In The Atlantic online, John Meroney and Sean Coons explode yet one more myth about the Hollywood blacklist and the Communists. For many years, the now 95 year old actor has taken credit for singlehandedly ending the blacklist, by hiring the blacklisted Communist writer Dalton Trumbo to write the script for the film “Spartacus.”
It wasn’t so simple, as Douglas claims in a new book, I Am Spartacus!: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist, that has an introduction by George Clooney. Meroney and Coons show that in fact, Douglas was rather tepid and behind the times. Now that those who were blacklisted are all viewed as martyrs for civil liberties, they write, “it makes sense that Douglas wants to claim credit for” being the man who slayed the would be dreadful giant.
As the authors write, however, “the facts…are a little difference. In the 1930s and ‘40s, Stalinists seized control of the Screen Writers Guild and after World War II, many of the same operatives controlled and dominated a painters’ union as well as the unions representing readers, cartoonists, publicists and secretaries. They all worked together to pull a violent jurisdictional strike that blew the town apart for a couple of years.”
Not only was Douglas not the man who brought the blacklist of the Communists to the end. His production company secretly employed blacklisted writers, benefiting from “their discounted rates” for writing scripts. He used Trumbo well before Spartacus, it turns out, paying him what Trumbo’s daughter says was “only as a small fraction of what his salary would have been had he not been blacklisted.”
Moreover, they write that “Douglas had to be prodded to act on Trumbo’s behalf.” By that time, a year before the film came out, Otto Preminger had already given Trumbo screen credit for writing his film, Exodus.
So, now that the truth is out, will The Writer’s Guild rescind the 1991 award they gave Douglas for “breaking the blacklist?” Don’t place bets on that happening any day soon.
Fascinating turn of events. In general, even our best historians do not appreciate 1. the penetration of communist ideas and ideology into “mainstream” talk, and 2. The moderate men continue to write about “class” as a life-style choice. The majority of Americans, therefore are left without any political science tools whatsoever. I tried to explain this alarming irrationalism here: http://clarespark.com/2012/06/03/connecting-vs-connecting-the-dots/. The comments were good too.
And neither does it emphasize that everything that Trumbo did or wrote just plain sucked.
Dalton Trumbo, the remainder of the Hollywood Ten and many others were hard-core Commies dedicated to delivering our country to old “Uncle Joe.” They were despicable human beings who deserved all the opprobrium they received. McCarthy was right!
McCarthy was correct, yes. But McCarthy had nothing to do with rooting out commies in hollywood.
just saying
Tsk, tsk, Derek, you might say the same nasty things about Radosh, who also was a hard-core commie. Go ahead, I won’t complain.
I met Ronald Radosh at a National Review event over 20 years ago. He spoke about his years as a Communist and would, no doubt, concur with my statement about Dalton Trumbo and other traitors to our country.
– Trumbo would repudiate Exodus today.
So, now that the truth is out, will The Writer’s Guild rescind the 1991 award they gave Douglas for “breaking the blacklist?”
Sure, right after the New York Times asks the Pulitzer Committee to rescind Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer Prize. In other words, no, that is never going to happen.
Hell, I’m just waiting for the CURRENT Hollywood Blacklist to be broken. Conservatives are now excoriated more than the damn Commies ever were. Hollywood people have to be careful whom they allow to hear their true political views if they ever want to get hired again. The likes of; Larry David, Ron Howard, George Cloony, Rob Reiner et al operate in the Soviet mold.
I can’t help but observe that all this information is coming out while Obama is President. It looks as if the Marxists are extremely comfortable in finally outing themselves. In my opinion, that would only happen if they felt truly at ease with the regime currently in power in this country. Then again, given that they helped prepare the way for Obama’s election by soft-pedalling Marxism, that’s not really too surprising. Obama really IS the one they were waiting for.
“I can’t help but observe that all this information is coming out while Obama is President.”
A silly comment even for PJM — and that’s goin’ some.
Pray tell us, lefty idiot, what makes the comment silly? Do you deny that the left is much more open about being leftist and in many cases openly communist now that they feel more safe in Comrade Obama’s administration? If you’ll recall, but of course you won’t, Comrade Rahm Emmanuel recruited all sorts of Democrats to run as fake Republicans in ’06 and ’08 because Democrats could hardly even claim to be Democrats and get elected. Most of Rahm’s ersatz conservative Democrats that gave the communists their brief shining moment in the majority ran to the right of their Republican opponents. Fortunately, that got shook out in ’10. But now even the most vile lefties feel safe under Comrades Obama and Holder so, typical lefty idiots, they’re overplaying their hand and there is going to be a terrible reckoning.
In his famous anti-war novelJohnny Got His Gun, Trumbo is a hard core pacifist.
Before June 22, 1941, Dalton Trumbo wrote, “I would trade democracy for life..” After June 22, 1941, Dalton Trumbo would trade life for defending the Soviet Union. After Germany invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, Trumbo stopped publication of Johnny Got his Gun.After June 22, 1941, Dalton Trumbo turned people into the FBI for wanting to purchase Johnny Got His Gun.
Dalton Trumbo was a Stalinist toady who changed his heartfelt beliefs in tandem with what would best help Stalin. Trumbo deserves no sympathy.
many of the same operatives controlled and dominated a painters’ union as well as the unions representing readers, cartoonists
There was a strike at Disney studios which utterly baffled Walt (according to the biography I read). He had helped many of the strikers get their start, build their skills, gave them a place to work and gave them great jobs. Yet they weren’t just striking — they were being nasty about it.
He understood better what was going on when it was brought to his attention that the communist papers had shifted from calling his cartoons and films “truly the people’s art form” to “capitalist oppression trash”. His stand against the communist-controlled unions is (IMHO) why the left hates the Disney company to this day, and why there are so many nasty rumors about Walt himself. The communists couldn’t control his studio, so they sought to destroy it.
“Will The Writer’s Guild rescind the 1991 award they gave Douglas for “breaking the blacklist?”
Yes, as soon as they recind the 1932 Pulitzer prize to Duranty.
I trained under a pretty successful animator who helped organize the Disney strike. I never heard him talk about his own politics (why would he confide in some pimple-faced apprentice?) but you could sure see it in the films he put out. Also the studio was visited from time to time by people who had nothing to do with animation – I later recognized them as a bunch of radical leftist anti-war professors and a well-known university chaplain who had pretty much abandoned whatever pastoral obligations he had to the students, to fly around the country advocating resistance, and basking in the celebrity of all the newspaper interviews and TV chat shows.
Bunch of preening posers.
I was surprised while watching Disney’s Peter and the Wolf. (written by Russian Prokofiev in 1936 for a Young Pioneers May Day celebration; animated by Disney in 1946) The narrator has the duck trying to describe the threat to Peter. Finally he writes in the snow a 4-letter Russian (cyrillic) word in the snow and the narrator shouts “wolf!”
That seemed awfully controversial for 1950′s America. Granted, in 1945-6 I guess Russia was still an ally. Still if communist fever was what we keep hearing about, surely advertising communist ties (and rebroadcasting them to accompany Fantasia – on the 1956 release.) must raise an eyebrow.
Spartacus is one of America’s all-time great films. Seems there was a little more going on their than a discount like it was a Roger Corman film.
I understand the first sentence,Fail, but the second????
Perhaps it was late, and you were quite tired.
Do re mi mi mi:
“It’s late and I am weary
And I know I should go home
But every time I start to leave
Someone buys another round…”
Perhaps it was late, and you were quite tired.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzhNmhGIfio
I knew a guy whose father had been blacklisted. They lived in a very nice house in LA and his kids went to an expensive private school. If he had been “blacklisted” in the Soviet Union at the same time he would have been sent to a prison camp and his kids would never have gone to any school.
Amen, Brother!
Just like the people who make Ghandi out to be so brave. Brave wouldn’t have helped him one wit against actual Bad People, like Stalin or Hitler. He’d have disappeared before one single person knew who he was. It was fortunate for him that there is a phrase in English that says it all: “It’s simply not done, old boy!”
The nice people of America have the same problem. Our enemies confuse manners with softness. If they do manage to get us up off our comfy couches, they will soon learn to leave us alone, next time.
A Soviet citizen who made it onto Stalin’s blacklist would be lucky if only sent to the Gulag. Many, many people who fell afoul of the regime – often without having done anything at all – would be taken to the cellar of the Lubyanka and shot. The punishment wouldn’t stop at them either. Members of the individual’s extended family, including spouse, children, parents, siblings, nephews, nieces, in-laws, etc. would also be subject to punishment under their very own section of the criminal code for the crime of being RELATED to an Enemy of the People. Most such people were sent to the Gulag, where very large numbers perished, although children tended to be sent to orphanages, which were extremely brutish.
It continues to amaze me that the Left continues to act as if the justice system in the West was actually far more vicious and oppressive than that of the Soviet Union, when the reverse was actually true.
Hey. I discovered the website the particular in google. This is a good report. Let me be sure to save that and also go back to find out more of your respective tips. Thank you for the particular publish. I willundoubtedly give back.
During the strategic bombing campaign of Germany, 8th Army Air Force 1944. The Americans were desperate for a long range fighter escort ,to protect the bombers, against Nazi fighter planes.that we’re taking a terrible toll. .The North American P51 mustang fighter, built in Burbank Ca. Was the solution. Communist agents in the millworkers union caused a general strike at the North American plant and stopped production.at this critical time.And, many more bomber crews were lost, because of the delay in production. These communist agitators were being directed by Moscow, to do as much damage as they could ,to American war produciton in certain sectors, including ship production. Unions are the problem, and I know this from personal experience ,as I was in several different unions including the Millworkers, BLE,UTU,BMW,UTUE . Unions are all about screwing everyveryone else ,for their own gain, including their own members.
Complete rubbish re: the P51 Mustang. The Soviets were actually one of the main purchasers. They were sent to Russia in huge numbers on the Northwest Staging Route through Canada and Alaska, along with bombers, trucks, jeeps, artillery, ammunition and even tanks.
Foxtrot 2: Sure you aren’t thinking of the P-39? The USSR received very few P-51′s, mostly via the British or abandoned after ‘shuttle bombing’ missions and never used them in frontline service.