The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist

Seventy-Five Years Later

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by Larry Ceplair

Type

Studies

Subject

History of Cinema

Keywords

blacklist, history of cinema, politics, ideology

Publishing date

2022

Publisher

University Press of Kentucky

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 246 pages
6 ¼ x 9 inches (16 x 23 cm)

ISBN

978-0-8131-9588-9

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Book Presentation:
Seventy-five years ago, the Hollywood blacklist ruined lives, stifled creativity, and sent waves of proscription and censorship throughout United States culture. When the Hollywood Ten refused to answer the questions of the House Committee on Un-American Activities about their membership in the Communist Party, they were sentenced to prison, the five who were under contract were fired by their studios, and all were blacklisted from reemployment until they "purged themselves of their communist taint." By the 1950s, this blacklist publicly stigmatized nearly three hundred other Americans in the entertainment industry who invoked the First and Fifth Amendments in their refusal to apologize for their Communist ties or provide the names of other members. Dozens of others were graylisted as the result of rumors.
The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist: Seventy-Five Years Later offers new insights on the origins of the blacklist, the characteristics of those blacklisted, and the probability of future proscriptions of the blacklist type. Author Larry Ceplair draws on previously published work while introducing new material to vigorously recount the events that took place between the US government, Hollywood unions, and motion picture studios. Ceplair thoroughly examines the role of Jewish identity in many anti-communist efforts—a concept that has never been fully examined by scholars—and analyzes the actions of subpoenaed witnesses who were forced to choose between cooperating with the House Committee or joining the blacklist. This fascinating book is an illuminating examination of a dark period in American history and the fragility of our rights to free speech and due process.

About the Author:
Larry Ceplair is the author or coauthor of numerous books, including Anti-Communism in Twentieth-Century America: A Critical History, Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical, and The Marxist and the Movies: A Biography of Paul Jarrico. He is professor emeritus of history at Santa Monica College, California.

Press Reviews:
An inspired collection by the dean of Hollywood blacklist studies. After all this time, the key issues of politics and culture refuse to go away. Larry Ceplair got there first and has a lot to tell us about US society and its controversial films. -Paul Buhle, retired senior lecturer at Brown University and coauthor of Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist and Radical Hollywood: The Untold Story Behind America's Favorite Movies

Perhaps only the artists subpoenaed by the House Committee on un-American Activities can claim a deeper understanding of the Hollywood blacklist than the scholar and cultural critic Larry Ceplair, whose work on that scoundrel time has served as a touchstone for generations of historians of the American Cold War on entertainment. Impeccably researched, always illuminating, this invaluable collection of essays showcases his most recent research and ruminations on a period whose shadow has never really receded and whose lessons, alas, remain as timely as ever. -Thomas Doherty, professor of American studies at Brandeis University and author of Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist

A renowned authority on the Hollywood blacklist, Larry Ceplair brings decades of research and a typically fresh and independent eye to this new overview and analysis. The book offers vivid history and engaged but nuanced consideration of the moral and political issues involved, expert discussion of lives that were changed forever (including that of Dashiell Hammett), and insights on the phenomenon's continuing relevance given today's entertainment industry practice and constitutional and cultural divides. -Brian Neve, author of The Many Lives of Cy Endfield: Film Noir, the Blacklist, and Zulu

If you want to truly understand one of the darkest periods in Hollywood history, a time that defined an entire industry and destroyed many lives, Larry Ceplair's The Hollywood Motion Picture Blacklist is more than worth the time. -ICG Magazine

See the publisher website: University Press of Kentucky