Blacklist

Ceplair: Anti-communist mythomaniacs and Dalton Trumbo

Via HuffPost Entertainment, Larry Ceplair writes: Anti-Communist Mythomaniacs and Dalton Trumbo. Excerpt:

No other blacklisted Hollywood person stirs the nest of right-wing wasps as much as Dalton Trumbo. So, it is not surprising that they have swarmed against Trumbo, a movie honestly portraying him and his fight against the motion-picture blacklist. 

Months before the movie opened, queen wasp Ann Coulter attacked the lead actor in the movie ("Bryan Cranston: From Meth Cook to Hitler Apologist)," while at the same time promoting fellow anti-Communist Allan H. Ryskind's book-length diatribe on the same subject (Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters - Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler). 

The movie opened during the first week of November, followed by more of the same from Ryskind (New York Post), Paul Kengor (Investors.com), and Sonny Bunch (The Daily Beast). One could say of them what Jesus said of Satan in Milton's Paradise Regained: 

That hath been thy craft, 

By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies. 

But what have been thy answers, what but dark, 

Ambiguous and with double sense deluding (I, 432-35). 

Trumbo, perhaps because of his outsized personality, his flair for publicity, his success in undermining the blacklist, and the favorable treatment he has received from left-wing historians (including me), is a regular target of anti-Communist mythomaniacs. They attack him on four grounds: He was opposed to the United States going to war against Germany, from 1939-1941; he wrote, to suit his Communist overlords, an antiwar novel that was published just before the Soviet-German nonaggression treaty was signed; he was an "agent" of Josef Stalin; and he waffled during his testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1947. 

All of these attacks are rife with polemics and barren of facts. For example, Coulter inaccurately labeled Trumbo's 1939 novel, Johnny Got His Gun, "a pure propaganda piece designed to squelch American ardor for helping Hitler's victims." She also criticized Trumbo's subsequent novel, The Remarkable Andrew, as an example of his "aggressive effort to prevent America from joining the fight against Hitler." 

In fact, most Americans were ardently opposed to a war with Germany, and the leaders of the United States, England and France, were desperately trying to stay out of such a war. The novels were not pro-German. They were, rather, antiwar. They admonished readers not to be swayed by jingoist or nationalist slogans, to think for themselves about supporting any war. In fact, it was the world's Communists who were, through their various fronts, urging the democratic countries to challenge Germany aggressively. 

So, it is absurd to claim that Trumbo, who was not a Party member and was a long-standing antiwar advocate, wrote Johnny to support the Party line.

The Hollywood Reporter, after 65 years, addresses its role in the blacklist

Via The Hollywood Reporter, a major article first published in 2012: The Hollywood Reporter, After 65 Years, Addresses Role in Blacklist. Excerpt:

Billy Wilkerson was nervous. It was July 1946, and The Hollywood Reporter owner, editor and publisher was preparing to embark on a landmark campaign that would expose communists working in Hollywood. He would name the alleged Reds in his "Tradeviews" column and expose this lurking menace. 

Wilkerson already had begun his crusade a year or so earlier, penning fiery editorials that railed against communism and targeted the Screen Writers Guild, the WGA precursor that he believed was the seat of what he termed the "Red Beachhead." 

But this would be different. Wilkerson -- who was mustachioed, 5-foot-7 and had a penchant for pinstripe suits -- was going to brand people like Spartacus screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Casablanca co-writer Howard Koch as leftists and communist sympathizers. 

But the stakes were high. The possibility of a boycott of Wilkerson's trade newspaper, which he founded in 1930 and kept afloat through the Great Depression, loomed large. And there were moral considerations: He was, after all, going to damage hundreds of lives -- perhaps many more. 

So Wilkerson turned to his religion. He went to confession. The Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood was located just two blocks down Sunset Boulevard from The Reporter's office. It was a Saturday, and Wilkerson, then 56, made his way over to the soaring Roman Catholic edifice, which was the site of Bing Crosby's first marriage. Built in the Italian Renaissance style, the church could accommodate more than 1,000 people. But on this afternoon, as Wilkerson slipped into the confessional, he only wanted to speak with one person: Father Cornelius J. McCoy. 

"Father, I'm launching a campaign, and it's gonna cause a lot of hurt. But they are, you know, antipathetic to my faith. They are my natural enemies. And I just need to know what to do," Wilkerson said. "You know, father, I'm having misgivings about doing this campaign." 

Wilkerson waited for an answer. All across Tinseltown, livelihoods -- and lives -- hung in the balance. 

"Get those bastards, Billy," McCoy replied. 

On July 29, Wilkerson published a "Tradeviews" column that included the names of Trumbo, Koch and nine other Hollywood players the THR editor branded as communist sympathizers. "This is not an issue that concerns merely a few hundred writers," he wrote. "It concerns millions of readers who must depend upon the free trade of ideas. … It concerns still more millions of children -- who can't read yet -- but who were born with the right to hope for a free world." 

The column was a pivotal one, sealing the fate of Wilkerson and the people he'd gone after. Ultimately, eight of the 11 men would be blacklisted. And Hollywood would never be the same.

Dalton Trumbo interviewed by Stan Bohrman

Via Youtube: Dalton Trumbo interviewed by Stan Bohrman. What a pleasure to see the old maestro talking about his film of Johnny Got His Gun. (If only he and his interviewer hadn't been smoking!)

A grudgingly positive review of Ceplair & Trumbo's biography of Dalton Trumbo

From last January, a charmingly hostile review in The American Spectator of Larry Ceplair and Chris Trumbo's biography: Who Was Dalton Trumbo, Screenwriter and Stalinist? The reviewer thinks the left is loosening up; the review suggests it's happening much more on the right. Excerpt:

For an anti-anti-communist, Ceplair does condemn Trumbo playing fast and loose with the fascist label. He asserts that being an anti-communist did not necessarily translate into “an antilabor, anti-Semitic, anti-Negro, antidemocratic stance.” 

In other instances, Ceplair wanders back to anti-anti-communism. He supports Trumbo’s stance in calling the anti-communist movement a “fraud.” Like Trumbo, he engages in blanket generalizations about the movement, which was peopled with McCarthyites but also with liberals who were as anti-McCarthyite as Trumbo while still retaining a respectable anti-communism. 

By and large, though, this is a good and surprising biography. When he has a handle on his bias, Ceplair soars. He is particularly good on Trumbo’s guerrilla warfare against the blacklist. Ceplair’s attempts at fair-mindedness and condemnation of Trumbo’s blinkered political thinking suggest that a form of perestroika is occurring on the Left.

Welcome (if that's the word) to Blacklist

This is a personal attempt to gather information about the Hollywood blacklist, from all possible sources. It may seem to be all about Dalton Trumbo and his family, but that's only until you provide information on your own experience—which I'll be happy to post here.