Committee for the First Amendment

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The Committee for the First Amendment (CFA), German "Committee for the first additional article", was an association of liberal Hollywood filmmakers founded in 1947. The name referred to the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution , which prohibits the United States Congress from passing laws against freedom of religion , speech and the press .

This was preceded by the founding of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (in German "Film Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals ") and its statements before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1947, the political convictions and the examined possible links between filmmakers and communist groups. The statements of the MPA members led to the summons and later indictment of the so-called Hollywood Ten .

In response to the subpoenas, John Huston , then vice-president of the Screen Directors Guild , William Wyler and Philip Dunne formed the CFA. Filmmakers such as Humphrey Bogart , Lauren Bacall , Gene Kelly , Danny Kaye , Sterling Hayden , June Havoc , Ira Gershwin , John Garfield and Richard Conte followed suit . A CFA delegation flew to Washington to protest the Hollywood Ten summons.

After the Hollywood Ten were convicted of failing to testify, the CFA soon fell apart, due in part to pressure on individual members. HUAC member John E. Rankin sought to discredit critics such as Danny Kaye, Edward G. Robinson and Melvyn Douglas by referring to their Jewish origins. In March 1948, the magazine Photoplay published an article by Humphrey Bogart under the heading "I'm no Communist" ("I am not a communist"). John Huston was suspected of being a communist in the Hearst press and preferred to make his next films abroad. CFA members Sterling Hayden and Lloyd Bridges joined forces with the HUAC in 1951 and revealed the names of former leftist companions.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c John Huston: An Open Book. Da Capo Press, Cambridge (MA) 1994, p. 129 ff.
  2. ↑ a b Andrew Dickos (ed.): Abraham Polonsky: Interviews. University Press of Mississippi, 2012, pp. 102-103.
  3. ^ Brenda Murphy: Congressional Theater: Dramatizing McCarthyism on Stage, Film, and Television. Cambridge University Press, 1999, pp. 17-18.
  4. ^ Frank Krutnik: "Un-American" Hollywood: Politics and Film in the Blacklist Era. Rutgers University Press, 2008, p. 70.
  5. ^ Brian Neve: Film and Politics in America. A social tradition. Routledge, Oxon, 1992, p. 186.
  6. ^ Wheeler W. Dixon: Lost In The Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood. Southern Illinois University Press, 2005, pp. 111-112.