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"Have you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?"

was the most feared question in the 40's and 50's in Hollywood. The smallest suspicion to be oriented left-wing was enough in order to put someone on the black list or that their lives became difficult.

The "House Committee on Un-American Activities" (HUAC) had had his roots in the late 30's and early 40's. The HUAC established that communists should have settled in the most important position of the mass entertainment. They reproached them to place subversive statements in the Hollywood movies and to discriminate against unpleasant colleagues. The movie "Mission to Moscow" represented the height of pro-Russian movies and was seized together with other movies as opportunity for interventions of HUAC in Hollywood. They assumed that the communism infiltrated the cinema and used it as a weapon and for dissemination of propaganda.

A first wave of questionings was organized in Hollywood in 1947, which sometimes reminded one remarkable to the questionings during the Nazi time in Germany. A committee investigated the communism in the entertainment industry. The aim of these questionings was find out names of members or of a different way of thinking. A second wave was staged in 1951 which the aim to make someone do denouncement other persons.

This time is also designated as the McCarthy era. Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908-1957) was an American senator which took the lead as figurehead of the anti communistic persecution campaign. McCarthy himself wasn't involved in the witch-hunt in Hollywood himself. The chairmen of the committee were John E. Rankin and J. Parnell Thomas who based their activities on the foundation of the HUAC. The power of McCarthy dwindled when he even exercised attacks against members of the U.S. Army and with it the former General and then US president Dwight D. Eisenhower snubbed. The senate censorshipped McCarthy and the Army hit back by initiating there own investigations against offense of the committee members. McCarthy went down in power and support in the population. McCarthy died in 1957 because of alcohol misuse.

During the first questionings in 1947 there were summoned 19 filmmakers, 10 of them refused to give evidence and declared the committee as unconstitutional. These 10 persons were accused of contempt of Congress and sentenced to imprisonment. They went down in history as the "Hollywood Ten". These were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo. Edward Dmytryk consent in 1951 to give evidence to the committee and was finally striked off the list again. By it he had another chance to work in the USA after he realized three movies in the English exile.

Two months late the film directors seated together and decided no one to occupy from the communist party:
"We will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method". With it they gave the black list that power to destroy careers.

They assume that there were 324 persons on the black list and that 200 other persons were banished from the film industrie in an other way.

The one who was on the black list had to reckon with a working prohibition. Often this produced a whole chain reaction. After a working prohibition it followed mental and physical stress and  marriages went on the rocks.
It didn't make any difference if they really had a communistic attitude or not in order to be registered on the black list. The merely denial to give evidence in front of the committee was enough to be registered on the list.
Sam Jaffe and Lee Grant belonged to these victims. Sam Jaffe, formerly a well-known actor and Oscar winner in 1950 was registered on the black list because refused to cooperate with the committee. After that he practised the profession of a math teacher and he lived at his sister's. Lee Grant was registered on the black list because she refused to give audience against her husband Arnold Manoff. In later years she celebrated a magnificent come back when she got two Oscars as actress and documentary film maker.

Startled of the consequences there were several stars who agreed to mention names of other film makers during the questioning to escape of a possible working prohibition, other were convinced to serve their country.. Some of them regretted their cooperation afterwards.

One example of the consequences: Larry Parks was at the beginning of his career when he was forced to name names. Among others he mentioned Anne Revere, Gale Sondergaard, James Cagney, John Garfield (whose early dead is connected with the black list), Sterling Hayden, Madeleine Carroll, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lee J. Cobb (But Parks was put on the black list).
Then Lee J. Cobb was forced to do statements. He refused successful for two years but then he gave the pressure way. Appropriate to testimonies he named following persons as party members:
Marc Lawrence, Lloyd Bridges, Rose Hobart and Jeff Corey.
Even 20 years later he blamed himself for his weakness in those days and gave himself a hard life. He never could excuse himself for this.

Also filmcomposer David Raksin get into the awkward situation to make statements or to risk a working prohibition. Raksin said later:

"My family wouldn't had had to eat any longer, no home. These thoughts didn't let me fall asleep any more".

In 1951 he gave evidence in front of the committee and hoped to trick the black list. He didn't name persons who weren't already mentioned on the list. Moreover he asked in his circle of friends if he is allowed to mention there name.

These examples demonstrate which strange scenes were caused because of the political situation. Most of the persons concerned weren't heros and denounced their best friends.

Some of the excluded film workers were able to evade the black list by using pseudonyms or hiring ghost writers.
The most famous example in this categorie is the writer Dalton Trumbo.

Dalton Trumbo was one of the "Hollywood Ten" and on the list since 1947. However Trumbo managed it to fool the control authority by writing scripts with the pseudonym Robert Rich. The situation was reduced to absurdity when Dalton Trumbo won an Oscar in 1954 and 1957 for "Roman Holiday" and "The Brave One". Ian McLellan Hunter who also was on the black list later, offered his services as a ghost writer for "Roman Holiday". During the Academy Award in 1957 for "The Red One" the "Writer's Guild" found out that they didn't lead a Robert Rich in their files. The Oscar disappeared in the cellar of the Academy again and fell into oblivion gradually. The name of Dalton Trumbo appeared on the screen only since 1960 once more. In 1975 he announced that he is the real winner of the Oscar of 1957. Finally he received the trophy. Together with the use of his pseudonym there were some workmates who gave their consent to make available themselves as authors of Trumbo's scripts. With it they secured Trumbo's survival.

The director Elia Kazan (e.g. East of Eden) is regarded as one of the most notorious informers. He told in his circle of friends that he will answer for them. But only one month later he gave evidence and snubbed his environment. He became an informant in order to protect his career. But not the fact of his statement cheerfulness made him hated - many others did so before and after him - but his eagerness he did it. After the hearing he made a statement where he made known what he said and why, and that other citizen should follow his example. Deep down Kazan was divided. He knew that it was wrong to name colleagues. But at the end there was only one question left: To refuse the statement and no longer to be able to work, or to name colleagues like many others and continue the career. He settled on the latter.
Abraham Polonsky, also a writer on the black list, commented on:

"...it was not a moral, ethical, or political question at all. It was a practical question - but people don't like to see it that way because it makes their character less worthy".

That the era of the 40's and 50's still today cause quite a stir turned up during the Academy Award in 1999. Elia Kazan got the Honorary Award for his long, distinguished and unparalleled career during which he has influenced the very nature of filmmaking through his creation of cinematic masterpieces (statement of the Academy). The audience was very splitted up in their emotion. Some of them paid tribute to Kazan with standing ovations, others remainded demonstrative motionless seated.

Till today it is not possible to say exactly how many artists were put on the black list. When the witch-hunt was officially dismissed, there were several hundred actors, writers and directors who lost their work, some of them chose the suicide.
Meanwhile the black list continued existing. Only when Otto Preminger for "Exodus" and Kirk Douglas for "Spartacus" showed Dalton Trumbo to be the official author, the power of the black list was finally broken.

The parody "The Front" with Woody Allen in the leading role was shot in 1976. The script was written by Walter Bernstein who also was an author on the black list. Bernstein got an Oscar for this work - a late triumph over the McCarthy era and satisfaction for one of many.

Only in 1992 the "Writer's Guild" made inquiries to check the correctness of the mentioned cast of different movies. If possible they replaced the pseudonyms and ghost writer by the real film maker. And it even lasted till 1997 until the "Writer's Guil" officially apologized for their active support of the communist baiting in the 40's and 50's.

Today it is hardly conceivable which pressure the persons had to stand at that time and what led to their different decisions in the end. We are not in the position to condemn these decisions, at the most we are able to weigh the responsibility of the made decision of the then politic (from today's view) but not the decision itself.

An other famous writer, who was on the black list, was Howard Koch (you will find more information about Howard Koch on my pagy "Scriptwriter"). Along with a lot of other scripts he also wrote the movie classic "Casablanca" (1942), for which he got an Oscar together with the Epstein Brothers.
In a letter to me he also gave his opinion about the time of the black list. I finish this report about the McCarthy era and the black list with his lines.

„We were all part of the progressive movement that flourished during the Franklin Roosevelt Presidency, some members of the party, others, like myself, not members but working along with them on good causes to make a better world - and also better movies. When Roosevelt died, the reactionary element took over, began to dismantle the New Deal and start the Cold War to stop the spread of socialism here and abroad. It was simply a class struggle, capitalism taking its stand against socialism (which they mis-named communism and which doesn't exist.)
Since I was against war, hot or cold, they had to get rid of me and others like me. It was not personel, there was no malice. We were caught in an historical situation".