The cinematic anti-communist crusade

Dr Kevin Brianton

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 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 64^th 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.

[8] Norman, Talking, p. 205

[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.

[11] French, Moguls, p. 153.

[12] Garth Jowett, Film: The Democratic Art, Little Brown, Boston, 1976, p. 473.

[13] American Business Consultants, Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television, New York, 1950, p. 9.

[14] Larry Ceplair and Ken Englund, I, Doubleday, New York, 1980, pp. 386 – 397.

[15] HUAC Hearings, p. 106.

[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.

HUAC hearings begin

Dr Kevin Brianton

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.

[1] New York Times, 27 January 1947.

[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, 80^th Congress, 1^st sess., 20 October 1947, vol. 1169 (5) p.10.

[4] ibid., p. 34.

[5] HUAC Hearings, p. 85.

[6] Ibid., p.85.

[7] HUAC Hearings., p.89.

[8] New York Times, 23 October 1947.

[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, 2^nd 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.

Coming to a head with HUAC

Dr Kevin Brianton

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.*

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.

[1] New York Times, 27 January 1947.

[4] ibid., p. 34.

[5] HUAC Hearings, p. 85.

[6] Ibid., p.85.

[7] HUAC Hearings., p.89.

[8] New York Times, 23 October 1947.

[11] Hollywood on Trial, (d) David Helpern Jr, Annie Resman.

For Whom the Bells Tolls (1942)

Kevin Brianton

Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University

*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.

[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.

Before HUAC came to Hollywood

Kevin Brianton

Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University

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.

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.

[4] Schwartz, Writers, pp. 136 – 139.

[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, 5^th 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.