Film: One of the Hollywood Ten

by Vernon Abeysekera

With little advance information Foxtel's Showtime Channel recently screened 
a feature film called One of the Hollywood Ten. An independent 
production written and directed by Karl Francis, One of the Hollywood Ten 
was released to theatres in New York at the beginning of 2002.

The Ten did not refer to film stars who glitter from time to time in 
the Hollywood firmament, but to an unhappy group of writers and directors.

A few months after the end of World War II a disease spread across the USA 
— a pathological fear of Communism and its influence on people.

It started with attacks on Reds in trade unions but quickly spread to 
Hollywood. The studio chiefs were eager to destroy the left-wing unions in 
their industry and (with the exception of certain individualists like Harry 
Cohn at Columbia) gleefully co-operated with the witch-hunt.

The FBI and die-hard politicians of Senator Joseph McCarthy's ilk believed 
that "the reds under the beds" in Hollywood could subtly or otherwise 
spread their beliefs across the country through the medium of their films.

There were indeed leftists in the film industry, but their impact on film 
content was very limited, as the big studios were totally controlled by 
conservatives like Mayer and Warner.

The instrument chosen to "investigate" the Reds in Hollywood was the House 
Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC).

Formerly known as the Dies Committee, it had been expected to disappear 
from the American scene with the retirement at the end of 1944 of its 
Chairman Martin Dies.

But, in a surprise legislative move in January 1945, even as the Soviet 
army was fighting its way into Berlin, the notoriously anti-Soviet 
Committee was made permanent.

By 1947, in the post-war climate of "rolling back Communism", HUAC had been 
given some extraordinary additional functions, far beyond those of 
investigation. They were prosecutors and to all practical purposes judges 
as well.

It is a moot point how far the investigators would have proceeded in their 
work without the aid of right-wing informers within the film industry 
itself — big film names like Gary Cooper and Ronald Reagan, who was 
already grooming himself for more sinister jobs in later years.

Refreshingly, One Of The Hollywood Ten boldly criticises film studios such 
as Warner Brothers for their complicity in this dark period in American 
history.

The dice were heavily loaded against the unfortunate people who were hauled 
before HUAC.

If they refused to answer the questions put to them or to name anybody they 
believed to be a member of the Communist Party, they were liable to be 
jailed for contempt of the Congress.

Most of the witnesses took cover under the First Amendment, which 
guaranteed the privacy of an individual's political beliefs.

The defences put forward by them, however, proved of little avail. In the 
upshot ten men were sent to jail — among them Edward Dmytryk, the director 
(who later recanted and "named names"), and Ring Lardner Jnr. and John 
Howard Lawson, the script-writers.

Another of the victims was the director Herbert Biberman — founder of the 
pre-war Hollywood Anti-Nazi League. A social reformer, a man of progressive 
ideas, Biberman had been a leading stage director for New York's Theatre 
Guild before coming to Hollywood.

There he was restricted to making B-budget supporting features like Meet 
Nero Wolfe and King of Chinatown, with the exception of the anti-fascist 
Master Race which he wrote and directed in 1942.

The FBI branded him a subversive and hounded him till they brought him 
before the Committee.

He was jailed along with the other nine. The FBI continued to persecute 
them after their release.

He and other Leftists (or suspected Leftists) were placed on a Black List.

Studio doors were shut in his face and all avenues of creative employment 
were refused him. The rest of his life was a search for inspiration 
wherever he could find it.

He found some of it when he and other black-listed filmmakers travelled to 
the southern state of New Mexico, where they made a film about striking 
Mexican-American miners, the now famous Salt of the Earth.

Biberman's wife Gale Sondergaard, the actress, shared her husband's 
convictions and suffered for them.

She had won an Oscar in 1936 as Best Supporting Actress for her part in 
Anthony Adverse, but she was now blacklisted and could not get back 
to films again for about 20 years. (Most film enthusiasts will remember her 
best for the cameo part she played in The Letter.)

Biberman and his wife in One of the Hollywood Ten are played by Jeff 
Goldblum and Greta Scacchi. Both of them put in solid, convincing 
performances.

A second wave of anti-Communist hysteria swept across the country in the 
early '50s.

Over 100 witnesses were summoned before the Investigating Committee, but 
nobody was jailed. The Black List, however, was now considerably enlarged 
and several careers were ruined.

The McCarthy witch hunt threw up some alarming aspects of the psyche of the 
American ruling class — intolerance, arrogance and hypocrisy.

They have continued over the years and have become more than ever dangerous 
when they threaten the security of the world.