Note: This piece is an incredibly condensed version of historical events related to the Hollywood blacklist. For more detailed accounts of these events and the people who influenced them, see books such as Larry Seplair’s The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later.
Although often thought of as a place that produces whimsical entertainment, a dream machine, Hollywood is not and has never been an idyllic paradise. Its perception in global pop culture is one thing, but the reality of the American film industry is quite another. You can reference numerous historical events, ranging from the 1910s to this year, that reveal deep problems in Hollywood. But an event from the 1950s signals not only the darkness that defines such a large part of the American film industry, but also the government of the country. Decades after it was discontinued, the ripple effects of the Hollywood blacklist are still felt to this day.
What is the Hollywood Blacklist?
The Hollywood blacklist is designed to keep out people in the entertainment industry who were either communists or believed to be sympathetic to this cause. The existence of this list can be linked to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), an organization dating back to 1918. Conceptually intended to stop the spread of fascism in the United States, power and Its range became extremely worrisome by the 1940s. This became apparent when it began to appeal to individuals from Hollywood out of concern that major films were works intended to be pro-Communism. It was a perception that reflected the hysteria in the 1920s and early 1930s that Hollywood movies were so lacking in moral decency that they had to be curtailed with severe restrictions (hence the creation of the Hays Code).
The first great Hollywood characters to be called before HUAC about their ties to communism were ten major artists in the American film industry. These people, who consisted of Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Sam Ornitz, Robert Adrian Scottand Dalton Trumbo, all refused to speak about their affiliation with the Communist Party. They were considered contempt of court and all received short prison terms. After being released to the public, the ten performers were all blacklisted from Hollywood, as the first of numerous individuals to be banned from the film industry by HUAC’s actions.
Rising anti-Communist sentiment and the government’s perception that Hollywood is riddled with members of this political persuasion prompted major figures in the movie industry to take action to declare their loyalty to America. The then head of the MPAA, Eric Johnston, mocked communists and sang the praises of American capitalism in a radio interview. while the Screen Actors Guild went to great lengths to emphasize that it didn’t want communists in its organization. HUAC’s actions all became normalized as the Cold War began to set more and more precedent. Any impact on individual Americans was dismissed as irrelevant in the face of fighting back the threat from Russia, which was apparently entrenched in the American film industry.
Some Major Hollywood Figures Attempted HUAC Protests
There was an attempt by some major Hollywood figures to protest against HUAC and its actions in the form of the Committee on the First Amendment. Contains the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Judy Garland, the group’s stated goal was not to support communism, but rather to support people in expressing their beliefs harmlessly without facing employment implications. However, the group did not last long and all the hostile feelings surrounding the group caused many of its members to leave.
The fact that the film industry’s support did not last long speaks to a bigger problem that has allowed the Hollywood Blacklist to thrive. Many of the most powerful people in the land of “liberal Hollywood” were eager to work with HUAC because they too despised communism. Walt Disneyfor example, a titan in the film industry, gladly testified before Congress about his hatred of communism, while also naming employees he thought subscribed to the ideology. Before his inhumane acts towards the LGBTQIA+ community as president of the United States, Ronald Reaganat the time head of the Screen Actor’s Guild, also called namesthough in his case against the FBI, from potential communists in Hollywood.
Hesitation to speak out remains in Hollywood
Just as Hollywood initially refused to condemn the Nazis (according to Mark Harris’s book “Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War”) or even today how the CEO of Disney Bob Chapek dragged his feet in condemning homophobic legislation“American film studios are always hesitant to speak out against dehumanizing government behavior. This would potentially disrupt their bottom line and alienate moviegoers, so these companies are largely sitting on the sidelines until it’s marketable to do something in the face of human rights abuses. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This enduring truth about the American film industry and its most powerful players has significantly reduced the obstacles to stopping HUAC and the Hollywood Blacklist.
The ripple effects of the Hollywood Blacklist had just begun as the 1950s began, especially when one of the members of the Hollywood Ten, Edward Dmytryk, came crawling to HUAC by admitting he was a former communist and offered to call communists in Hollywood in exchange for a shortened prison sentence. There was no loyalty in the film industry, even among those in the group targeted by American institutions.
In 1951, HUAC continued its investigation into left-wing activity in Hollywood, Exploring communism in entertainment. Numerous high-profile individuals in the entertainment industry were called forward to be tried for their alleged communist ties. Some, like Sterling Hayden or Will Greer, opposed the issue of HUAC, but many others turned to the organization for fear of losing their foothold in the film industry. With the US government and major US film industry organizations condemning leftist sentiment, most Hollywood figures felt trapped. They had nowhere to turn, many succeeded Dmytryk and sold former associates to secure their freedom.
During 1951, more and more people came to testify for HUAC, causing more and more individuals in Hollywood to be blacklisted. With these blacklisted individuals now facing insurmountable obstacles to finding work, they had to get creative if they wanted to work in the film industry. A particularly notable example of this creativity was blacklisted screenwriters who wrote new scripts under pseudonyms. Dalton Trumbo was a particularly notable example of this trend, and this screenwriter even won an Academy Award for his script for The brave under the name of Robert Rich. Other blacklisted artists turned to making films abroad, where it would be much easier to get work far from the clutches of HUAC.
The FBI is involved
The reach of the Hollywood Blacklist was inevitably included J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI’s Resources. The influence of Hoover and his cronies further suppressed disagreements against HUAC’s actions, but that didn’t mean Hollywood movies didn’t confront the world shaped by the Hollywood Blacklist. Several films of the 1950s confronted these horrors allegorically, but perhaps none was as memorable as Mid-daywhich vividly depicted what it was like for one person to stand up to evil, while all the others worry about ever questioning those evil forces. High Noons association with the Hollywood blacklist show turned out to be so famous that it has even been defined as the likely culprit as to why it lost Best Picture at the Academy Awards to The greatest show on earth.
Several factors eventually broke down the Hollywood Blacklist in the late 1950s, but a major one came from: John Henry Faulk. A blacklisted radio personality in the mid-1950s, he sued AWARE (a publication devoted to betraying Communists and Communist sympathizers) for defamation and slander. An important detail here was that Faulk claimed that AWARE had ruined its reputation not out of patriotic loyalty, but because of hidden means associated with gaining more influence in the broadcasting world. Faulk won the lawsuit, scoring a $3.5 million settlement and setting a precedent for blacklisted artists to fight back the damage to their reputations.
President Truman Called HUAC’s Behavior Un-American
The perception of HUAC and its activities in eradicating communism became so unpopular in the last months of the 1950s that even President Harry S. Truman publicly expressed contempt for their behavior and even described them as un-American. Combining that with news that Universal would allow Dalton Trumbo to be publicly credited for his screenwriting on Exodus and it was clear that the days were numbered for the Hollywood blacklist. It didn’t hurt that the 1960s were just around the corner, bringing with it a renewed public interest in social justice issues. This would only help make the blacklisted subversive artists even more relevant to general moviegoers. The kind of defiant art that the US government had tried to stifle was now, as evidenced by movies like Bonnie and Clydeexactly what the audience wanted to see.
Just because the Hollywood blacklist ceased to be a major force in the 1960s doesn’t mean its impact on humans still isn’t felt well into the present. For starters, countless individuals from different walks of life committed suicide instead of facing the challenges of blacklisted existence. On the other hand, many individuals who helped normalize the demonization of so-called “left-wing” Hollywood performers, such as Reagan, would only gain more power in the coming years. They may no longer work with HUAC, but their initiatives to suppress dissent and every question about American life would remain the same.
The anti-left sentiment born of the Cold War and entities like the Hollywood blacklist continues in America to this day. Just as toxic is that it is difficult for current generations to deal with the horrors of this era, as terminology associated with this part of American history (namely McCarthyism) is often co-opted by political figures who are actually more closely related. to members of HUAC than to John Hendrik Faulk. This skewed view of the past corrupts our ability to process the horrors of the post-World War II era that stifled creativity, eliminated countless artists, and changed Hollywood forever.