Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s - Softcover

Billingsley, Lloyd

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761521666 ISBN 13: 9780761521662

Publisher: Prima Lifestyles, 2000

Synopsis

In the fall of 1997 some of the biggest names in show business filled the Motion Picture Academy theater in Beverly Hills for Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist, a lavish production worthy of an Oscar telecast. In song, film, and live performances by stars such as Billy Crystal, Kevin Spacey, and John Lithgow, the audience relived a time some fifty years before, when, as the story has always been told, courageous writers and actors stood firm against a witch-hunt and blacklist that wrecked lives and destroyed careers. Left untold that night, and ignored in books and films for more than half a century, was a story not so politically correct but vastly more complex and dramatic.





"The best exploration I've seen of the Hollywood blacklist and the Communist Party's role in that conflict."
— Charlton Heston




In Hollywood Party the complete story finally emerges, backdropped by the great upheavals of our time and with all the elements of a thriller?wrenching plot twists, intrigue, betrayal, violence, corruption, misguided passion, and lost idealism. Using long neglected information from public records, the personal files of key players, and recent revelations from Soviet archives, Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley uncovers the Communist Party's strategic plan for taking control of the movie industry during its golden age, a plan that came perilously close to success. He shows how the Party dominated the politics of the movie industry during the 1930s and 1940s, raising vast sums of money from unwitting liberals and conscripting industry luminaries into supporting Stalinist causes.


In riveting detail, the shameful truth unfolds: Communist writers, actors, and directors, wealthy beyond the dreams of most Americans, posture as proletarian wage slaves as they try to influence the content of movies. From the days of the Popular Front through the Nazi-Soviet Pact and beyond World War II, they remain faithful to a regime whose brutality rivaled that of Hitler's Nazis.


Their plans for control of the industry a shambles by the mid-1950s, the Party nonetheless succeeded in shaping the popular memory of those days. By chronicling what has been left on the cutting-room floor, from "back story" to aftermath, Hollywood Party changes those perceptions forever.

About this title

About the Author

Kenneth Lloyd Billingsley is the editorial director of the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. Formerly the California correspondent for the London Spectator, he has written for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Daily News, and San Francisco Chronicle. He divides his time between Sacramento, the Bay Area, and Southern California.

From the Inside Flap

of 1997 some of the biggest names in show business filled the Motion Picture Academy theater in Beverly Hills for Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist, a lavish production worthy of an Oscar telecast. In song, film, and live performances by stars such as Billy Crystal, Kevin Spacey, and John Lithgow, the audience relived a time some fifty years before, when, as the story has always been told, courageous writers and actors stood firm against a witch-hunt and blacklist that wrecked lives and destroyed careers. Left untold that night, and ignored in books and films for more than half a century, was a story not so politically correct but vastly more complex and dramatic.





"The best exploration I've seen of the Hollywood blacklist and the Communist Party's role in that conflict."
Charlton Heston




In Hollywood Party the complete story finally emerges, backdropped by the great

Edition details

• Publisher: Prima Lifestyles
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761521666
• ISBN 13: 9780761521662
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384