Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and Television, 1950-2002 - Hardcover

Paul Buhle; David Wagner

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1403961441 ISBN 13: 9781403961440

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003

Synopsis

Hidden in Plain Sight completes Buhle and Wagner's trilogy on the Hollywood blacklist. When the blacklistees were hounded out of Hollywood, some left for television where many worked on children's shows like "Rocky and Bullwinkle." A number wrote adult sitcoms such as The Donna Reed Show, and M*A*S*H while some of them ultimately returned to Hollywood and made great films such as Norma Rae, and Midnight Cowboy. This is a thoughtful look at the aftermath of the horror that was the McCarthy period from two expert historians of the blacklist period.

About this title

About the Author:

Paul Buhle founded the Oral History of the American Left archive at NYU.

David Wagner has co-authored a number of books with Paul Buhle, including the recent Radical Hollywood.

From Publishers Weekly:

This encyclopedic, riveting study of the Hollywood blacklist's impact follows the careers of targeted individuals to explore the blacklist's effects on the arts in America and Europe in the last half-century. As Buhle and Wagner (coauthors of Radical Hollywood) demonstrate, expulsion from the mainstream took these artists and their crafts in new directions. Directors like Joseph Losey and screenwriters like Norma and Ben Barzman fled to Europe to work, where aesthetics like neorealism and the subversion of traditional genres (e.g., the western into the "spaghetti western") opened new modes of expression. Many blacklisted artists who didn't emigrate started working in New York's television industry, which was eager for quick, low-priced talent. Thus, as Hollywood restricted itself to "safe" topics, TV started exploring themes of "the outsider" (Maverick, The Fugitive), multiculturalism (The Dick Van Dyke Show) and social justice (The Defenders). By the late 1970s, "the subtle articulation of politics as ethical sentiment" was now "the very oxygen of liberal television." Besides sitcoms and kids' shows, leftists went into B movies, particularly science fiction and horror genres, where themes of human mutation, nuclear holocaust and alien invasion served as (sometimes clunky) vehicles for political messages. The authors conclude with in-depth looks at several blacklistees, including Carl Foreman, Jules Dassin, Dalton Trumbo and Lillian Hellman. Still, is it all just history, as mainstream Hollywood recites its mea culpas, and the key players all die off? No, Buhle and Wagner conclude; Hollywood's potential as a "democratic art form returning the embrace of its vast audience" remains.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1403961441
• ISBN 13: 9781403961440
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352