Synopsis
More than thirty survivors of the blacklisting that took place in Hollywood in the late 1940s share their stories, in a study that includes interviews with Ring Lardner, Jr., and Martin Ritt, the director of The Front. 15,000 first printing.
Reviews
A massive, slow-moving oral history of 30-plus Hollywood blacklistees. The Hollywood blacklist starred few heroes and far too many villains. The latter range from the studios and networks that illegally abetted the blacklist to those who ``named names'' to many blacklistees themselves, staunch Stalinist ideologues who would have gladly extirpated any opposition if the tables had been turned. The real victims were those whose left-wing ties provided the thinnest pretext for informers to trap them in the mad gyre. This collection presents a wide range of blacklistees, from a few of the more well known, such as Martin Ritt, Jules Dassin, and Ring Lardner Jr., to a large number of the obscure and marginal, most of them writers. Because the subjects tell their own lives in their own words, this leads to both an idiosyncratic freshness as well as a lack of focus, with opinion and anecdote substituting for depth. Also, with many interviews, the blacklist is only a small component, and we are treated to biographical minutiae of extremely minor figures (some with only a handful or less of films to their name). Even die-hard film and blacklist buffs will find their patience tried. McGilligan (Fritz Lang, 1997, etc.) and veteran oral historian Buhle know their material well, but their questions tend to be facile and unrevealing. But though this book is almost impossible to read cover to cover, it is interesting to see just how varied the experiences of blacklistees were. Some fled to Europe or Mexico and built careers there; some used ``fronts,'' or pseudonyms; some got out of the biz. Some have forgiven their tormentors, some bear deep grievances. But the careers of all of them were seriously damaged by the experience: Perhaps this explains why so many of these interviewees are not household names. Invaluable source material, but much more than the ordinary reader wants or needs to know. (32 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
The 50th anniversary of the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings, which resulted in the infamous Hollywood blacklist, is the occasion for this landmark collection of interviews with more than 30 of the blacklisted filmmakers. While HUAC's activities are well known and documented, only recently have many victims of the blacklist stepped forward, most notably Walter Bernstein with his Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist (LJ 9/15/96). The sheer bulk of this book gives a sense of the enormous damage to the lives and careers of those blacklisted and the impact on filmmaking caused by losing this magnitude of talent. The interviews, expertly conducted by McGilligan (biographer of Fritz Lang and George Cukor) and Buhle (historian of the political Left), vividly reveal those who for so long have lurked in the shadows, silenced by their adversaries or, more often, allowed to perform, write, and direct under an alias. Formerly unacknowledged film credits are listed for each filmmaker. Highly recommended for academic libraries.?Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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