Allan H. Ryskind - Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters – Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler

Copyright 2015 by Allan Ryskind

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.

Regnery History is a trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation; Regnery is a registered trademark of Salem Communications Holding Corporation.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data

Ryskind, Allan H.

Hollywood traitors : blacklisted screenwriters : agents of Stalin, allies of Hitler / Allan H. Ryskind.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Motion picture industry--Political aspects--United States--History--20th century. 2. Blacklisting of authors--United States--History--20th century. 3. Screenwriters--Political activity--United States. 4. Communism and motion pictures--United States--History. I. Title.

PN1993.5.U6R97 2015

384.80973--dc23

2014028655

ISBN 978-1-62157-233-6

Published in the United States by

Regnery History

An imprint of Regnery Publishing

300 New Jersey Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20001

www.RegneryHistory.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. For information on discounts and terms, please visit our website: www.Regnery.com.

Distributed to the trade by

Perseus Distribution

250 West 57th Street

New York, NY 10107

CONTENTS

THE HOLLYWOOD TEN

Alvah Bessie was one of the celebrated ten screenwriters who in 1947 refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and were blacklisted in Hollywood. Bessie, who fought on the Soviet side in the Spanish Civil war, bragged about inserting pro-Soviet propaganda that was subversive as all hell into the 1943 film Action in the North Atlantic.

Herbert Biberman attacked U.S. aid to Britain so fiercely during the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact that an FBI agent suspected Biberman, who was in fact Jewish, of being a Nazi.

Lester Cole boasted in his autobiography about putting social realities and his political feelings (translation: Red propaganda) into Hollywood films.

Edward Dmytryk, director of many successful movies, including The Caine Mutiny, was the only one of the Hollywood Ten ever to renounce Communism completely.

Ring Lardner Jr., one of the best-known Hollywood Ten figures, died in 2000, laden with honors and acclaim for refusing to tell HUAC whether he had ever been a Communist.

John Howard Lawson was known as the enforcer of the Communist Party line in Hollywood after he was dispatched from New York by Party headquarters to monitor writers.

Albert Maltz had briefly bucked the Party lineuntil vicious verbal attacks from his friends and associates brought him back into the fold.

Samuel Ornitz had been active in the American Peace Mobilization during the Hitler-Stalin Pact but quickly became a proponent for American entry into the war once Hitler broke the Pact and attacked Russia.

Adrian Scott had been raked over the coals by higher-ups in the Party for toning down the Communist propaganda in the script for Cornered, a 1945 film noir.

Dalton Trumbo wrote many excellent films, including Roman Holiday, Spartacus, and Papillon. He was also a hard-core Party member, a fervent supporter of Stalinist Russia and Kim Il-sungs North Korea, and an apologist for Nazi Germany until Hitler double-crossed Stalin and invaded the Soviet Union. Yet to this day he is regarded as a hero in Hollywood.

OTHER KEY PLAYERS

Laurence Beilenson, attorney for the Screen Writers Guild, was sure that Red-led factionalism was destroying the Guild.

Michael Blankfort lost his Communist friends after his 1952 testimony before HUAC, though he refused to name anyone as a fellow subversive and clearly lied about his strong support of Communism. The unanswered question is why HUAC thanked him for his dubious testimony.

Roy Brewer was the labor leader who almost singlehandedly defeated the Communist effort to take over the Hollywood labor unions.

James Cain, a major Screen Writers Guild supporter, conceded that, while he disliked many of the Guilds enemies, the charge that we are loaded with Communists... is true.

John Bright created the gangster movie genre and was a founding member of both the Screen Writers Guild and the Hollywood section of the Communist Party USA.

Hugo Butler was the dyed-in-the-wool Stalinist who talked Dalton Trumbo out of his quondam pacifism after Hitler broke the Hitler-Stalin Pact and Stalin suddenly wanted America to join the war.

Richard Collins, screenwriter and prominent CPUSA member from 1938 on, co-wrote Song of Russia with fellow Party member Paul Jarrico; actor Robert Taylor felt the film was stuffed with Soviet propaganda and almost turned down his lead role.

John Dewey was a prominent American intellectual, education reformer, and leftist who resigned from the League of American Writers in mid-1939, realizing it was a creature of the Communist Party.

Martin Dies, Democratic U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1938, charged that the Screen Writers Guild was controlled by Communistsbut major hearings on Communism in Hollywood were not held until after World War II.

Max Eastman, an early supporter of the proletarian class struggle, nonetheless could not stomach the absolute subordination of literature to Stalinist politics. His reporting on the literary scene in the Soviet Union produced turmoil in the ranks of the Left, and Eastman later renounced Communism.

Gerhart Eisler had plenty of supporters after his very public exposure as a top Comintern agent. Among them: Hollywood Ten figures Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson. Also: Howard Koch, chief screenwriter for Casablanca and Mission to Moscow, and E. Y. Harburg, the lyricist for the Wizard of Oz. Eisler would flee America and end up as a propagandist for East Germany.

Benjamin Gitlow was a top Communist Party leader and a member of the inner sanctum of the Comintern, the Moscow-based group that controlled Communist parties in every country where they existedbut he became an influential anti-Communist after a confrontation with Stalin himself.

Dashiell Hammett, the long-time lover of Lillian Hellman, invented the hard-boiled detective story genre and provided story lines for The Thin Man and The Maltese Falcon. He was also head of the League of American Writers, a major Communist front, when it turned on a dime from appeasing to opposing the Nazis after Hitler attacked Russia. David Lang testified that Hammett was part of a strong writers front in Hollywood, including many of the Hollywood Ten figures, who worked to ensure that film content was in accordance with the Communist line.

Lillian Hellmans script for The North Star was embarrassing propaganda on behalf of the famine-producing collective farm system Stalin had ruthlessly imposed in the 1930s. But Hellman, who lied in her memoir