Blacklist and Hollywood 10 Mystery & Scandals
Blacklist and Hollywood 10 Mystery & Scandals
Transcript
00:00Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party in the 1940s and 50s?
00:05That was the dreaded question in Hollywood
00:07Why because if you even remotely suspected of being a communist your name was put on the list the incriminating blacklist
00:14Your reputation was ruined your parking space was reassigned and you never ate lunch in this town again
00:19You're an item one day. You're nobody the next day. This is a town of lists a lists be lists
00:25Blacklists on this episode of mysteries and scandals will expose the dark forces behind the Hollywood blacklist and will reveal the devastating
00:33Consequences if your name appeared on the list, they were destroyed killed made ill suicides
00:40We'll also hear the confessions of a government witness who found himself trapped in a desperate situation
00:45I used to get calls in the middle of the night saying look you so-and-so don't you dare?
00:51Cooperate with a committee. I'm a new yorker. I come from inside the snitches are creep
00:57Am I right? I'm AJ Benza join me as we look back on the most notorious production and movie-making history the Hollywood blacklist
01:20In
01:26October
01:271947 congressional hearings were held by the House Committee on un-american activities
01:32The committee was investigating communism in the entertainment industry
01:35Paul Buell was the co-author of tender comrades the point of the public hearing was to expose the evil of
01:43these people playing a role in Hollywood and
01:46To get them to name the names of other people they had known and participated in through public
01:55Events, but you name those for the committee, please
01:57Well, the one chap I'm thinking of currently is mr. Howard de Silva
02:04Always seems to have something to say at the wrong time film star Robert Taylor testified about what he considered were subversive
02:11activities within Hollywood
02:13Character actor Howard de Silva may or may not have been a communist
02:16But the civil was just one of the people named by Taylor as a potential communist traitor
02:21Lacklisted screenwriter Bernie Gordon when people like Robert Taylor suddenly became so vociferous in the anti-communist and pro house America on American
02:30Activities committee it surprised me even more surprising was how membership in a popular political party became a national threat
02:37After the Great Depression many Americans were sympathetic to the communist agenda
02:42Walter Bernstein was another screenwriter on the blacklist the communists were out in front really
02:50against fascism
02:51against
02:53During the 30s against unemployment against racism. We saw bread lines through all the dim
02:59dismal winter days of New York and we believed that
03:05Capitalism was failing but by the late 40s many people came to believe communism threatened American values and the committee suspected that
03:13anti-american messages were being interjected in films
03:17Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Hollywood Party and believes some communists were motivated to come to Hollywood
03:23They wanted more influence in the movie industry because the movies at that time were the biggest means of mass communication
03:29actor James Cromwell disagrees
03:31Anybody in the film industry knows that it's almost impossible in the studio system to get any
03:36Propaganda through into a picture because basically so many hands touch the picture
03:41I don't think in a group of writers. It's possible for them to get away with it
03:44Have you ever tried to organize a group of writers to do anything?
03:48But the committee hearings in October
03:501947 were no laughing matter for the ten Hollywood professionals called to testify about their political affiliations
03:57The men refused to cooperate
04:02And all ten were eventually incarcerated
04:05Then in November of 47 50 Hollywood powerbrokers met secretly to discuss the growing controversy
04:11Dale Reisman is the former president of the Writers Guild of America a group of the studio heads met at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel
04:18in New York and
04:20Issued a declaration saying they would not employ anyone
04:25Who was a member of the Communist Party or who did not?
04:28Renounce that membership if communists have attempted to inject their propaganda into the motion picture
04:34They have failed miserably
04:36We will never permit them to succeed
04:40film producer and director Erwin Winkler the Hollywood community
04:45in answer to pressure from
04:48businesses and
04:50their own
04:52self-serving pressure
04:53Decided that they would form a blacklist
04:56The fear of being put on Hollywood's blacklist turns Hintzeltown upside down
05:01Straight ahead the victims of the blacklist and the witnesses who named names
05:08Because of the illegality of this committee came out that effort on
05:14Indicated by questioning to induce the motion picture producers to create a back blacklist
05:21To hire men not on the basis of ability but on the basis of political belief beginning in
05:291947 the Hollywood blacklist brought humiliation and unemployment to hundreds of film professionals and
05:35Several men even went to jail for refusing to cooperate with the House Committee on un-american activities
05:41You see it wasn't illegal to be a communist, but it certainly wasn't politically correct for the time
05:46The goal the committee was to root out potential commie threats from within the entertainment industry
05:51Extreme measures were taken to preserve so-called American values the real purpose of this investigation
06:05This is Humphrey Bogart
06:08We sat in the committee room and heard it happen
06:12We saw we saw American citizens denied the right to speak by elected
06:17Representatives of the people if the fear of communism was spreading in 1947 by
06:221951 the hunt for red radicals became a national pastime
06:26Hollywood studio bosses turned their backs on the talented actors directors and writers who were suspected members of the Communist Party
06:33So to avoid being blacklisted some entertainers reluctantly volunteered information about their political history a large number of the people who?
06:41gave friendly testimony
06:44Gave it under extreme duress
06:46And felt terrible about it much of the rest of their life
06:49Larry Parks is one very good example. He had starred in the Jolson story and
06:55He was on his way to a major career when his career was just absolutely stopped immediately
07:03By his appearance before the House Committee
07:05Victor Novosky is the author of naming names
07:08He had joined the Communist Party, and he was willing to tell the committee about it. He wasn't denouncing
07:13He just said let me alone. I'll tell you about me
07:15I just don't want to talk about other people and bring trouble to that don't present me with the choice of
07:21either being in contempt of this committee and going to jail or
07:25Forcing me to crawl through the mud to be an informer
07:29I I beg you not to force me to do this
07:33But he did name names, and they made him crawl through the mud and they still got blacklist
07:38Composer David Raxson they destroyed that poor guy, and they wouldn't let him up
07:43They could have done that when they realized that he was being
07:48killed
07:49murdered in front of the cameras
07:51Another actor who suffered as a result of his testimony was Lee J Cobb
07:55Cobb was put on Hollywood's blacklist in 1951 after Larry Parks named him as a communist my father-in-law
08:03Lee J. Cobb was approached by his agent and told that if he did not
08:08Cooperate he would not work again for two years Cobb resisted the demand for information by the committee
08:15Blacklisted and broke Cobb was finally forced to testify in 1953
08:20Lee J. Cobb's daughter actress Julie Cobb. He told me that he did not provide the committee with names
08:27That he was shown names. There are people to this day who will tell me no. No your father named me
08:33I don't know. I don't care
08:36We
08:38Cannot afford to judge the actions of anybody who was put in that position
08:43Composer David Raxson found himself in a similar predicament when he was identified as a former member of the Communist Party
08:49Raxson had to either cooperate with the committee or end up on the blacklist. My family was not gonna have anything
08:56To eat or any place to live and all the rest of that and it kept me awake nights
09:00Raxson testified before the committee in 1951
09:03He was determined to beat the blacklist without helping the committee's investigation
09:07I will not name anybody who hasn't already been named and I thought that is a risk
09:13I'm willing to take I'm not going to get anybody into hot water who hasn't already been
09:17Named Abraham Polanski was a blacklisted screenwriter before the blacklist Polanski worked with David Raxson
09:24And he came in my house one day
09:26And he came in my house one day
09:29He says I want to keep on working. So would you give me permission to use your name? I
09:35Said no, don't be silly. I
09:37Said I can't give you permission to do it. You have to do it. Don't do it. That's a lie
09:42It's an absolute lie. I would never have asked that son of a bitch anything not even his name
09:49My neighborhood you don't snitch
09:52In fact you get killed if you like so watch out if I had been a cooperative witness and think how come it wasn't I
09:58Was not able to work for a year and a half. I couldn't get a job. Nobody would hire me. He said he was sorry
10:05Have nothing against him. He just embarrassed by the fact that this fact was revealed
10:10Nearly 50 years later the survivors of the blacklist still feel the sting of betrayal when we come back
10:16What were the alternatives to naming names and how did some blacklisted screenwriters manage to keep their jobs and their dignity?
10:24Was on trial if you were called to testify before the Congressional Committee about your political affiliations
10:30There were three ways to go
10:31You could refuse to answer the questions based on your First Amendment right of free speech and association
10:36But you risk going to prison for contempt of Congress if you invoke your Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination
10:42You were immediately blacklisted and permanently unemployed for many the only alternative was to cooperate with the committee and name names
10:50Composer David Raxon tried to circumvent the committee by only naming people who already identified. I don't know
10:58Whether there was any other
11:01Honorable course and I'm not sure how honorable it would have been to go to jail
11:05It would have given them a victory they didn't deserve so I survived
11:10And I
11:12Judged myself very harshly
11:15Like so many other Hollywood professionals Raxon was put in a no-win situation
11:20And there wasn't a single studio executive to back him up. The reason was that they would have been
11:26attacked by the committee and
11:28Accused of harboring communists and it would have harmed their profits
11:32The Motion Picture Industry Council meets to draft a letter to the House Un-American Affairs Committee now in session in Hollywood
11:40We are hopeful that through and as a result of the hearings of your committee
11:45Ways and means will be provided which will enable the nation to fairly
11:51Legally and effectively deal with the problems of communist or subversive elements
11:56Bernie Gordon was a writer working for Warner Brothers when he was called to testify in front of the committee in
12:011952 but even before he was allowed to defend himself
12:05Gordon was blacklisted not just I was fired, but I had done nothing
12:09I mean I had just not taken a subpoena. I have taken a subpoena. I have not testified
12:16Officially, I hadn't testified. Why was I blacklisted? We have subpoenaed witnesses representing both sides of the question
12:23All we are after are the facts in truth. The committee members just wanted names
12:29Critics of the committee suspected Congress already had lists of people who were affiliated with the Communist Party
12:34So why did the committee pressure witnesses to rat on their friends? He was intimidation
12:40It was you know all in the service of
12:43Of the blacklist in 1951 writer Abraham Polanski was also subpoenaed and he testified before the committee
12:51But Polanski refused to implicate himself or name names. The snitches are creep
12:56Am I right and
12:58so
13:00You don't talk to creeps to hell with them
13:02Either you're brought up not to be a snitch to have a certain morality and you live it
13:08Polanski pleaded the fifth which earned Abe a place on a Hollywood blacklist. The committee was
13:14Acting illegally all the way through they have no right to ask these questions of anybody is against the Lord of blacklist people
13:22Walter Bernstein was a television writer living in New York when he was blacklisted in 1950
13:28Bernstein never testified before the committee, but he was fired just the same the booklet had just come out called Red Channels
13:35Which was a listing of about?
13:38150
13:39People in the entertainment business and if your name was in Red Channels, you were automatically blacklisted unless you went and cleared yourself
13:47Bernstein and Polanski never felt they had to clear themselves because in their minds they had done no wrong
13:52Instead the two writers joined the third blacklist II Arnold Manoff to write for a TV program called you are there
13:59Show producer Charlie Russell and director Sidney Lumet hired all three blacklisted writers
14:04but kept their true identities under wraps went on for two or three years and
14:10since Russell and
14:12Lumet both knew
14:13That these blacklisted were writers working. We didn't we had to put the names of real life fronts on the scripts
14:21But none of them have to show up really so the blacklisted writers did all the work and all the fronts have to do was lend
14:27Their names
14:28Charlie Russell was glad to get us after all with $2,000 a week writers
14:33It's the top of the line and we want to work for peanuts there
14:37Some considered these men lucky to have jobs during the blacklist era. Why should I be lucky? I'm working cause I'm good
14:46They're lucky to have me
14:48Fortunately, some writers were able to circumvent the blacklist by writing under a pen name
14:52But earning a living was impossible for many actors and directors coming up
14:56How is the entertainment community trying to right the wrongs of Hollywood's shameful past?
15:04We would blacklist ravaged Hinseltown many writers actors and directors never recovered emotionally or professionally from being blacklisted
15:12Others were tortured by their decision to cooperate with the Congressional Committee and betray their friends
15:18People simply didn't have the strength to stand up to the committee
15:21They were really victimized and I didn't feel bitter about people like that. I just felt sorry for them
15:2820 years after testifying before the House Committee on un-american activities actor Lee Jay Cobb was still devastated about naming names
15:36Julie Cobb recalls the only time her father talked to her about his actions and we spoke for three hours in the car
15:44a
15:46lot of that time he was holding his head and crying he shared with me everything that he had done and not done and
15:54What the price was he paid for it? I remember him saying you have no idea
16:01What it feels like to have the United States government decide it wants you
16:06It wants something from you and so he was dogged by them
16:10It is an issue you died for for some people but not for me
16:15And I don't feel I betrayed anybody
16:18When it really comes right down to it
16:20Ilya Kazan was a famous director in Hollywood when he was called before the committee in
16:251952 at one time Kazan had been a loyal member of the Communist Party
16:30Screenwriter Walter Bernstein worked with Kazan Kazan said to me. That's the side. I'm on these are the people
16:38That I want to be with all the time then the next month he testified and
16:42Informed I was shocked
16:44He had of every opportunity to continue working on Broadway where it would not have affected him and yet
16:50he went and and it became an informer in order to protect whatever career he had in motion pictures and
16:58I just think he was one of the bad people in
17:021954 Ilya Kazan directed on the waterfront the film starred a young Marlon Brando
17:07Brando's character was a whistleblower who informs on his crooked boss
17:11Many felt that the movie was Kazan's attempt to defend his decision to testify. He's only my philosophy of life
17:20Do it to him before he does it to you it was a weird attempt to justify a behavior
17:25That's what it's all about. It was a movie of stool pigeons by stool pigeons for stool pigeons
17:31Nevertheless Kazan was rewarded for his efforts with a Best Director Oscar for on the waterfront
17:36It's impossible to identify how many artists were affected by the blacklist
17:40But we do know that when the committee hearings officially ended
17:441953 several hundred actors directors stagehands and writers were out of work
17:50Celebrated screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was one of the first writers to be blacklisted in
17:551947
17:56Trumbo's name was absent from the screen until the 1960 movie
18:00Spartacus Kirk Douglas was the producer and star of the picture and Kirk Douglas put Dalton Trumbo's name on the screen
18:07Not knowing what the reactions would be Nicola Trumbo is Dalton Trumbo's daughter
18:12Nicola remembers her father's pride and relief. He was determined to break the blacklist. He
18:22Clearly he felt it was wrong. He knew it was wrong and he didn't want to break it just for himself
18:26The truth is the blacklist only broke
18:30writer by writer
18:31Actor by actor studio by studio for the bulk of blacklist ease
18:36It never ended because they never got work again, but Walter Bernstein had the last laugh in
18:431976 Bernstein wrote the Oscar-nominated film the front a comedy about the blacklist era starring Woody Allen
18:50I
18:52Only know who you're not. Who is Howard Prince a front for blacklisted writers. You're not a writer. No, I
18:59I
19:00Couldn't write a grocery list. It was an acknowledgment really, you know
19:04The work is in the movie industry making some statement about the blacklist
19:08The Writers Guild of America is also making up for the injustice of the blacklist since 1992
19:13The guild has been reviewing film contracts from the blacklist era to determine if the screen credit is correct or a front
19:20The guild then releases its findings to the film company that produced the movie and when they make cassettes or new prints
19:27They have agreed to put the correct writing credit on the new print or the cassette and we want to be able to say
19:35Well, these people made the pictures without resorting to false names in
19:411997 the Writers Guild apologized to the Hollywood community for supporting the blacklist in the 1950s
19:48Nevertheless, some very good people in the guild were very eager to make up for the terrible behavior that the Writers Guild
19:55The Actors Guild the Directors Guild all have had it
19:59They had all cooperated with the committee and refused to defend their own members. Everybody is willing to apologize and I
20:07Accept it and I know
20:09consider these people sneaks crooks and snitches, but I
20:14Do know that where I come from
20:18They wouldn't have lasted that long. They wouldn't have to apologize
20:21They'd be dead the Hollywood blacklist destroyed friendships tested loyalties and ruined careers
20:27And in many ways the cruel side effects of the blacklist was still being felt
20:31I'm AJ Benza. Join me the next time we take a stroll down the flip side of Hollywood's walk of fame
20:39Are you a member of the Communist Party or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
20:45It's unfortunate and tragic that I have to teach this committee the basic principles of American
20:52The question is have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
20:59Seven-year-old ring Lardner jr
21:01Won an Academy Award for writing the movie woman of the year which paired Spencer Tracy and Catherine Hepburn for the first time in
21:081949 Lardner wrote forbidden Street starring Maureen O'Hara
21:12Lardner's name would not appear on another film for 16 years in
21:171945 Dalton Trumbo wrote our minds have tender grapes
21:20Although the film was considered a classic Trumbo's name would not appear in another film until exodus in
21:261960 15 years later. The question is where did these guys go?
21:31The answer to that question is scarier than any horror movie
21:34Lardner Trumbo and eight other talented filmmakers were sent to prison and blacklisted
21:39Hollywood was on trial these ten men victims of a political witch hunt became known as the Hollywood ten
21:45Their story is one of the darkest chapters in American history
21:48Those men were all heroes they stood up for what they believed in they went to prison for their beliefs
21:52It has become very clear to me
21:56that the real purpose of this investigation
22:06This was a period of
22:09Hysteria and
22:11all you had to do was
22:14use the word communist and
22:16Someone was finished on this episode of mysteries and scandals will reopen the case of the Hollywood tent
22:22Was this merely a witch hunt conducted by hysterical government buffoons or was there a communist plot to take over Tinseltown?
22:29there were a lot of communists in the guild and if they got a script or a
22:33Treatment a pitch of some kind that they construed as anti-soviet they would do their best to kill it
22:38We'll also have an exclusive interview with one of the surviving members of the Hollywood tent. It's a perfectly illegal party
22:45we decided that
22:48We did not want to answer the question to say
22:53Yes, I am a communist
22:54I'm AJ Benza join me as we look back at the broken lives and shattered careers of the Hollywood ten
23:15You
23:20It was October of 1947
23:23World War two had been over for two years. The Nazi threat had been replaced by the fear of communism
23:29America was in the grip of the Red Scare and some members of Congress decided to capitalize on that fear
23:35The House Committee on un-american activities began holding hearings to determine the extent of the communist threat
23:41The committee focused their investigation on liberal Hollywood
23:45John Cromwell was a film director suspected of being a communist. His son is actor James Cromwell
23:51basically, it was a
23:53Number of representatives who didn't have anything better to do
23:56And who wanted to stir up a little?
23:59publicity for themselves
24:01Victor Novosky is the author of naming names
24:04There was in the beginning an effort by the committee to establish communist propaganda in
24:10Films in Hollywood and they couldn't do it and why couldn't they do it because there was no propaganda
24:15In fact, these unsubstantiated rumors had been circulating since the late 1930s
24:20Joan Scott is the widow of writer producer Adrian Scott one of the Hollywood ten and they even had
24:27material
24:29Showing that Shirley Temple who was nine and I think was a communist. I mean it was it was a bizarre
24:36publicity hunt so the committee abandoned that search and
24:41contented itself for most of the period with just
24:46Stigmatizing people who had belonged to the party
24:49The reality is that since the Great Depression many people in Hollywood along with a lot of other Americans did believe that communism might be a good
24:57Francis Cheney Lardner is the wife of ring Lardner jr. One of the Hollywood ten the values that we then
25:04Believed were the values of the Communist Party
25:09would just
25:10Extraordinary to make a better world to make a world that where there would be
25:15Quality for people where people would have work where people would not be discriminated against
25:21But for the Hollywood ten
25:22This is a free speech issue remember the First Amendment about 40 Hollywood insiders were called to testify before the committee
25:28Most were only too happy to accommodate and sang like canaries. These folks came to be known as the friendly witnesses
25:40George Murphy Ronald Reagan and Robert Montgomery are among the top-flight movie actors testifying before the House
25:46Un-American Activities Committee in Washington appearing before the Inquiry Board investigating communist infiltration in Hollywood
25:53Producer Sam would waste no words condemning the Red Party line and its sympathizers
25:59No, sir. I have and I think that you need I think you have to wake in the public to the fact that they are
26:03Here and what they're doing
26:04Larry supplier is the co-author of the Inquisition in Hollywood people like Gary Cooper
26:10You know famous names who would come to tell the committee. Yes
26:14We think what you're doing is good and there is communism in Hollywood Gary Cooper seemed to me idiotic in his testimony
26:20Oh, I don't know. I've never read
26:23Karl Marx, and I don't know the basis of communism
26:27Beyond what I've picked up from hearsay
26:30What I've heard I don't like it because it isn't on the level it is completely against the un-american feeling this communistic thing
26:38I believe I would I would move to the state of Texas if it ever came here because I think the Texans would kill
26:44them on sight
26:47Christopher Trumbo is the son of writer Dalton Trumbo one of the Hollywood 10
26:51The friendly witnesses who had appeared before were able to speak at length about anything that they wanted and as far as long as they
26:57Wanted those who objected to being grilled about their political beliefs became known as the unfriendly witnesses
27:03Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
27:07Purpose is to use this to disrupt the motion picture industry to invade the right not only of me
27:13But of the producers to their thoughts to their opinion and this I will not permit up next
27:18How did ten patriotic Americans who refused to answer that now infamous question become enemies of the state?
27:26He held hearings in an effort to flush out commies who supposedly hiding behind every palm tree in Hollywood
27:32Dozens of actors writers and directors were summoned to Capitol Hill to testify
27:36Most called before the committee were only too happy to oblige
27:39But ten men refused to answer questions about their political beliefs their defense a little thing called the First Amendment
27:45These rebels became known as the Hollywood 10. Do you have time to answer the question?
27:50Let's go. I believe that question also invades my right as a citizen
27:55I believe it also invades the First Amendment. I
27:59Believe that I should not engage in any conspiracy with you to invade the First Amendment
28:04Nobody knew what to expect and they found out rather quickly that if your lawyer got up to say something
28:10they would
28:12Tell him to sit down or they'd throw him out Bartley crumb was one of the attorneys representing the Hollywood 10
28:18Crumb believed his clients had an ironclad case
28:21Crumbs daughter celebrated author Patricia Bosworth because he felt it was totally a constitutional issue that it would be very easy
28:28to solve this this
28:30Little problem that these writers and directors were having at first many in Hollywood stood behind the ten men
28:36Stars such as Humphrey Bogart Lauren Bacall and Danny Kaye traveled to Washington to show their support
28:42Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley is the author of Hollywood party. It was a circus, you know, the the ten would get up and harangue
28:51Trumbo for example said this is the beginning of the American concentration camp
28:55And all the celebrities who came were were shocked
29:03None of the Hollywood heavy hitters expected the tend to be so
29:06Confrontational they were also worried about saving their own skin and most withdrew their support and hopped the next plane back to Hollywood
29:13Writers Ring Lardner jr. And Dalton Trumbo decided that simply refusing to answer the question was their most effective strategy
29:20Dalton Trumbo and I
29:22Discussed the question several months before anticipating that there would be such hearings and
29:31We decided that
29:33the only proper answer
29:36Was not to answer
29:38You you refuse to answer that question. Is that correct? I have told you that I will
29:42My beliefs my affiliations
29:47No
29:48Communists had been arrested. It was not considered a crime. It was a
29:54Witch-hunt it was in no way justified
30:02Are you a member of the Communist Party? Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? They looked unfair
30:07It looked like here's a House Committee on American activities who wasn't behaving in an American way
30:20When
30:22Chairman Thomas was
30:24Pressing me to answer the question
30:27He said
30:29Yeah, any good American could answer that question
30:34so
30:35Tell me so either are you now or have you ever been?
30:49That just got him furious and he said leave the witness stand
30:55Called on the sergeant-at-arms to take me away the Hollywood 10 knew the committee wouldn't stop with just one question
31:01First there was the fact that if you cooperated with the committee
31:06On level a you could had to go to level B, which was naming names
31:11Which meant that other people would lose their jobs and livelihoods. I doubt that any of them would have wanted to
31:19inform on
31:20Get their former comrades or present country in trouble. All right
31:24Are you a member of the Communist Party? I have replied to that. You have no right to ask me that the witnesses throws stand away
31:31after 10 days of testimony the committee adjourned they stopped because it was total chaos and bedlam and the press was ridiculing them and
31:39They probably were told by other members of Congress of this just it was really it was ridiculous
31:43What was going on?
31:44None of the Hollywood 10 answered the question about their political beliefs and none of them named any names
31:49Despite the pressure these guys held their ground, but the witch-hunt was far from over up next
31:54What would be their punishment and which one of the ten would finally break ranks in order to save his own career?
32:02Catch a sneak
32:06Round one of the congressional hearings into the commie pot to take over Hollywood ended in
32:111947 the filmmakers who refused to testify
32:14Labeled the Hollywood 10 were all charged with contempt if found guilty. They'd be sent to prison
32:19Oh, yeah, and one more thing
32:21They'd also be stripped of their livelihoods which brings us to yet another sad chapter in Hollywood history the blacklist
32:27The Producers Association meets in New York and votes to blacklist those ten men
32:34Unless they go back before Committee of Congress and kind of purge themselves of their contemptuous conduct the heads of the studios
32:40the motion picture companies met and
32:44said they would no longer employ any of us and
32:48Or anyone else who took a similar stand and they released that statement and that was the official beginning
32:55The blacklist, but the Hollywood 10 still refused to budge
32:59I was just summoned to the studio manager's office and told that my contract was being
33:08Broken
33:09And then that I was to leave the lot as if being blacklisted wasn't bad enough
33:14The Hollywood 10 still faced contempt of Congress charges
33:18Trial was held before a federal judge and all ten were found guilty
33:21For almost three years the Hollywood 10 fought their prison terms eventually appealing to the Supreme Court
33:27The ten also took their case to the people when we were asked
33:31Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
33:34The committee was really preparing to ask you
33:38Are you now or have you ever been in favor of peace?
33:43But shall people who say no there must be a way to peace
33:48Shall such people be investigated
33:50smeared
33:52Blacklisted we believe this and for asserting that belief before a congressional committee
33:58Ten of us are going to prison
34:01casualties of the Cold War
34:03They were convicted
34:04They appealed to the Supreme Court
34:07The appeal was rejected and so starting I believe in
34:11September August or September 1950 they went to prison
34:15The Hollywood 10 began serving their sentences ranging from six months to one year
34:20Kate Lardner is the daughter of ring Lardner jr. They did not think that they would wind up in jail
34:26I mean that just seemed
34:28ridiculous
34:31Nonetheless he
34:34You know
34:37In 1950 almost three years after the hearings on Capitol Hill ended ring Lardner jr. Was sent to prison
34:44There Lardner experienced some poetic justice the prison I was sent to
34:50Was the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut Lester Cole and I both went there
34:56where I found
34:58The chairman of the Un-American Activities Committee the man who had asked me the questions
35:04Are you now or have you ever been?
35:06Was it already an inmate New Jersey representative Jay Parnell Thomas was convicted of misappropriation of government fines
35:13And sent up the river Lester Cole, and he both worked
35:18outside the prison walls and
35:21Thomas taking care of the chicken yard and
35:26Lester just said to him
35:28Still handling the chickens that I see the families of the ten also had a tough time of it
35:34Christopher Trumbo remembers the trauma he experienced when his classmates discovered his father Dalton Trumbo was a member of the Hollywood 10
35:41Eighth and a ninth grade, I guess I was thrown into a furnace at school
35:45But I didn't have any eyebrows or eyelashes left after that
35:49You know my clothes got burned
35:50But I went home and you know I changed my clothes and went back to school
35:54One member of the Hollywood 10 finally did cave into the pressure director Edward Dmitrich
35:59I do not think you
36:02Communist Party or whether you I'm saying I do not think you have the right under the Constitution to ask me such a question after
36:07Serving his prison sentence Dmitrich decided he would answer the question and name names after all
36:13Dmitrich decided that his career was more important than his politics
36:17Adrian felt
36:20About Ed Dmitrich
36:23The way I think he would feel about any
36:27Informer he loathed him he had nothing but the deepest contempt for him
36:34So I'm reasonably sure that he made a rather cold-blooded decision that
36:40he had it beside between his career and
36:45His politics
36:47Edward Dmitrich went on to have a fairly illustrious career as a director all it took was pointing a finger at a few friends
36:53Up next their careers in ruin
36:55How are the nine remaining members of the Hollywood 10 sneak back into the business and which of them would eventually go on to conquer?
37:01Tinseltown
37:05This week
37:071851 the Hollywood 10 were all free men
37:09But how free were they?
37:10The 10 served their prison terms with their lives were in shambles and now they face the challenge of trying to put their derailed careers
37:16back on track
37:18Writers Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner jr. Were two members of the Hollywood 10 who managed to find work using assumed names
37:25There was an enormous amount of secrecy pseudonyms
37:28occasionally in meetings and out-of-the-way places
37:31Constantly people were worried about
37:33telephones being tapped which they were
37:35Another approach to beating the blacklist was a practice known as fronting that his friends of theirs
37:41Who would put their name on the script and take it in and go to the story conferences, etc. I know that that people of course
37:49circumvented the blacklist by by
37:52Through a front that of course involved only writers that couldn't involve directors that couldn't involve actors
37:57Joan Scott fronted for her husband writer-producer Adrian Scott. I would have to go into the studio and
38:05participate in rewrite conferences on these scripts and then come home and
38:12Discuss it with him and he'd get upset
38:14Eventually the stress took its toll on Scott. He worked in this little room in the garage
38:20With no satisfaction
38:21No recognition it ate away
38:25At him as far as I'm concerned
38:29the whole system killed him I
38:32mean Congress
38:34Informers the industry this man did not die a natural death at 61
38:39Ring Lardner jr. Fared a little better than his friend Adrian Scott. Thanks to the advent of television. I did have
38:46enough of a
38:48reputation and so on so that I could
38:51Find some work the main
38:54work that I did for the next 10 years from
39:001952 on were
39:02television film series
39:04Dalton Trumbo son Christopher did his part to help his father keep up the front
39:09I would take checks from one bank account put them into another I would deliver scripts
39:14Sometimes I'd pick up large sums of cash and take those to a bank that sort of thing
39:18Dalton Trumbo writing under a pseudonym surprised everyone when the
39:221956 Academy Awards were announced a movie called the brave one
39:27Was nominated for and won an Academy Award and the name of the screenwriter was Robert Rich
39:34And when Robert Rich was called at the Oscar ceremony nobody came forward why because no such person existed
39:42Robert Rich was really Dalton Trumbo who was home with his family on Oscar night
39:47we were actually watching the Academy Awards and
39:50Suddenly the brave one
39:52Was the Academy Award winner for best original story?
39:56Which was a shock to everybody nobody nobody really thought that it would win anything
40:01four years later Dalton Trumbo would become the first to break the blacklist in
40:071960 it was actually Otto Preminger who first announced that
40:12Dalton Trumbo had written Exodus and that his name would be on the screen writer ring Lardner jr.
40:18Also went on to win an Academy Award in
40:211970 the hit movie mash won for best adapted screenplay
40:25Lardner was there to accept his award the mash
40:29Thing was very satisfactory
40:32Because when I went up to the platform to receive an Oscar
40:36there was
40:38Unnoticeably more applause than there usually is for the writers award
40:42By that time people were beginning to treat it almost as an honor to have been part of the blacklist
40:48You know I feel a lot of pride
40:51And it's because of I think it's because
40:55Because of the way he behaved you know and and continued to behave on behalf of something
41:00He really believed in I think it was Dalton Trumbo said all we were all victims of this the
41:05Informers and the informed on and the the people who didn't inform
41:10Everybody was hurt by this, but Dalton Trumbo finally received the recognition. He deserved in
41:161975 19 years after winning the Academy Award under a pseudonym the motion picture Academy finally gave Trumbo his award for the brave one
41:24Better late than never I guess but anyway you look at it these guys paid a pretty high price
41:28Just for having the guts to stand up for what they believed in I'm a J
41:32Benza join me the next time we look at the dark side of the spotlight on mysteries and scandals
42:02You