Show Trial
Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the door—or had it shut in their faces.
In Show Trial, Thomas Doherty takes us behind the scenes at the first full-on media-political spectacle of the postwar era. He details the theatrical elements of a proceeding that bridged the realms of entertainment and politics, a courtroom drama starring glamorous actors, colorful moguls, on-the-make congressmen, high-priced lawyers, single-minded investigators, and recalcitrant screenwriters, all recorded by newsreel cameras and broadcast over radio. Doherty tells the story of the Hollywood Ten and the other witnesses, friendly and unfriendly, who testified, and chronicles the implementation of the postwar blacklist. Show Trial is a rich, character-driven inquiry into how the HUAC hearings ignited the anti-Communist crackdown in Hollywood, providing a gripping cultural history of one of the most transformative events of the postwar era.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hollywood historian Doherty (Hollywood and Hitler, 1933 1939) returns with a riveting, exhaustive look at the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee investigation into Communists in the film industry. Split into three sections, the book begins by outlining labor disputes in 1930s Hollywood, previewing the political clash to come with the "writers' wars" between the conservative, studio-backed Screen Playwrights Inc., and the left-wing Screen Writers' Guild. The second section moves day-by-day through the October 1947 HUAC hearings, and liberal Hollywood's unsuccessful attempts to fight back with groups like the Humphrey Bogart fronted Committee for the First Amendment. The third section details the hearings' aftermath, including the blacklisting of hundreds of Hollywood figures and jailing of uncooperative witnesses, the so-called "Hollywood 10," including screenwriters Ring Lardner Jr. and Dalton Trumbo. Doherty has a real gift for characterization, both of the Hollywood figures under scrutiny and their congressional interrogators, from studio head Jack Warner, "somehow... gruff and dapper at the same time," to brawny anticommunist congressman Martin Dies, who "looked every inch the Texas lawman." In the current era of legislative upheaval, Doherty's vital, impressive history feels both relevant and urgent.
