Posted by
JTB on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 9:32:00 AM
Biased Hollywood Ten Tales
by Spencer Warren
Issue 94 - October 24, 2007
October 30th is the special night devoted to films credited to members
of the Hollywood Ten by the Turner Classic Movies cable channel–-by my
count, the fourth such program in the past five years or so. This is
the sixtieth anniversary of the hearings conducted by the House
Un-American Activities Committee on Communist influence in the motion
picture industry-–in those pre-television days 80 million Americans,
more than one-half the population, attended a movie every week. The
witnesses refused on First Amendment grounds to answer questions about
their alleged Communist affiliations, and the hearings became something
of a circus, thanks to partisan committee members and some of the
witnesses (whose leftist arrogance alienated many of their
anti-Communist liberal supporters in Hollywood). Eight screenwriters,
one director and one producer were held in contempt of Congress and
imprisoned. The hearings led to a blacklist enforced by the studios,
which started with the Ten (one of whom later cooperated and went back
to work) and widened during the 1950’s.
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Those who do not ignore the mistakes of history are condemned to live surrounded by those who do...