Hollywood Ten

Group picture of the defendants Robert Adrian Scott, Edward Dmytryk, Samuel Ornitz, Lester Cole, Herbert Biberman, Albert Maltz, Alvah Bessie, John Howard Lawson and Ring Lardner Jr.

Hollywood Blacklist is the term for ten screenwriters, actors and directors from Hollywood , who refused before the Committee on Un-American Activities Questions about the suspected among them membership in the Communist Party to answer. For this refusal, the Hollywood Ten were sentenced to prison terms for disregarding Congress in early 1948.

history

The establishment of the first Committee for Un-American Activities (HUAC) of the House of Representatives was carried out in 1934 by Samuel Dickstein to ward off National Socialist infiltration, but other committees soon also examined Communists , Trotskyists and Japanese . After the Second World War, at the beginning of the Cold War , the HUAC dedicated itself to combating communist employees in the film industry. According to anti-communists like Walt Disney and the chairman of the film actors' union , later President of the United States Ronald Reagan , the committee put together a "black list" of about 100 people whom it suspected of being communists and some of whom it summoned.

In September 1947, the HUAC summoned 79 people who were accused of incorporating communist ideology into their films. Of the 79 artists summoned, 19 refused to cooperate with the committee. Due to scheduling difficulties and illness, however, only ten of them appeared at their summons - this group came to be known as the Hollywood Ten . To her belonged:

• Alvah Bessie , screenwriter
• Herbert Biberman , director and screenwriter
• Lester Cole , screenwriter
• Edward Dmytryk , director
• Ring Lardner Jr. , screenwriter
• John Howard Lawson , screenwriter
• Albert Maltz , screenwriter
• Samuel Ornitz , screenwriter
• Adrian Scott , producer and screenwriter
• Dalton Trumbo , screenwriter

The Hollywood Ten invoked the First Amendment to the US Constitution and the rights to freedom of expression and privacy enshrined in it at the HUAC hearing . During the hearing, Hollywood Ten members treated the committee with ostentatious disregard, for example yelling at the chairman, which cost them sympathy in public. After the ten filmmakers were sentenced to between six months and one year imprisonment for disregarding Congress for failing to answer questions, they believed the Supreme Court would overturn the judgments. However, this expectation was not fulfilled.

Some of the Hollywood Ten members later wrote about their involvement. In a book, John Howard Lawson attacked Hollywood for cooperating with the HUAC. Lawson also criticized Edward Dmytryk in it for ultimately breaking away from the Hollywood Ten and cooperating with the committee. Lester Cole wrote in his 1981 autobiography Hollywood Red that all members of the Hollywood Ten had been members of the Communist Party at some point in the past. Some such as Dalton Trumbo and Edward Dmytryk had already admitted during their hearing that they were communists. Edward Dmytryk later described in his memoir that he had left the Communist Party before he was sentenced and defended his decision to break with the group. He regretted not having met him earlier.

literature

• Christian Cargnelli, Michael Omasta: professional ban in Hollywood. Hysterical atmosphere and black lists. In: Filmbulletin. Volume 43, No. 4, Oct. 2001, ISSN  0257-7852 , pp. 37-51.
• By Hannes Brühwiler (Ed.): The Sound of Fury. Hollywood's blacklist. Bertz + Fischer, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-86505-335-0 .

Films on the subject

• Hollywood on Trial , (Documentary), USA 1976, by David Helpern
• The Straw Man , (Feature film), USA 1976, by Martin Ritt
• Trumbo , (Fiction), USA 2015, by Jay Roach

Web links

• Current story: The end of the witch hunt , deutschlandradio.de
• Buhle, Buhle, and Georgakas, ed .: Hollywood blacklist , ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN LEFT, writing.upenn.edu

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Larry Ceplair: Anti-Communism in Twentieth Century America: A Critical History . Praeger, Santa Barbara 2011, ISBN 978-1-4408-0047-4 , pp. 77 .
2. ^ Gordon Kahn: Hollywood on Trial: The Story of the 10 Who Were Indicted . Boni & Gaer, New York 1948, p. 69-71 .
3. ^ John Howard Lawson: Film in the Battle of Ideas . Masses & Mainstream, New York 1953, pp. 12 .
4. ↑ Lester Cole: Hollywood Red: The Autobiography of Lester Cole . Ramparts Press, Palo Alto 1981, ISBN 0-87867-085-8 .
5. ↑ Hollywood Still Loves Very Red Dalton Trumbo. Human Events, July 31, 2008, accessed June 14, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Hollywood Ten. Encyclopaedia Britannica, accessed June 14, 2020 . 
7. ^ Edward Dmytryk, Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten . Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale 1953, pp. 19-21 .