:
(continued) … Or was unknown until now…[17]
For
these screenwriters being an intellectual was to be suspect, and being ‘the
complete “intellectual” was to be a communist.
[2] The first was a film called The Whiphand (1951) which was originally
on Nazis but had the focus changed to communists because of Hughes’ ownership
of RKO.
[5] Tom Milne (ed.). Losey
on Losey, Secker & Warburg, London, 1968, pp. 73 – 76.
[6] Michael Goodwin and Naomi Wise,
No. 6. ‘Nicholas Ray: Rebel!’ Take One,
5 January p. 11.
[7] Andrew Velez (ed.). Robert
Stevenson’s The Woman on Pier 13, RKO Classic Screenplays, Frederick Ungar,
New York, 1976. From introduction by
Andrew Velez. No page Number.
[8] Harry Bridges was the president
of the International Longshormen’s and Warehousemen’s Union. He is remembered for leading a strike in 1934
on the West Coast which eventually became a general strike. The Congress of Industrial Organizations
expelled the ILWU on the grounds of communist domination. Bridges never denied his sympathy for
communist and radical causes, but always denied being a party member. Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and His Secrets, Norton, New York, 1991,
pp. 245 – 264.
[9] Bernard F. Dick, Radical Innocence: A Critical Study of the
Hollywood Ten, Universtiy Of Kentucky Press, Lexington, 1989, p. 219.
[11] Keep Faith, a speech before the
American Legion Convention, Dinner Kay Auditorium, Miami, Florida, 15 October
1951, Box 212, Folder 1, Cecil B. DeMille Archives, Brigham Young University,
Utah, USA.
[14] Nora Sayre, Running Time: Films of the Cold War, Dial, New York, 1982, p. 81.
[15] The script refers to the
communist leader as being Nixon, but the final cast list gives the name as
Vanning. It may have been changed to
avoid confusion with HUAC member, later US President, Richard Nixon. As the screenplay refers to him as Nixon, this
name will be used.
Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
The anti-communist crusade of the movie moguls began when they signed the Waldorf Declaration on 24 November 1947 which was the same day that Congress met to approve the HUAC contempt citations.
The anti-communist crusade of the movie moguls began when they signed the Waldorf Declaration on 24 November 1947 which was the same day that Congress met to approve the HUAC contempt citations. The declaration was supported by the Motion Picture Association of America, the Association of Motion Picture Producers – the studio heads – and was signed at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.[1] They voted to sack any employee who would not say under oath that he or she was not a communist. This meant that the Hollywood 10 were sacked without compensation. The studio heads also voted to refuse to employ any person with communist beliefs.[2]
The
Waldorf declaration was the action of men who were quite prepared to sacrifice
their political independence of financial gain.
Attacking the communists did not appear to be a high price to pay; after
all it was only a small group of writers who were being sacked. Moverover, the spirited resistance against
the HUAC-style investigation in 1941 was done at a time when Roosevelt was
firmly entrenched in power. The
political pendulum had swung to the right and the studios were attempting to
appease their new political masters.
The
Hollywood 10 soon lost most of its support when many in the Committee for the
First Amendment dropped their backing for the group. Some believed that they also could also lose
their jobs and others thought the Hollywood’s 10’s behavior before the
committee as unforgivable, and support for the group began to fade quickly in
the film industry.[3] In subsequent HUAC investigations, there was
little or no effective organised opposition.
The
HUAC investigations were, in part, a reaction to the Roosevelt years and the
close relationship of the film industry with its administration. But there were other links between the HUAC
investigators and Hollywood. The film
industry had encouraged the myth that America was the unblemished ‘good guy’ of
world politics, it now had to reap some of the bitter fruits of that wartime
propaganda. The myth helped give
Americans a feeling of infallibility which assisted in their massive war
effort. In fostering the belief that to
fight America was to do wrong, the films of the Second World War helped create
the mental framework for the cold war.
The adjustment from Nazi Germany to communist Russia as the Untied States
central enemy was surprisingly swift.[4] But it did raise some nagging problems. If America was always right, and Russia was
wrong, why was the United States allied to the country in the first place?
The
answer for the American right – and in particular the HUAC investigators – was
a vast conspiracy stretching from Russia, to the White House, onto communist
screenwriters in Hollywood. Historian
Richard Hofstadter has written about the attractiveness of the conspiracy
theory to Americans and its frequent explosions in American life.[5] A common theme of these theorists was that
small groups with outside backing were seeking to control the United States by
nefarious means. Conspiracy theories
were a well established part of American political culture and they flourished
during the uncertain post-war period.
According to the conspiracy theorists, the Roosevelt administration had
a long term plan to undermine capitalism in order to bring the economy under
the control of the Federal Government and to pave the way for socialism or
communism. HUAC Investigator Robert E.
Stripling believed that Hollywood was in danger of falling under the control of
communists, just as other industries had already done.[6]
The
scapegoats for the conspiracy theorists were the communist and left-wing
writers who worked on the ‘praise Russia’ films of the Second World War. Screenwriter Howard Koch had been ordered by
Warner to make Mission to Moscow and is efforts had been praised by Warner.[7] Koch was subpoenaed but did not testify, he
placed full page ads in the Hollywood trade papers saying that he was not and
had never been a communist, but reserved the right not to say it to HUAC.[8] Koch’s strong liberalism had shown out in
films such as In This Our Life (1942)
and his talent in Sergeant York
(1941) Casablanca (1943), and Letter From an Unknown Woman (1947). His efforts counted for nothing and his
refusal to answer HUAC’s questions, on the principle of his constitutional
rights meant that he did not work in Hollywood for another 12 years. The studio heads were not interested in
Justice, they were interested in scapegoats and Koch was one of those
blacklisted as a result.
For
other members of the Hollywood 10, there were more sinister motives for their
blacklisting. Action in the North
Atlantic screenwriter John Howard Lawson was a central figure in the formation
of the Screenwriters Guild. Eradicating
him would also relieve the studio heads of a radical and determined union
leader. Ring Lardner Jr had always been
a thorn in the side of the ultra-conservative Hollywood leaders. In November 1945, Lardner wrote a long,
highly critical and funny article for Screenwriter on the ultra-conservative
Cecil B. DeMille where he relentlessly attacked and satirized the director and
his politics. He focused sharply on the
Cecil B. DeMille Foundation for Political Freedom writing:
All policy and action
are determined by the self perpetuating board of directors, yet every rank and
file member is assured his political freedom to read and listen to whatever
pronouncement Mr DeMille is moved to make.[9]
He
described the foundation as essentially a right-wing organisation which had
attacked the rights of unionists to make a united stand. The editor of Screenwriter was Dalton Trumbo and the managing editor was Gordon
Kahn. All three became member of the
Hollywood 19. The article was specially
transcribed the DeMille and left in his papers in a file on background
information on communists for his autobiography.[10] DeMille was often accused by his political
opponents of providing names to HUAC and it seems clear that the selection of
Lardner, Trumbo and Kahn was no accident: Hollywood’s right-wing was exacting
revenge.
Many
have argued that it was the economic decline of Hollywood which forced the
studio heads to retreat so vigorously.[11] However, he moguls had opposed intervention
strongly before the war. It was not
economic pressures which drove them to make the Waldorf declaration. The year 1947 was the second most successful
year for the cinema in its history.[12] There was a slight dip from the figures for
1946 which had been a record year for the industry, but they were not under
savage pressure. Anti-trust legislation
and television were on the horizon, but in general the motion picture industry
was sound. The Waldorf declaration and
the consequent blacklisting was a personal failure of nerve by the studio heads
to fight the HUAC investigations.
The
studio heads did not realize that the declaration opened the way for constant
sackings and suspicion. In trying to get
a quick fix to a complex problem, the studios had allowed themselves to be held
hostage by any patriotic organisation which called any actor, director or
writer a communist and promised to picket a film carrying their name. These organisations were extremely demanding. When a person was named as a communist by a
patriotic organisation of some description, the studio heads either had to get
the person concerned cleared through certain channels or have them blacklisted. Red Channels was one example of the
publications circulating at the time which itemized the various offences of
actors and writers supposedly in communist from organisations. The evidence was often wafer thin, but as the
introduction to Red Channels showed the editors were not interested in
subtleties.
The information set
forth in the following report is taken for records available to the
public. The purpose of this
complications is threefold. One, to show
how communists have been able to carry out their plan of infiltration of the
radio and television industry. Two to
indicate the extent to which many prominent actors and artists have been
inveigled to lend their names, according
to these public records, to organisations espousing Communist causes. This, regardless of whether they actually
believe in, sympathize with, or even encourage actors or artists from naively
lending their names to Communist organizations or causes in the future.[13]
The
Waldorf Declaration and the acquiescence of the studio heads to the HUAC
investigators opened the way for chaos in the filmmaking industry. Blacklisting could occur for being a member
of a political group, attending a meeting or signing a petition. The Blacklisting of an actor was not a one
way street. His or her name could be
cleared by approaches to the various agencies concerned. Certain shadowy figures during the blacklist
era made a living attempting to clear people so that they could return to
work. Indeed some groups would cast
aspersions on a person’s character and then offer to redress the balance. This led to a continuing round of clearances
of actors and writers through various organisations. Blacklisted writers could also still write
for the studios using fronts to submit their scripts. People were told to avoid blacklisted people
or at least not to meet them in public.[14]
The
third phase of the crusade against communism was the release of a series of
anti-communist films. Actor Adolphe
Menjou, one of the friendly witnesses before the HUAC hearings, demanded that
the studios produce anti-communist films.
I believe it would be
an incredible success… I think it would be a very wonderful thing to see one
made. I would like to see a picture of
the Bulgarian situation; … I would like that shown to the American public to see
communism as it actually is. I would
like to see the brutal beatings, the stabbings and killings that go on through
Europe… We showed many anti-Nazi pictures.
I see no reason why we do not show anti-communist pictures.[15]
The
studios responded quickly to Menjou’s call.
The first anti-communist film to roll out of the studios was Ninotchka which was re-released by MGM
in November 1947. Earlier the State
Department had been so impressed with the film’s anti-communist message that it
helped release it in Italy to help undermine the Italian communists in 1946
elections.[16]
Ninotchka was quickly followed
by The Iron Curtain which was
released by RKO in May 1948.[17] The title of the film was the image for
Churchill’s famous speech of an iron curtain descending across Europe which he
made on 5 March 1946.[18] This film was similar in style to the
successful Confessions of a Nazi Spy
released before the war, and it also shared the same writer in Martin
Krims. The film concentrated on the
defection of a Russian clerk Igor Gouzenko, played by Dana Andrews, who
defected in Canada. Even with its
novelty value, and the huge publicity of the HUAC hearings, the film was ranked
64th in the year’s rentals.[19]
[1] Otto Friedrich, City of Nets, Headline, London, 1986, p.
332.
[2] Phillip French, The Movie Moguls, Penguin, Harmonsworth,
1969, p. 154. Producers Sam Goldwyn,
Walter Wagner and liberal Dore Schary opposed the declaration.
[3] Barry Norman, Talking Pictures: The Story of Hollywood,
Hooder and Stoughton, London, 1987, p. 205.
[4] Les K. Alder and Thomas G.
Paterson, ‘Red Fasciasm: The Merger of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the
American Image of Totalitarianism, 1930s-1950s, ‘American Historical Journal,
vol. 75, no. 4, April 1970, pp. 1059 – 1061. Alder and Paterson discuss how
easily the substitution from Germany to Russia occurred as a totalitarian
enemy.
[5] Richard Hofstadter The Paranoid Style In American Politics and
Other Essays, Jonathan Cape, London, 1966, pp. 3 – 40.
[6] Robert E. Stripling, The Red Plot Against America, Bell,
Pennsylvania, 1949.
[7] Jack Warner to Howard Koch,
November 24, 1942, Howard Koch Collection, Wisconsin Center for Film and
Theatre Research in David Culbert (ed.). Mission
to Moscow, Wisconsin Warner Bros Screenplay Series, University of Wisconsin
Press, Wisconsin, 1980, pp. 264 – 265.
[9] Ring Lardner Jr., ‘The Sign of the Boss’, The Screen Writer,
November 1945, pp. 1 – 12. Transcript in
Box 29, Folder 7, Cecil B. DeMille Archives, Brigham Young University, Provo,
Utah, USA. The Cecil B. DeMille
Foundation for Political Freedom was formed to campaign for right-to-work laws
and against communist infiltration.
DeMille set up the foundation when he refused to pay one dollar to the
American Federation of Radio Artists to fight right-to-work legislation on the
California state ballot in 1944. The
foundation was closed soon after his death in 1959.
[10] Other names in the files include
writers Albert Maltz, Sidney Buchman, and John Howard Lawson who were all
blacklisted. Edward G. Robinson and
Elmer Bernstein were described as not communist. Actor Howard Da Silva was also described a
‘commie’ out to get DeMille. All
appeared before HUAC. Box 29, Folder 7, Cecil B. DeMille Archives.
[16] Dorothy Jones, ‘Communism and the Movies’ in John Cogley,
Report on Blacklisting, The Fund For The Republic, New York, 1956, p. 300.
[17] For a complete discussion of the
film see Daniel J Leab, ‘The Iron Curtain
(1948): Hollywood’s First Cold War Movie’,
Historical Journal of Film, Radio and
Television, Vol 8, No. 2, 1988, pp. 153 – 188.
[18] Rhode, Robert James (ed.), Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches
1879 – 1963, Chelsea, London, 1974, p. 7285.
[19]Variety, 5 January 1950 estimated that the film made $2 million in
rentals. No other 1949 anti-communist
made the lists.
Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Ayn Rand wrote The Screen Guide for Americans for the Motion Picture Alliance of American Ideals
The MPAPAI’s efforts were reinforced by the studio heads’ desire to crush the studio unions and the obtain political favour with the emerging Republican and McCarthyite forces. The efforts of the alliance were not wasted. The conflict between the ultra-conservatives and the radicals came to a head at the HUAC hearings into communist involvement in Hollywood on 20 October 1947. The Washington-based committee planned to interview both communist and anti-communist witnesses for the next 10 days.
In
January 1947, studio head Jack Warner had received a Medal of Merit from the
Federal government for his work in government training films, yet in October
his studio was being investigated for subversion.[1] With the Republicans in control of Congress
since the 1946 elections, it was clear that the political pendulum was moving
toward the right and Hollywood was one of the first targets. The committee lined up several
ultra-conservative leaders in Hollywood to begin the investigation.
HUAC
has also subpoenaed 19 Hollywood producers, directors and writers as unfriendly
witnesses. Eleven of these had worked
for Warner Brothers, the studio which produced the most wartime propaganda and
had aligned itself with the Roosevelt administration. The studio had also been prominent for its
‘social conscience’ films of the 1930s.[2] The HUAC investigations had a special reason
for singling out the Warner Brothers studio, for its film, Mission to Moscow, as it was based on the work of Davies, a
prominent member of the Roosevelt administration. If they could establish a link between the
White House and the production of the pro-Russian pictures of the Second World War,
it could cause the Truman administration enormous political damage, the type
that was to occur later with the Alger Hiss trial.
Studio
head Jack Warner assured the committee that no subversive propaganda had ever
made it to the screen, not even in Mission
to Moscow. He was initially
forthright in his defence of his studio.
Warner told the committee that if making Mission to Moscow in 1942 was a subversive activity, then so too
were ‘the American Liberty ships and naval conveys which carried food and guns
to Russian allies’.[3] Warner defended Mission to Moscow as being necessary because of the danger that
Stalin would make a treaty with Hitler if Stalingrad fell. Such an alliance would lead to the
destruction of the world.[4] The film was designed to cement the friendship
between the USSR and the United States in a desperate time.
Following
studio heads Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer came novelist Ayn Rand, who was
considered by the committee to be an expert witness on the Soviet Union. Her expertise was derived from her Russian
origins and right-wing views. Rand
viewed Song of Russia for the committee and described at length its
inaccuracies, failings and lies. Her
criticism of the film clustered around the depiction of Russian peasant life..
She said that at least three and a half million, possibly seven million people,
had died from starvation in the drive to collectivization of farms and the film
makes no mention of them.[5] Rand said the depiction of Soviet village
life was ridiculous. Women were dressed
in attractive blouses and shoes. She
said if any person had the food shown in the film in the Ukraine, they would
have been murdered by starving people attempting to get food.[6] Rand summed up her position on pro-Russia
films like Song of Russia saying it was
unnecessary to deceive the American people about the Soviet Union.
Say it is a
dictatorship, but we want to be associated with it. Say it is worth being associated with the
devil, as Churchill said, in order to defeat another evil which is Hitler. There may be a good argument for that. But why pretend that Russia is not what it
was.[7]
The
hearings were highly unpopular at this state and the New York Times wrote in an editorial saying that the investigation
was unfair and could lead to greater dangers than it was fighting.[8] In Hollywood, the Committee for the First
Amendment was formed by writer Phillip Dunne, directors John Huston and William
Wyler and actor Alexander Knox to oppose censorship of films and to prevent a
blacklist.[9]
The
group had a massive backing and took out huge advertisements in trade
newspapers. The Committee for the First
Amendment wanted the Hollywood 19, as they were known, to take the first
amendment, and do nothing else. Instead,
when the unfriendly witnesses were called they tried to answer the committee’s
questions in their own way which led to shouting matches in the hearings. The first unfriendly witness, screenwriter
John Howard Lawson, attempted to yell down the committee saying it was on trial
before the American people. When he was
finally dragged from the stand, he set a precedent for the remaining
witnesses. Other witnesses were simply
asked if they had ever been a member of the Communist Party. When they failed to answer, they were charged
with contempt.
On
the 19 subpoenaed, ten were called before the committee and refused to testify
citing constitutional rights of privacy and freedom of political thought and
association. Screenwriter and playwright
Bertolt Brecht denied all knowledge of the communist party and later fled the
country. For unknown reasons, Chairman
Parnell Thomas cancelled the hearings before the remaining nine were heard.
The
Hollywood 10, as they became known, were sent to prison for contempt of
congress and the rest were blacklisted from work in Hollywood.[10] The group, along with most legal experts at
the time, believed that their contempt charges would be overturned in the
Supreme Court on the constitutional ground of the right to hold private
political beliefs.[11] Unfortunately for the Hollywood 10, two
liberal judges died before their cases were heard and they were replaced by
conservatives. The deaths changed the
political composition of the Supreme Court which then backed the contempt
citations. This decision by the Supreme
Court opened the legal door for the McCarthyite era. People were now in the position of taking
either the fifth amendment protecting them against self incrimination and
facing blacklisting and other harassment, or informing on people with communist
views.
[2] Richard Maltby, ‘Made for Each
Other: The Melodrama of Hollywood and the House Committee on Un-American
Activities’ in Phillip Davies and Brian Neve, (eds.). Cinema, Politics and Society in America, Manchester University
Press, Manchester, 1981, p. 87.
[3] US Congress, House Committee on
Un-American Activities, Hearings
Regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry, 80th
Congress, 1st sess., 20 October 1947, vol. 1169 (5) p.10.
[9] The signatories to the Committee
for the First Amendment were Larry Adler, Stephen Morehouse Avery, Geraldine
Brooks, Roma Burton, Lauren Bacall, Barbara Bentley, Leonardo Bercovici,
Leonard Berstein, DeWitt Bodeem, Humphrey Bogart, Ann and Moe Braus, Richard
Brooks, Jerome Chodorov, Cheryl Crawford, Louis Calhern, Frank Callender, Eddie
Canto, McClure Capps, Warren Cowan, Richard Conte, Norman Corwin, Tom Carlyle,
Agnes DeMille, Delmar Davesm Donald Davies, Spencer Davies, Donald Davis,
Armand Deutsch, Walter Doniger, I.A.L. Diamond., L. Diamond, Muni Diamond, Kirk
Douglas, Jay Dratler, Phillip Dunne, Howard Duff, Paul Draper, Phoebe and Harry
Ephron, Julius Epstein, Phillip Epstein, Charles Einfeldm Sylvia Fine, Henry
Fonda, Melvin Frank, Irwin Gelsey, Benny Goodman, Ava Gardner, Sheridan Gibney,
Paulette Goddard, Michael Gordon, Jay Goldberg, Jesse J. Goldburg, Moss Hart,
Rita Hayworth, David Hopkins, Katherine Hepburn, Paul Heinreid, Van Heflin,
John Huston, John Houseman, Marsha Hunt, Joseph Hoffman, Uta Hagen, Robert L.
Joseph, George Kaufman, Norman Krasna, Herbert Kline, Michael Kraike, Isobel
Katleman, Arthur Lubin, Mary Loss, Myrna Loy, Burgess Meredith, Richard
Maibaum, David Millerm Frank L. Moss, Margo, Dorothy McGuire, Ivan Moffat,
Joseph Mischel, Dorothy Matthews, Lorie Niblio, N. Richard Nash, Doris Nolan,
George Oppenheimer, Ernest Pascal, Vincent Price, Norman Panama, Marion
Parsonnet, frank Partos, Jean Porter, John Paxton, Bob Presnell Jr., Gregory
Peck, Harold Rome, Gladys Robinson, Francis Rosenwald, Irving Rubine, Irving
Reis, Stanley Hubin, Slyvai Richards, Henry C. Rogers, Lyle Rooks, Norman and
Betsy Rose, Robert Ryan, Irwin Shaw, Richard Sale, George Seaton, John Stone,
Allan Scott, Barry Sullivan, Shepperd Sturdwick, Mrs Leo Spitz, Theodore
Strauss, John and Mari Shelton, Robert Shapiro, Joseph Than, Leo Townsend, Don
Victor, Bernard Vorhaus, Billy Wilder, Bill Watters, Jerry Wald and Cornel
Wilde. Myron C. Fagan Documentation of Red Stars in Hollywood printed in Gerald
Mast The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History of film in
America, 2nd edn., Oxford University Press, New York, 1979, p. 549.
[10] The Hollywood Ten were
screenwriters John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole,
Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Ring Lardner Jr; the writer-producer Herbert
Biberman; the writer-producer Adrian Scott; and the director Edward Dymytryk.
[11]Hollywood on Trial, (d) David Helpern Jr, Annie Resman.
Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
The conservative Ayn Rand viewed Song of Russia for the committee and described at length its inaccuracies, failings and lies. Her criticism of the film clustered around the depiction of Russian peasant life. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.
The MPAPAI’s efforts were reinforced by the studio heads’ desire to crush the studio unions and the obtain political favour with the emerging Republican and McCarthyite forces. The efforts of the alliance were not wasted. The conflict between the ultra-conservatives and the radicals came to a head at the HUAC hearings into communist involvement in Hollywood on 20 October 1947. The Washington-based committee planned to interview both communist and anti-communist witnesses for the next 10 days.
In
January 1947, studio head Jack Warner had received a Medal of Merit from the
Federal government for his work in government training films, yet in October
his studio was being investigated for subversion.[1] With the Republicans in control of Congress
since the 1946 elections, it was clear that the political pendulum was moving
toward the right and Hollywood was one of the first targets. The committee lined up several
ultra-conservative leaders in Hollywood to begin the investigation.
HUAC
has also subpoenaed 19 Hollywood producers, directors and writers as unfriendly
witnesses. Eleven of these had worked
for Warner Brothers, the studio which produced the most wartime propaganda and
had aligned itself with the Roosevelt administration. The studio had also been prominent for its
‘social conscience’ films of the 1930s.[2] The HUAC investigations had a special reason
for singling out the Warner Brothers studio, for its film, Mission to Moscow, as it was based on the work of Davies, a
prominent member of the Roosevelt administration. If they could establish a link between the
White House and the production of the pro-Russian pictures of the Second World War,
it could cause the Truman administration enormous political damage, the type
that was to occur later with the Alger Hiss trial.
Studio
head Jack Warner assured the committee that no subversive propaganda had ever
made it to the screen, not even in Mission
to Moscow. He was initially
forthright in his defence of his studio.
Warner told the committee that if making Mission to Moscow in 1942 was a subversive activity, then so too
were ‘the American Liberty ships and naval conveys which carried food and guns
to Russian allies’.[3] Warner defended Mission to Moscow as being necessary because of the danger that
Stalin would make a treaty with Hitler if Stalingrad fell. Such an alliance would lead to the
destruction of the world.[4] The film was designed to cement the friendship
between the USSR and the United States in a desperate time.
Following studio heads Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer came novelist Ayn Rand, who was considered by the committee to be an expert witness on the Soviet Union. Her expertise was derived from her Russian origins and right-wing views. Rand viewed Song of Russia for the committee and described at length its inaccuracies, failings and lies. Her criticism of the film clustered around the depiction of Russian peasant life. She said that at least three and a half million, possibly seven million people, had died from starvation in the drive to collectivization of farms and the film makes no mention of them.[5] Rand said the depiction of Soviet village life was ridiculous. Women were dressed in attractive blouses and shoes. She said if any person had the food shown in the film in the Ukraine, they would have been murdered by starving people attempting to get food.[6] Rand summed up her position on pro-Russia films like Song of Russia saying it was unnecessary to deceive the American people about the Soviet Union.
Say it is a
dictatorship, but we want to be associated with it. Say it is worth being associated with the
devil, as Churchill said, in order to defeat another evil which is Hitler. There may be a good argument for that. But why pretend that Russia is not what it
was.[7]
The
hearings were highly unpopular at this state and the New York Times wrote in an editorial saying that the investigation
was unfair and could lead to greater dangers than it was fighting.[8] In Hollywood, the Committee for the First
Amendment was formed by writer Phillip Dunne, directors John Huston and William
Wyler and actor Alexander Knox to oppose censorship of films and to prevent a
blacklist.[9]
The
group had a massive backing and took out huge advertisements in trade
newspapers. The Committee for the First
Amendment wanted the Hollywood 19, as they were known, to take the first
amendment, and do nothing else. Instead,
when the unfriendly witnesses were called they tried to answer the committee’s
questions in their own way which led to shouting matches in the hearings. The first unfriendly witness, screenwriter
John Howard Lawson, attempted to yell down the committee saying it was on trial
before the American people. When he was
finally dragged from the stand, he set a precedent for the remaining
witnesses. Other witnesses were simply
asked if they had ever been a member of the Communist Party. When they failed to answer, they were charged
with contempt.
On
the 19 subpoenaed, ten were called before the committee and refused to testify
citing constitutional rights of privacy and freedom of political thought and
association. Screenwriter and playwright
Bertolt Brecht denied all knowledge of the communist party and later fled the
country. For unknown reasons, Chairman
Parnell Thomas cancelled the hearings before the remaining nine were heard.
The
Hollywood 10, as they became known, were sent to prison for contempt of
congress and the rest were blacklisted from work in Hollywood.[10] The group, along with most legal experts at
the time, believed that their contempt charges would be overturned in the
Supreme Court on the constitutional ground of the right to hold private
political beliefs.[11] Unfortunately for the Hollywood 10, two
liberal judges died before their cases were heard and they were replaced by
conservatives. The deaths changed the
political composition of the Supreme Court which then backed the contempt
citations. This decision by the Supreme
Court opened the legal door for the McCarthyite era. People were now in the position of taking
either the fifth amendment protecting them against self incrimination and
facing blacklisting and other harassment, or informing on people with communist
views.
[2] Richard Maltby, ‘Made for Each
Other: The Melodrama of Hollywood and the House Committee on Un-American
Activities’ in Phillip Davies and Brian Neve, (eds.). Cinema, Politics and Society in America, Manchester University
Press, Manchester, 1981, p. 87.
[3] US Congress, House Committee on
Un-American Activities, Hearings
Regarding the Communist Infiltration of the Motion Picture Industry, 80th
Congress, 1st sess., 20 October 1947, vol. 1169 (5) p.10.
[9] The signatories to the Committee
for the First Amendment were Larry Adler, Stephen Morehouse Avery, Geraldine
Brooks, Roma Burton, Lauren Bacall, Barbara Bentley, Leonardo Bercovici,
Leonard Berstein, DeWitt Bodeem, Humphrey Bogart, Ann and Moe Braus, Richard
Brooks, Jerome Chodorov, Cheryl Crawford, Louis Calhern, Frank Callender, Eddie
Canto, McClure Capps, Warren Cowan, Richard Conte, Norman Corwin, Tom Carlyle,
Agnes DeMille, Delmar Davesm Donald Davies, Spencer Davies, Donald Davis,
Armand Deutsch, Walter Doniger, I.A.L. Diamond., L. Diamond, Muni Diamond, Kirk
Douglas, Jay Dratler, Phillip Dunne, Howard Duff, Paul Draper, Phoebe and Harry
Ephron, Julius Epstein, Phillip Epstein, Charles Einfeldm Sylvia Fine, Henry
Fonda, Melvin Frank, Irwin Gelsey, Benny Goodman, Ava Gardner, Sheridan Gibney,
Paulette Goddard, Michael Gordon, Jay Goldberg, Jesse J. Goldburg, Moss Hart,
Rita Hayworth, David Hopkins, Katherine Hepburn, Paul Heinreid, Van Heflin,
John Huston, John Houseman, Marsha Hunt, Joseph Hoffman, Uta Hagen, Robert L.
Joseph, George Kaufman, Norman Krasna, Herbert Kline, Michael Kraike, Isobel
Katleman, Arthur Lubin, Mary Loss, Myrna Loy, Burgess Meredith, Richard
Maibaum, David Millerm Frank L. Moss, Margo, Dorothy McGuire, Ivan Moffat,
Joseph Mischel, Dorothy Matthews, Lorie Niblio, N. Richard Nash, Doris Nolan,
George Oppenheimer, Ernest Pascal, Vincent Price, Norman Panama, Marion
Parsonnet, frank Partos, Jean Porter, John Paxton, Bob Presnell Jr., Gregory
Peck, Harold Rome, Gladys Robinson, Francis Rosenwald, Irving Rubine, Irving
Reis, Stanley Hubin, Slyvai Richards, Henry C. Rogers, Lyle Rooks, Norman and
Betsy Rose, Robert Ryan, Irwin Shaw, Richard Sale, George Seaton, John Stone,
Allan Scott, Barry Sullivan, Shepperd Sturdwick, Mrs Leo Spitz, Theodore
Strauss, John and Mari Shelton, Robert Shapiro, Joseph Than, Leo Townsend, Don
Victor, Bernard Vorhaus, Billy Wilder, Bill Watters, Jerry Wald and Cornel
Wilde. Myron C. Fagan Documentation of Red Stars in Hollywood printed in Gerald
Mast The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History of film in
America, 2nd edn., Oxford University Press, New York, 1979, p. 549.
[10] The Hollywood Ten were
screenwriters John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Dalton Trumbo, Lester Cole,
Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Ring Lardner Jr; the writer-producer Herbert
Biberman; the writer-producer Adrian Scott; and the director Edward Dymytryk.
[11]Hollywood on Trial, (d) David Helpern Jr, Annie Resman.
For Whom the Bells Tolls (1942) enraged the book’s author Hemingway so much that he threatened to give a press conference to denounce the film Image courtesy of eMoviePoster.
When the HUAC hearings began on 20 October 1947, the conservative director Sam Wood, who was president of the MPAPAI. Wood argued: “There is a constant effort to get control of the Guild. In fact, there is an effort to get control of all unions and guilds in Hollywood. I think our most serious time was when George Stevens was president; he went in the service and another gentleman took his place, who died, and it was turned over to John Cromwell. Cromwell, with the assistance of three or four others, tried hard to steer us into the Red river, but we had a little too much weight for that.” Sam Wood had a gentle-looking face that belied an almost obsessive anti-Communism: he made his children swear anti-Communist affidavits or face being disinherited. He had started his career as an assistant to Cecil B. DeMille in 1915, and these long-time colleagues were now strong anti-Communist allies. Wood had become a respected filmmaker in his own right, directing films such as A Night at the Opera (1935) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939). His failure to win an Academy Award for his often highly successful films fostered enormous personal spite toward liberals whom he felt were out to discredit him. His strident anti-Communism is thought to have contributed to his death by a heart attack in 1949. Wood and other friendly witnesses had one clear message: Communists were present in Hollywood and were working day and night to wrest control of the industry. When he came to direct a film touching on communism, his political views were on display. For Whom the Bells Tolls (1942) was one film which went against the trend of flattering the communists during the Second World War. The film was an adaption of Hemingway’s novel about an American who joined partisan fighters in the Spanish Civil War. Conservative director Sam Wood and Paramount studios changed the word fascist to nationalist throughout the script. Wood’s one concession to the political situation was a short speech by Gary Cooper who said that the Nazis and the Fascists were just ‘much against democracy as they are against the Communists. The fascists were testing weapons to get a “jump on the democracies”’.[1]
The screen version enraged its author Ernest Hemingway so much that he threatened to give a press conference to denounce the film.[2] Critic James Agee in his review of the film for The Nation said there had been denials of political interference in the film from the Franco Government, the Catholic Church and the State Department. Agee saw the film as depicting Spain as a battleground between ‘dirty communists’ and German Nazis. The political slant of the film may have also stemmed from its original ultra-conservative director Cecil B.DeMille who was strongly considering making the film until 1942, when he handed back the rights to Paramount pictures. He wrote in autobiography that he had screenwriter Jeanie MacPherson work on the project for six and a half months. [3]
The Office War Information reviewer said it would hinder the war effort as it showed chinks in the alliance through its depiction of splits within the loyalist camp.[4] The film was the first cinematic hint that the conservatives in Hollywood were not happy with the depiction of Russia in wartime cinema.
Sam Wood gave full vent to those conservative opinions through the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MAPAI) two years later, of which he was the founding President. The alliance declared war against Hollywood’s radicals when it stated its principles in 1944. The group claimed that it was in sharp revolt against the rising tide of ‘communism, fascism and kindred beliefs’. It resented the takeover of Hollywood by ‘communists, radicals and crack-pots’. The group demanded that communists and other extremists be removed from the film industry because they were perverting the screen with un-American ideas and beliefs. It pledged to fight with every possible resource any attempt to ‘divert the screen from the free America which gave it birth. The MPAPAI members were Walt Disney, Cedric Gibbons, Norman Taurog, Louis D. Lighton, Clarence Brown, George Bruce, James K. McGuiness, Borden Chase, Victor Fleming, Arnold Gillespsie, Frank Gruber, Bert Kalmar, Rupert Hughes, Frank Nible Jr., Cliff Reid, Casey Robinson, Howard Emmett Rogers, Harry Ruskin, Morrie Ryskind, King Vidor, Robert Vogel and George Waggner. [5] The alliance followed up the declaration with a lobbying campaign in Washington which rekindled Martin Dies; enthusiasm for an investigation of Hollywood for communist subversion.
The
MPAPAI’s efforts were reinforced by the studio heads’ desire to crush the
studio unions and the obtain political favour with the emerging Republican and
McCarthyite forces. The efforts of the
alliance were not wasted. The conflict
between the ultra-conservatives and the radicals came to a head at the HUAC
hearings into communist involvement in Hollywood on 20 October 1947. The Washington-based committee planned to
interview both communist and anti-communist witnesses for the next 10 days.
[1]For Whom the Bell Tolls, (d) Sam Wood, Dudley Nichols, quoted
by James Agee in The Nation, 24 July
1943, in James Agee, Agee on Film,
Grosset & Dunlop, New York, 1969, pp. 46 – 49.
[2] Ian Hamilton, Writers in Hollywood 1915 – 1951,
William Heinemann, London, 1990, p. 179.
[3] Agee, pp. 46 – 49. See Donald Hayne (ed.) The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, W.H. Allen, London, 1960, pp. 344 – 345. The remaining synopses are in Box 1038, Folder 1, Cecil B. DeMille Archive, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA.
[4] Clayton R. Koppes and Gregory
Black, Hollywood Goes to War: How
Politics, Profits and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies, Free Press,
New York, 1987, p. 71. According to Variety, 3 January 1944, it was also the
most popular film of 1943.
[5] A copy of the statement of principles is printed in Nancy Lynn Schwartz, The Hollywood Writer’s Wars, Knopf, New York 1982, p. 206.
Ever since director D. W. Griffith had created “history written with lightning” with his film The Birth of a Nation in 1915, the film industry had to deal with an anxious political leadership in Washington.The way Hollywood could present and deliver ideas was always a source of concern for the political leadership and communism was always a particular focus. According to director William DeMille, he was interviewed by federal agents as early as 1922, after he was invited to attend a lunch with communist leader William Z. Foster at the house of the actor Charles Chaplin. His brother Cecil was able to support his political innocence.
Ever since director D. W. Griffith had created “history written with lightning” with his film The Birth of a Nation in 1915, the film industry had to deal with an anxious political leadership in Washington. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster
The House Committee on Un-American Activities[1] investigation in Hollywood in 1947 was certainly not the first time that conservative political forces had intervened in the film industry. Hollywood had resisted many attempts from Federal and State bodies for censorship on scenes with sex and violence since the 1920s. A HUAC investigation in 1938 was the first visible sign, however, that the conservatives wanted to influence the political content of Hollywood’s films. Committee chairman Texan Democrat Martin Dies and his political allies were alarmed by the development of the Anti-Nazi League in Hollywood which they considered to be a communist front.[2] Using the testimony of former communist J.B. Matthews, Dies made the ridiculous mistake of accusing child actress Shirley Temple, who was about 10 years old, and other actors’ of serving the communist cause’ because of a message in a French radical newspaper. His opponents pounced on this and his investigation became a laughing stock.
FBI and HUAC historian Kenneth O’Reilly notes that the Dies Committee reports were only a “supplement” to the Bureau’s own operations. While the FBI did not support the Dies Committee, it had access to and used its extensive reports.FBI director J. Edgar Hoover believed that communists were prevalent throughout the film industry. A report to him said that the communist leadership had “thrown caution to the wind” in its efforts to gain control of the film industry and its intellectual leadership was now visible as a result.The release of Mission to Moscow in 1943, with its pro-Stalin message,confirmed these views and caused an uproar, with the Republicans attacking the film industry for doing the bidding of the Roosevelt administration.The FBI reacted to the release of the film by beginning a comprehensive surveillance of the film industry, ranging from scrutiny of industrial issues and the political activities of directors, actors and writers, through to the content of films. At one point in 1944, Hoover demanded a report by the fifteenth of each month on the infiltration of Hollywood by communist agents and ideas.This grew into a large body of information tracking the activity of real and suspected communists. [3]
The release of Mission to Moscow in 1943, with its pro-Stalin message, confirmed the conservative view that Hollywood – and by extension – was pro-communist and caused an uproar, with the Republicans attacking the film industry for doing the bidding of the Roosevelt administration. The publication of the book Mission to Moscow in 1943 had become part of an internal wrangle within the State Department between those who were suspicious of Stalin’s motives and those such as the author Soviet Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, who believed the Soviet Union could take its place in the world community. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover remained on the side of those who distrusted Stalin and his motives. He regarded the film Mission to Moscow as evidence of communist infiltration of Hollywood. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster .
After
Dies’ floundering attack on Hollywood, he turned his attention to other
areas. The Federal Theatre Project has
been a staging ground for many radical and liberal plays and was regarded with
contempt by the conservatives. The
committee managed to get funding withdrawn.
Despite having no immediate impact, the Dies committee showed a path for
the HUAC investigations of later years.
Massive publicity could be generate by an investigation of Hollywood and
the committee helped originate the smear tactics that were to succeed so well
after the war.[4]
The political content of films did not worry conservatives in the period leading up to 1938. The work of the Hays Office and the Production Code Administration had ensured that Hollywood would steer clear to dealing directly with political and social issues.[5] The Hays Office had been set up in 1922 to self-regulate the industry and to mollify numerous state censorship boards which were slashing films across the country. The office had initially little impact because it could only advise. In 1930, after public criticism and threats of federal intervention, the industry introduced a production code with a detailed list of prohibited areas. The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America created the Production Code Administration to enforce the regulations. It really developed teeth in 1934 after a campaign by the Catholic Legion of Decency against immoral films. Without a certificate of approval from the PCA, the studio could be fined $25,000 if the film was released. The administration aimed to ensure that moral standards were maintained on the screen. Its disapproval meant that film would be condemned by Catholic bishops and picked up by the Legion of Decency. While primarily meant to judge films on their moral values, it would often disapprove of films because of their political or social messages. Through the efforts of these bodies and fears of losing the valuable European market, the studios managed to avoid the topic of Europe’s lurch into fascism for many years.
Hollywood
gradually began to edge toward supporting a more interventionist stance in
Europe from 1938 to 1941. The first
serious attempt to tackle the subject of the rise of fascism was Blockade (1938) which focused on the
Spanish Civil War. The Spanish conflict
was the great divisive international issue of the 1930s. The American left supported the Loyalist
government, with 3000 people enlisting in the Abraham Lincoln brigade to fight
for Republican Spain. The right,
including the Catholic Church, supported Franco and the fascists. Germany and Italy poured huge amounts of arms
and men into Spain to support Franco and were instrumental to his victory.
Because
of the power of the PCA, Blockade
never mentioned either Franco or the fascists.
The original publicity for the film carried the disclaimer that care had
been taken to prevent any costume of the production from being accurately that
of either side in the Spanish Civil War.
It said the story did not attempt to ‘favour any cause in the present
conflict.’[6] This claim was spurious as there were many
references to bombers attacking cities, which was a common strategy of the
fascist armies. The disclaimer and the
caution with uniforms did not stop the film from being systematically picketed
by Catholic organisations throughout the United States. These pickets wee a forerunner to the those
which sprang up during the post-War era.
The film may have been watered down to gain Catholic approval, but it
still contained some powerful anti-war scenes.
It focused on the cruel blockade of a Spanish province and the bombing
of cities. At end of the film, an
hysterical Henry Fonda, who played a farmer turned soldier, screamed to the
audience and demanded to know where was the conscience of the world.[7] This scene and the bombing of a city and the
panic it caused were particularly disturbing.
As a whole the film was more an indictment of total war than just the
fascist cause, but this did not stop the protests.
The first serious attempt to tackle the subject of the rise of fascism was Blockade (1938) which focused on the Spanish Civil War. Image courtesy of eMoviePoster .
After failing with Blockade, independent producer Walter Wagner tried to make a film based on the best selling book Personal History by Vincent Sheehan, which also focused on the rose of European fascism, but he dropped the idea for the time being after more opposition from the PCA. Other studios picked up from there. Warner Brother’s first major anti-Nazi film was Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) which was based on a trial of German agents in New York. It was directed by anti-Nazi émigré Anatole Litvak and depicted Nazi Germany as a direct threat to America with its plans for world domination. During the film, an FBI agent declared that Germany was at war with the United States.[8] PCA head Breen attempted to intimidate Warner Brothers by telling them that the film would lead to foreign censorship, but the studio went ahead with it anyway. As the film had not broken the letter of the production code, Breen could not stop it being produced. But as Breen had predicted, it was banned across Europe, and the appeasing British demanded that several lines be deleted.[9]
[1] William deMille, Hollywood Saga (New York: E.P. Dutton & co. Inc., 1939), 195–196. The correct acronym for the House Committee on Un-American Activities is HCUA, but it is conventional to use the acronym HUAC. Report to Director on Communist Infiltration in Motion Picture Industry, 6 September 1942, COMPIC 100–138754. (Hereafter COMPIC.) The FBI has released the COMPIC files on disc. A second set of COMPIC files, containing mostly high-level summaries, were released by BACM Research. The most comprehensive set appears to be J. Edgar Hoover and Radicalism in Hollywood, Part 1, Communist Infiltration in Motion Picture Industry, Primary Source Media, 2007, which includes a useful index. While there is some overlap between the three sets, some documents appear in one set and do not appear in others.
[2] Larry Ceplair and Ken Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community 1930 – 1960, Doubleday, New York, 1980. P. 109. Hollywood Reporter, 15 April 1943. The publication of the book Mission to Moscow in 1943 had become part of an internal wrangle within the State Department between those who were suspicious of Stalin’s motives and those such as the author Soviet Ambassador Joseph E. Davies, who believed the Soviet Union could take its place in the world community. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover remained on the side of those who distrusted Stalin and his motives. He regarded the film Mission to Moscow as evidence of communist infiltration of Hollywood. J. Edgar Hoover to SAC Los Angeles, 21 June 1943, COMPIC. For a full account of the politics of Mission to Moscow see David Cuthbert, “Our Awkward Ally: Mission to Moscow,” in John E. O’Connor, and Martin A Jackson, (eds.) American History/American Film: Interpreting the American Image, eds., New expanded edition (New York: Continuum, 1988), 121–146. For the wider debate see Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1977).
[3] O’Reilly, Red Menace, 47–48. For example, FBI agent and Los Angeles Special Agent in Charge R. B. Hood used the Dies Report to conclude that the Anti-Nazi League was a “communist front of the worst type” in a report from 1941. FBI report, 1 January 1941, Anti-Nazi League FBI file, http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/hollywoodleague.htm (accessed on 25 January 2009). Nancy Lynn Schwartz, The Hollywood Writer’s Wars, Knopf, New York, 1982, pp. 136 – 137.
[5] The most complete history of the Production Code Administration is Leonard J. Jeff and Jerold L. Simmons, The Dame in the Kimono: Hollywood Censorship and the Production Code from the 1920’s to the 1960’s, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1990.
[6] Halliwell, Film Guide, 5th edition, Paladin, London, 1986, p. 110.
[7]Blockade, (d) William Dietrele, John Howard Lawson
[8] Clayton R. Koopes and Gregory D.
Black, Hollywood Goes to War: How
Politics, Profits, and Propaganda Shaped World War II Movies, Free Press,
New York, 1987, p. 29.
[9] Koppes & Black, Hollywood, p.30 One year later, a full print was shown in the United Kingdom.
Samuel Fuller.
Cinema history 