Hollywood Ten

Hollywood Ten. The Hollywood Ten were a group of screenwriters, directors, and producers in the American film industry who were cited for contempt of Congress in 1947 after refusing to answer questions from the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) regarding their alleged involvement with the Communist Party USA. Their stand, based on First Amendment protections, led to their imprisonment and became a defining moment that initiated the broader Hollywood blacklist. The group's members, including figures like Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson, were prominent figures in Hollywood known for their work on films that often contained social and political themes.

Background and context

In the years following World War II, heightened tensions of the Cold War and fears of communist infiltration fueled a domestic political climate of suspicion in the United States. The House Un-American Activities Committee, which had investigated Nazi propaganda in the 1930s, turned its focus to alleged communist influence in American institutions, including the motion picture industry. This period, often called the Second Red Scare, was influenced by events like the Iron Curtain speech by Winston Churchill and the onset of the Truman Doctrine. Industry figures like Jack Warner of Warner Bros. and Walt Disney provided cooperative testimony to HUAC, while organizations such as the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, founded by Sam Wood and including members like Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, actively supported the investigations. The committee operated with the support of figures like J. Parnell Thomas and under the broader political shadow of Joseph McCarthy.

The Hollywood Ten and their testimony

In October 1947, HUAC, chaired by J. Parnell Thomas, subpoenaed numerous figures from Hollywood, including the ten who would become known as the Hollywood Ten. The group consisted of screenwriters Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, and Dalton Trumbo; directors Edward Dmytryk and Herbert Biberman; and producer Adrian Scott. When called to testify, they refused to answer the question "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?", asserting their rights under the First Amendment rather than the Fifth Amendment. Their strategy was coordinated with support from the Committee for the First Amendment, which included celebrities like Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and John Huston. Despite this, the United States House of Representatives voted to cite them for contempt of Congress.

Aftermath and blacklisting

Following the contempt citations, the ten were tried in federal court in Washington, D.C. and subsequently convicted. All received prison sentences of six months to a year, with John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo serving time at the Federal Correctional Institution, Texarkana. In response to the hearings, executives of major studios convened at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and issued the Waldorf Statement, which effectively instituted an industry-wide blacklist, refusing to employ anyone deemed a communist or who failed to cooperate with HUAC. This led to the widespread firing and professional exile of the ten and hundreds of others, including figures like Paul Jarrico and Lillian Hellman. Some, like Edward Dmytryk, later cooperated with the committee in a second hearing, while others wrote under pseudonyms; Dalton Trumbo famously won an Academy Award for *The Brave One* under the name Robert Rich.

Legacy and historical reassessment

The legacy of the Hollywood Ten is complex and remains a significant subject of historical and cultural analysis. They are often viewed as early victims of McCarthyism and symbols of resistance to political repression, a perspective explored in films like *The Front* and *Trumbo*. Their cases also prompted important legal debates about the limits of the First Amendment versus congressional investigative power, later addressed in Supreme Court rulings like Watkins v. United States. The blacklist era began to crumble in the 1960s, notably when Otto Preminger publicly credited Dalton Trumbo for the screenplay of *Exodus* and Kirk Douglas did the same for *Spartacus*. Historical reassessment has examined the nuances of their political commitments, their work in social realism, and the lasting impact of the blacklist on American cinema, with institutions like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Writers Guild of America later making efforts to restore proper credit to their work.

Category:20th-century American film people Category:Cold War history of the United States Category:Political repression in the United States