#huac witch hunt

[johngarfieldtribute]

A Golden Boy…a TRUE American Hero.

Adam McKay’s DEATH ON THE LOT podcast, episode 3 features John Garfield unjust framing by HUAC.

The guests on the podcast are ALL the people I would have selected to interview: daughter, actor and artist, Julie Garfield; authors, Robert Nott and Isaac Butler, and also a surprise—actor, Lee Grant one of the few remaining to be blacklisted in Hollywood in the 50’s. Excellent commentary by all. Good on you, Adam McKay and team!

The Red-Baiting of a Golden Boy | Episode 3 | A new generation of actors questioned the status quo; a rattled establishment fought back; dire consequences ensued. We’re talking John Garfield, Hollywood’s first method actor. LISTEN

"When I was originally requested to appear before the committee, I said that I would answer all questions, fully and without any reservations, and that is what I have done. I have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to hide. My life is an open book. I was glad to appear before you and talk with you. I am no Red. I am no pink. I am no fellow traveler. I am a Democrat by politics, a liberal by inclination, and a loyal citizen of this country by every act of my life.”

—John Garfield’s statement before House Un-American Activites Committee (HUAC) on April 23, 1951.

All Julie wanted to do was what he did best: ACT. They took everything away from him. Despite that, he held his street cred. He gave away not a single name during his testimony. No ratting on friends and associates from Julie. Badass.

The others involved: Shameful. Shocking that Julie’s life and livelihood could be toyed with so heartlessly and carelessly. This was a man who did so much for his country. How could the ruthless, power hungry politicians ignore these examples of John Garfield’s patriotism?

During WWII, he cofounded—after bringing the suggestion to Bette Davis—the Hollywood Canteen. The Canteen operated from October 3, 1942 through November 22, 1945 (Thanksgiving Day), as a club offering free of charge: food, dancing and entertainment for service personnel usually on their way overseas. Nearly four million people were served as they were serving us!

The Hollywood Victory Caravan included Eddie Dowling, President of Camp Shows, Ray Bolger, Mitzi Mayfair, Louis Polanski, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Jane Pickens, Benay Venuta, and John Garfield serving as master of ceremonies. One of the first USO tours, Flying Showboat revue toured U.S. military bases in the Caribbean. These celebrities performed under some extremely trying conditions, as the weather was brutally hot and many of the camps were not equipped to host theatrical performances. The show must go on (!) and it did.

Julie running an event at the Canteen.

Julie entertains the troops! Audience members at the Canteen filled the hall.

Here he is selling War Bonds to support WWII efforts with Humphrey Bogart in 1943. Not sure who is pictured with them.

Julie championed the story of real life marine hero, Al Schmid bringing it to the screen in PRIDE OF THE MARINES. He read about the hero in LIFE magazine and brought the idea for a film to the studio. He stayed with Sargent Schmid and his wife for a couple weeks to portray the man respectfully and honesty.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

From the shoulders of cheering, singing supporters, Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson make farewell speeches as they prepare to leave Penn Station for Washington, where they were to start serving one-year prison terms for contempt of Congress, June 9, 1950. The "Hollywood 10" had appeared before the House Un-American Affairs Committee in October, 1947, and refused to answer questions regarding their possible affiliations with the Communist Party. After they were released, they were blacklisted by the Hollywood studios.

Photo: Marty Lederhandler for the AP

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Infamy: On this day in 1938, the House Committee on Un-American Activities was established to investigate suspected communist sympathies among private citizens and organizations, leading to the blacklisting of hundreds of artists and academics. The committee became permanent in 1948 and was terminated in 1975. The HUAC is notable for causing de facto media censorship among artists suspected of having communist sympathies. Their investigations resulted in a Hollywood blacklist of over 300 actors, directors, and others. Artists whose careers were damaged by the committee included Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Alan Lomax, Paul Robeson, Aaron Copland, and Yip Harburg. When one Senator asked Robeson why he didn't remain in the Soviet Union, he replied "Because my father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you. And no Fascist-minded people will drive me from it. Is that clear?" In 1960, William Mandel, an expert on Soviet affairs who had lost his position as a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution due to anti-communist repression, was called to testify in front of the HUAC. When asked "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?", Mandel responded: "Honorable beaters of children, sadists, uniformed and in plain clothes, distinguished Dixiecrat wearing the clothing of a gentleman, eminent Republican who opposes an accommodation with the one country with which we must live at peace in order for us and all our children to survive... If you think that I am going to cooperate with this collection of Judases, of men who sit there in violation of the United States Constitution, if you think I will cooperate with you in any way, you are insane!" Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/.../House_Un-American_Activities... https://www.mtsu.edu/.../house-un-american-activities... 

[h//t Guillaume Gris]

[tuttle-did-it]

...Have people forgotten about the Communist Witch hunts in the 1950s? McCarthyism? Second Red Scare? Cold War and accusing everyone of being a Russian spy? Is this really an argument the right uses? That no one got cancelled in the 1950s? because... what?

People weren't just getting ~cancelled~, people were getting blacklisted, thrown in prison, and their lives were completely demolished for decades after.

The Civil Rights Movements in America were pushing ahead, and people were fighting back the inequalities-- Linda Brown, Thurgood Marshall, The Highlander Folk School, Brown Vs Board of Education, Rosa Parks, Emmett Till, Montgomery Bus Boycott and the white people who bombed Black churches and homes, Autherine Lucy, The Montgomery Bus Boycott, Civil Rights Act of 1957--- people were getting thrown in prison, their lives destroyed, or MURDERED.

People were not just getting ~cancelled~ in the 1950s. They were getting imprisoned and murdered.

THIS IS WHY HISTORY CLASS IS IMPORTANT, PEOPLE

Also... I don't really believe in ~cancel culture~ anyway.

Am I supposed to feel bad because Roman Polanski is having a hard time getting work?

And by the way, I don't really believe in ~Cancel Culture~ anyway. A few years after Mel Gibson was ~cancelled,~ he was getting a ten minute standing ovation, winning 30 out of 85 nominations, including several Oscar nominations. He's had steady work for all these years, only taking off a couple of years here and there-- and he's doing quite well, now.

JK Terf Rowling ~cancelled~, a billionaire, continues to sell out HP merchandise like there's no tomorrow, cheerfully and intentionally and very publicly just flouted a new anti-hate crime law with absolutely no consequence to her, and has a HP tv show coming out. She's fine. She and her billions don't care that we are furious at her for repeatedly attacking and harassing trans women.

Kevin Spacey is fine-- making millions doing movies. Brad Pitt, fine. Bill Cosby and Roseanne and Louis CK are all touring again. They're all just FINE. Kevin Hart, Mark Wahlberg, Arnie, Woody Allen, Dave Chappelle made millions off his TERF rants on Netflix. Most of the men who were named for #metoo have completely recovered.

They're all FINE.

It's not cancel culture. It's consequence. And even then, most famous people are immune. Their "cancellation" only really lasts a couple of years, so they live with their millions, take walks, have coffees, travel-- and then a few years later, their much richer and influential friends send them work or get them some positive article, and within another year or so, everything is erased.

They're mad because we want consequence to their actions.

They call it ~cAnCeL CuLTurE~ because we're finally asking for some kind of consequence when the commit a crime, harass or abuse people, or are just, in general, awful people.

Accountability ≠  Cancel Culture.

[jewish-sideblog]

"Both indigenous and colonizers" CAN PEOPLE STOP TALKING ABOUT SHIT THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND PLEASE

This wave of antisemitism and bullshit about "indigenous vs colonizer" makes me so scared as an indigenous person in the US of what will happen when Land Back movements do result in actual sovereignty restoration and then tribes do what people do and disagree over land and resources, like we were doing for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Will we be reduced down to colonizers too??

It feels like Westerners, especially USAmericans, have such a black and white idea of what it means to be indigenous and what it means to be a colonizer/settler (because those terms are always conflated) and it makes me so angry and frustrated to see people apply those standards and lines thinking not just to complex sovereignty movements in their own countries but also to incredibly complex conflicts and wars happening on the other side of the world.

The damage I've seen done to sovereignty movements here in the US alone, people going around claiming that we want all "settlers" to go back to Europe or that we're going to start massacring people, has been horrible and the fact that it's all just to justify antisemitism makes me sick.

Genuinely. They're blocked now, but that same person said something to the effect of "Would an Iranian praying in a Mosque built on the ashes of a former synagogue be decolonization?"

And that was the point at which I was like. Ok. It seems like most people genuinely don't actually know what the terms "colonization", "colonizer" and "coloniality" mean. Obviously, that wouldn't be decolonization, because the Jews never colonized Iran. Emigration and colonization aren't the same fucking thing!

I used to have so much faith in my generation. I thought we were critical thinkers, capable of flexibility and engagement with new ideas. But I'm realizing now that we're basically just rebranded boomers. Back in the day, anybody you disagreed with was labelled as a "Communist". It didn't actually fucking matter if they were communist sympathizers, Soviet sympathizers, or even if they were remotely allied with socialist ideals. You could just call them a "Communist" and be done with it, without even understanding what that term means.

It's the same shit today. Instead of a HUAC witch hunt targeting communists, it's a social witch hunt targeting "colonizers" and "Zionists". I am terrified that the moment indigenous rights movements in the Americas and Oceania start making practical strides in Land Back, regaining rightful control over the ways your own land is used, you'll all be labelled as "colonizers" or "imperialists" or whatever the bad buzz word of the month turns out to be.

People simply can't wrap their heads around the idea that indigenous decolonization doesn't have the end goal of ethnically cleansing non-native people from the Americas. And it's because they're so absorbed in colonial thinking. They can't even fucking imagine what sovereignty could look like beyond an authoritarian structure based on control and violence. It's the same with Israel and Palestine-- they think that Jewish sovereignty must look like complete Jewish control to the detriment of Arabs, and they think Palestinian sovereignty must look like total Arab control to the detriment of Jews. The idea that a shared state or a two-state solution is "racist" stems from that false dichotomy.

Establishing an ideological binary of violence that pits "indigenous" against "colonizer", "native" against "settler", and "us" against "them" with no room for cooperation or collaboration is the core of colonialism. Because the core of colonialism is the idea that only one group can have true power at a time. And that's just not the way the world has to work.

[dcdreamblog]

We all know about how the HUAC trial of the 50s was, accentually, the end of the mystery men but something that is rarely talked about is the massacre of the 70s. where doctor Trapp killed over 35 superheroes and supervillains over 2 years, witch the most famous victims being the justice experience.

Care to talk about all of those fallen heroes?

Yes, well I must admit to my professional biases first. I know that one of my bad habits, the bad habits of my entire academic focus is that it makes it seem that there were no superheroes between the retirement of the JSA and the foundation of the JLA. It's obviously not true. If you're not from the United States you'd have good cause to be offended by the implication. But there's a reason. The first reason is that because my focus is on the Golden Age it's easier for me to present historical narratives from that angle to the layman, no offense. The second...is because of what happened to that forgotten middle generation.

The tragedy of the Justice Experience.

(Image of the Justice Experience created by famous cartoonist Bruce Timm. (OOC: Gwhitmore on DA). Perhaps for a never made cartoon along the lines of his famous MAU franchise)

They appeared in the early 70s, from the left to right: Acro-Bat, Bronze Wraith, Songbird, The Manx, Mr. Action and Major Flashback. They were a very low key organization but not by choice.

The media, and especially the police and the government were still deeply anti-vigilante by nature. The records of the Experience are heavily incomplete because anything they did was poorly reported and any criminals they caught were often fully credited to the police or the FBI no matter how much sense that made or how much everyone knew it was bullshit.

And that institutional disinterest probably killed them.

A villain by the name of Dr. Trap made it his personal mission to hunt down the heroes and villains of this era, as well as their friends and family. Due to legal pressure the heroes of this era had been unable to organize in the vein of the heroes of previous and following periods and the law enforcement of the time refused to take the threat of a supervillain seriously. Treating Dr. Trap as LESS dangerous than a normal killer due to his "eccentricities"

Nearly two dozen villains of the era were killed inside their own jail cells when prison staff refused to upgrade security or even increase nightly patrols.

The only survivor of the Experience was the Bronze Wraith who would later be revealed as an alternative alias of J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter. The raid that eventually captured Trap was the only case between their dis-and-reappearance that prompted the public return of the Justice Society who were able to track down and capture Trap within HOURS using their wider organizational net and remaining government contacts, further placing a spotlight on the culpability of authorities in the massacre.

35 people lost their lives in less than 2 years, the powers that be have still yet to acknowledge the role of police disinterest in exacerbating the crime and allowing Trap free reign despite standing condemnations from both the Justice Society and the Justice League. To this day the Martian Manhunter holds a private vigil alongside those the Experience left behind, taking place not on the anniversary of their deaths but of their foundation, to further bring light to their deeds.

The Manhunter has very rarely spoken on his time with the Experience in public saying "their memories are a private matter". His is also quoted as saying "I made a vow to myself that no longer would I allow my allies to suffer in silence. I unveiled my alien visage to the world, I encouraged my teammates to operate openly and without fear. And forever more I have deeply mistrusted those who hold power in human governance."

Justice Experience Remembrance Day is July 6th.

[ilearnedthistodaysblog]

#1060 How did McCarthyism reach such a level?

How did McCarthyism reach such a level? There was a genuine fear of communism in America that McCarthy used to accelerate his rise to power. McCarthyism is named after Joseph McCarthy, who was a senator from Wisconsin until his death in 1957. McCarthyism started in 1947 and it ended in 1959, two years after McCarthy died. Joseph McCarthy didn’t jump on the bandwagon until 1950, so the era known as McCarthyism didn’t actually have McCarthy’s involvement until 1950. What was McCarthyism? It was a communist witch hunt in which Senator Joseph McCarthy had carte blanche to summon government officials, academics, actors, and many other people in public positions, before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). McCarthy ended up in charge of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations and he was responsible for investigating suspected communists. At these hearings, there was often no evidence more than accusations and the accused people were not allowed attorneys or to be able to cross-examine the accuser. They had an impossible task in defending themselves and many were found guilty of being communist. Blacklists sprang up, the Hollywood blacklist is probably the most famous, and people on the list could not find work in that industry. McCarthyism started before McCarthy, when President Truman issued a law in 1947 that demanded federal employees were checked for “loyalty” and that they would be dismissed if they were found to be disloyal to the United States government. The law didn’t mention communism. This seems strange, but the global situation in 1947 seemed very unstable. The latter part of World War 2 had seen the USSR rise as a global superpower. The USSR had taken over most of eastern Europe and was becoming a huge country with enormous resources. They were working on a nuclear bomb, that they would successfully test in 1949. A war in Korea was looking more likely and it appeared that the USA and the USSR would be on opposite sides of it. There was great fear of the USSR in America and that was felt more generally as a fear of communism. In 1950, Joseph McCarthy gave a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia. He was talking to the Republican Women’s Club and, amongst other things, he talked about the “Enemies Within”. He held up a piece of paper that he said had the names of 205 communists currently working in the US State Department. A speech like that would probably have disappeared, but, because of the fear of communism, it was picked up by the press and became huge. McCarthy, being a politician, realized he was onto a good thing and doubled down on his claims. A month later, the Washington Post came up with the name McCarthyism, but they meant it as a derogatory term. McCarthy didn’t see it that way and he embraced it. McCarthy had no actual proof against the people he accused, so he widened his list of targets to include homosexuals. He said that they were at risk of blackmail because they would want to keep their sexual orientation a secret. He was disliked amongst other senators, but his “war” on communism and homosexuals appealed to the public. After a couple of years, it reached the point where people didn’t want to confront him in case they ended up being accused.    In 1952, Eisenhower became president. He was a strong person, but he didn’t appear to want to confront McCarthy either. Probably, McCarthy had too much public opinion behind him and Eisenhower, as a new president, didn’t feel he had the confidence to go up against McCarthy. Unchecked, McCarthyism slowly got worse. However, Eisenhower didn’t agree with McCarthy’s methods and he didn’t particularly like McCarthy. It seems that nobody really liked McCarthy. Eisenhower started to make moves behind the scenes to cut McCarthy off. Finally, in May of 1954, Eisenhower used his executive power to curtail McCarthy. As head of his committee, McCarthy had the power to subpoena people and they had no choice but to appear. Eisenhower used his executive privilege to say that all federal and executive employees could ignore any subpoena from McCarthy. In one foul swoop, McCarthyism was finished. Being unable to call anymore witnesses, there was nothing McCarthy could do. And, no longer being afraid of him, the other senators moved to condemn him in the senate. After this, McCarthy no longer had any real power and he served out his last two years as a senator without being able to influence anybody and with a ruined public image. He carried on talking about communism, but he started to drink more, and he died 3 years after Eisenhower ended his reign of terror. His name lives on as McCarthyism, but it only has negative connotations. And this is what I learned today. Image By United States Senate - http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/graphic/xlarge/Welch_McCarthy.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27839902 Sources https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/educational-resources/age-of-eisenhower/mcarthyism-red-scare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism https://billofrightsinstitute.org/activities/joseph-mccarthy-and-irresponsibility-narrative Read the full article

[kvetchlandia]

William Gottlieb     Sarah Vaughan Performing at Café Society, West Village, New York City     1946

Barney Josephson opened Café Society at Sheridan Square in the West Village in 1938.  When he opened the club, a small, basement room, he wanted it to be fully integrated, both on stage and in the audience.  In 1938, that was unheard of in the United States, even in as cosmopolitan and sophisticated a city as New York.  Josephson had gotten the idea while visiting Paris and seeing the integrated jazz clubs that were flourishing there.  He chose the name “Café Society” to mock the snooty Clare Booth Luce, who wrote puff pieces about the habitués of the upscale nightclubs uptown, which she called “cafe society.”  Josephson’s slogan for Café Society was “The Wrong Place to the Right People.”  He booked many of the great jazz and blues acts of his era, as well as comedians, and he ensured that black customers were as welcome as whites.  Among the acts featured at Café Society were Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Big Joe Turner, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Josh White, Teddy Wilson, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Hazel Scott, May Lou Williams, Count Basie, Lester Young, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy and many others.  It was at Café Society that Abel Meeropol showed his poem abut the lynching of Black people, “Strange Fruit,” to Josephson, who had him show it to Billie Holiday.  It became a part of her set for the rest of her life.  Josephson insisted she use the song as the last piece of her set, so people would be left thinking about its powerful lyrics.  The club also was a performance place for comedians, most of whom were leftists and did political humor, like Jack Gilford, Zero Mostel, Imogene Coca and a troupe called “The Revuers” that featured Betty Comden, Adolph Green and a young Judy Tuvim, soon to become known as Judy Holliday.

In 1947, the anti-communist witch hunt was in full swing.  The progressive politics of Café Society, its integrated scene and the artists who worked there all came to the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Barney Josephson’s brother, Leon, one of the founders of Café Society although not actively involved in running it, was a long time member of the Communist Party as well as being the attorney for his brother and the club, was summonsed to appear before HUAC.  He was an unfriendly witness, who refused to name names or to answer questions.  He was convicted of Contempt of Congress and spent a year in jail.  After his conviction, reactionary columnists like Walter Winchell began attacking Barney Josephson and Café Society as a notorious nest of communists.  Customers rapidly fell away and within a year, Barney Jospehson had to close the club.  

Most of the artists who performed there remembered there remembered Café Society fondly.   John Chilton, author of “Billie’s Blues,” wrote, “Café Society was probably the happiest booking of Billie’s life. It did wonders for her confidence onstage, enabling her to project a more sophisticated act. Barney Josephson encouraged and advised Billie; later he was to do the same thing for Lena Horne.”  Horne said Café Society was “the sweetest job I ever got in my life.”

[librawritesstuff]

Here in America review: Morning Star UK

“WHY should I see this play? And why now?” These are common questions asked by discerning audiences.

David Edgar’s new play at the Orange Tree answers with its title, for this is a play exemplifying contemporary America.

Set in the 1950s amid the manic and self-destructive patriotism of the McCarthy era, the drama highlights the world we know today. For when, in the play, a deluded Joe McCarthy embarks on now legendary anti-communist witch-hunts, it’s like a modern-day Donald Trump, with almost the same sloganeering, calling on his followers to “make America great again.” Both confuse truth with myth, trade loyalty with wholesale betrayal, and systematically trash all nobler aspirations of the American dream.

The play is built around two real-life protagonists: iconic theatre and film director Elia Kazan and playwright Arthur Miller — both of whom fell foul of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) as it intoned its deeply threatening question: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

Kazan and Miller — close friends and co-creators of some of the most brilliant plays and films of the era — find themselves in deep conflict, as the former betrays all around him to save his career, while the latter, boasting integrity and artistic freedom, challenges him on the meaning of loyalty and the dichotomy between public commitment and private impulse.

It’s good to see the small Orange Tree bravely engaging with a playwright of this calibre and with so important a theme. And much of director James Dacre’s production rises to the challenge.

The actors, too, work hard to capture the complexity and charisma of these real demigods. Michael Aloni gives us a strong and incisive Miller with a winning and quizzical air, and Shaun Evans (of TV Endeavour fame) is impeccable as Kazan. But you can’t help feeling that a personal, behind-the-scenes encounter with the real men would have been more extraordinary and that, in the end, this is more style and debate than an inhabiting of souls.

Faye Castelow plays Kazan’s articulate wife, Day, with intelligence, while Jasmine Blackborow excels as the other woman, Miss Bauer. The names of all the characters, as listed in the programme, seem to pretend an easy familiarity (Miller is called Art and Kazan Gadg) though they never really get behind the public personae we all know. And Miss Bauer is, of course, none other than Marilyn Monroe who provided extra-marital diversion for Kazan and went on to marry Miller. From the moment Blackborow’s Monroe enters, she seems surrounded by a golden glow that shimmers from her immaculate blonde hair, almost mythical curves and translucent skin. And she is vocal with her men.

The women here, though — for all their articulacy — are devices, while their men (white and empowered) cheat casually on their wives, savour their unquestioned dominion and generally assume ascendancy. We’ve seen this all before.

Nevertheless, Edgar brings us a play that is erudite, multi-faceted, philosophically stimulating and crammed with style. Not new but punching high.

[byneddiedingo]

John Garfield in Body and Soul (Robert Rossen, 1947)

Cast: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere, William Conrad, Joseph Pevney, Lloyd Gough, Canada Lee, Art Smith. Screenplay: Abraham Polonsky. Cinematography: James Wong Howe. Art direction: Nathan Juran. Film editing: Robert Parrish. Music: Hugo Friedhofer. 

Body and Soul is a well-made boxing picture, but it also has a historical significance as the nexus of some major careers damaged by the anti-communist hysteria that gripped the United States in the years that followed its release. After its director, Robert Rossen, pleaded the fifth amendment at his hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951, he was blacklisted in Hollywood. The same fate befell screenwriter Abraham Polonsky after his refusal to testify before HUAC. The star, John Garfield, testified that he knew nothing about communist activity in Hollywood, but studios refused to hire him; he made his last film in 1951 and died of a heart attack the following year, only 39. Cast members Anne Revere, Lloyd Gough, Canada Lee, and Art Smith were also victims of the blacklist. The film stands as an example of the folly of HUAC witch-hunting: With all the reds and pinkos involved in its production, you might expect it to be pure propaganda, but the only leftist message it communicates is about the danger of greed. Today the only viewers who may find Body and Soul subversively anti-capitalist are those who subscribe to the "greed is good" credo enunciated by Michael Douglas's Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987). Garfield plays an ambitious young boxer named Charley* Davis who falls prey to racketeers who manipulate his career, despite the warnings of his mother (Revere), his best friend, Shorty (Joseph Pevney), and his girlfriend, Peg (Lilli Palmer). The fight sequences, shot by James Wong Howe and edited by Francis Lyon and Robert Parrish, were groundbreaking in their realistic violence, winning Oscars for Lyon and Parrish. Howe, who is said to have worn rollerskates and used a hand-held camera to film the fights, was curiously unnominated, but nominations also went to Garfield and Polonsky. Palmer, unable to conceal her German accent or to eliminate traces of the sophisticated roles she usually played, is miscast as Charley's artist girlfriend. The script makes a half-hearted attempt to explain away the accent but mostly ignores it. One thing of note: The Black boxer played by Lee calls Garfield's character by his first name, Charley, in their scenes together. The usual racial protocol was for African-American characters to call white ones "Mr." -- "Mr. Charley" or "Mr. Davis" -- the way Dooley Wilson's Sam always refers to Bogart's character as "Mr. Rick" in Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1943). It's the earliest example of an assumed equality that I can recall in a Hollywood movie. *A nitpicky note: The filmmakers never decided whether it was spelled "Charley" or "Charlie." It appears both ways on the posters advertising his fights, but it's "Charlie" in the inscription on a gift he gives Peg and in her letter addressed to him. I'm going with the way IMDb lists it.

[spellbook-gayboy]

[CAPE-WATCH HISTORICAL ARCHIVE]: The House Declares War on The Masked Men! HUAC vs the Guardians of the Globe (08/17/1953)

———

This past week, Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI), in a televised address to the United States Congress and the House of Representatives, announced that his tireless crusade against the threat of Communist infiltration in American society would be taking on a new dimension: he directed that that a subsection of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) will turn their efforts towards investigating the many costumed adventurers that reside within the United States, citing that the use of ‘secret identities’ by these masked vigilantes could be a potential mechanism for concealing potential Communist sympathies as well as other forms of deviant behaviour. His first target? The Guardians of the Globe, the group of adventurers often hailed as ‘the world’s greatest superheroes’.

Senator McCarthy’s tirade against suspected Soviet spies and Communist saboteurs is certainly nothing new for the American people. For the past few years, hundreds of stories have flooded the airwaves, with many such as teacher, scientists, actors and even average workers experiencing loss of employment, harassment and even imprisonment over accusations that they harbour affiliations with state agencies and officials in the Soviet Union and Maoist China. In some cases, the mere act of receiving a subpoena from HUAC has resulted in people losing their jobs and their families. Several famous figures such as Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith and more have also reported experiencing persecution stemming from HUAC’s scrutiny. Needless to say, public opinion on the investigations has been incredibly divided. Political figures both Democrat and Republican have condemned the actions of McCarthy as unconstitutional and undemocratic, and President Truman himself even attempted to presidentially veto several bills, and upon leaving office earlier this year, claimed that McCarthyism was ‘the corruption of truth, the abandonment of the due process of the law. It is the use of the big lie and the unfounded accusation against any citizen in the name of Americanism or security. It is the rise to power of the demagogue who lives on untruth; it is the spreading of fear and the destruction of faith in every level in society.’

It should come as no surprise, then, that this announcement has drawn much criticism from several parties that favour the costumed adventurers. Many officials in the armed forces, some of whom served alongside these heroes in the not-too-distant fight against the tyrannies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, said that ‘the Senate’s investigations will do far more harm than good to national security, especially when they target the first responders to any American crisis.’ A particular voice among these dissenters is the soldier-turned-superhero Frontline, who mocked the Senator by referring to him as ‘Tail-Gunner Joe’, an apparent reference to McCarthy’s dubious claims of battlefield heroism during the Second World War.

In his announcement, Senator McCarthy outlined two main causes for concern within the Guardians of the Globe that he claims necessitated the investigation: firstly, that the Guardians refused to participate in the recently ended Korean War, citing ‘a new philosophy on superheroics that demands a detachment from geopolitical conflicts’, as well as the membership of the Russian-born superhero Red Rush, who McCarthy stated was their ‘prime suspect in the proliferation of Communist ideals in the superhero community’. Already, several members of the Guardians have denounced this new investigation as nothing short of an authoritarian witch hunt, designed to impede or completely halt their attempts at effecting positive social changes, such as racial equality and equality for women, increased welfare support for the poor and destitute, and an end to the criminalisation of homosexual behaviour. Perhaps the most vocal critic of McCarthy’s new investigation was the Jamaican-born member of the Guardians, Soprano, who gave this rather scathing indictment in her most recent address at the headquarters the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Baltimore:

‘This ‘investigation’ by Senator Joseph McCarthy claims to be for the benefit of all Americans, to safeguard the citizens of this nation. But we know better. We, who have bared the brunt of a racist government’s intolerance know the truth of the matter; it is just one more in a long line of attacks against the marginalised, against the Black and the homosexual, against the atheist and the non-Christian, against the left-leaning and the feminist. It is the product of centuries of prejudice and hatred for all of us who do not fit the ideal model of White Christian America. I will not let myself be brought low by such an attack. I will denounce this hateful endeavour at every turn, on both the street and the in the halls of power. The government targets me not for my views or my opinions, but for the colour of my skin and for the empowerment I seek for all Black women. They shall not stop me, nor will they ever stop anyone with the courage to speak out for their people.’

The investigation is purported to be already underway, with multiple investigators probing the personal lives of the Guardians of the Globe for any suspected subversive affiliations, before each member will be called in front of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the House of Representatives to give their testimony on the collected evidence. After this, the House Judiciary Committee will reach a verdict, and if necessary, hand down a sentence to the appropriate member. Regardless of verdict, some sources speculate that if successful against the Guardians, HUAC will then expand to investigate all heroes residing within the relevant territories of the United States. However, only time will tell how this investigation will turn out, and if it will prove fruitful. 

[johngarfieldtribute]

“We're talking John Garfield, Hollywood's first method actor. Learn more about…”

Where are they doing this talking about Julie? On the podcast, DEATH ON THE LOT, hosted by Adam McKay (The Big Short, Don’t Look Up, Vice, Succession).

The first episode featured Isaac Butler author of “The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act.” Butler spoke about Julie and the Hollywood studio system and I’m sure he’ll be on for another episode.

I appreciate how Butler constantly puts Julie’s name out there recognizing his film contributions and how he was the earliest to successfully bring Method acting to Hollywood. Here’s Butler’s recent insightful article about Julie.

Back to McKay’s podcast which will include bits about Julie. Here’s a content description: “This season, we're getting into 1950s Hollywood, ground zero for a cultural transformation that would upend every aspect of Americans' lives. A movie theater in every city, a TV in every living room, and a Post-war America determined to be happy at any cost. Also during this period….. a slew of untimely Hollywood deaths.

The rules of the road for the next seventy years were being written in real-time, and not everyone would make it out alive. This is the story of how Hollywood sold us on a new American Dream, and left a few unlucky stars holding the bag.”

Read more about the Podcast in VARIETY and INDIE WIRE.

[wutbju]

It is Holy Week. It's time to remember the sins that put Jesus on the cross.

Just before Bob Jones' infamous 1960 sermon, "Is Segregation Scriptural?" the BJU Alumni Association ...

called for an investigation of the National Council of Churches by the House of un-American Activities Committee.

They went on to praise BJU for "providing

aggressive, uncompromising, consistent Christian leadership in a day of religious and moral confusion.

The Alumni Association officers were Daniel Krusich, Mrs. G. G. Jackson (Larry Jackson's mother), Robert Pratt, and Dale King. Dwight Gustafson presided over the meeting.

Why did BJU think that the NCC deserved to be the object of a HUAC witch hunt? A month earlier the Air Force released a new manual (Student Text NR. 45-0050, INCR.V, Vol. 7, a 250-page guide for reserve noncoms, from the manual writing section at the Air Force's Lackland Military Training Center in San Antonio) which stated:

Communists and Communist fellow travelers have successfully infiltrated into our churches … It is known that even the pastors of certain of our churches are card-carrying Communists.... The National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. officially sponsored the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

The genius who slipped that into a military manual was Billy James Hargis trained Oklahoman, Homer H. Hyde.

Why is this important? Why is this a sin?

Because BJU wielded its small influence not for the Gospel but for a mere reactionary conspiracy theory which was nothing more than cunning projection from a sexual predator.

We have to stop that. We're still doing that. See God & Country for proof.

[qu-film-history-to-1968]

How Movies and America Changed Post 1948

  Hollywood and the US after 1948 has a lot of interesting history behind it. Within the readings for this week there was a lot of information that I had never heard of before that focused around this time period. In his article, THE FILMS OF BILLY WILDER, Stephen Farber wrote about filmmaker Billy Wilder and his dilemma in making films, which is described as, “The question is whether you have a right to get people into the theater, and they expect a cocktail and they get a shot of acid. People don't want to hear that they stink” (1). He was trapped in making what the people wanted to see, and in many ways that still applies today as the most successful films are limited by the desire to appeal to as many people as possible. 

In their article, The Post-World War II Suburb in the United States, Seth Browner writes about the origins of the suburb in America. The creation of the suburb had a few patterns form with it, as Browner writes, “One distinction is the “low-density pattern” of settlement. The open land on which suburban residences were developed provided for reduced numbers of humans per square mile; this fact is a marked contrast from urban settlement tendencies” (3). This is an interesting change in the dynamic of living in America as it entirely changed the number of people one would be living around.

In their article, Widescreen, Paul Schrader and Robert Brink write about the introduction of widescreen to movies. This change would completely change how movies would be formatted in the future. The reason this change was made is because, “WÍDESCREEN IS JUST COMMON SENSE. IT'S HOW WE SEE THE WORLD. OUR EYES sit side by side, not stacked on top of each other. And we tilt up and down much more than we pan left or right. So a widescreen presentation in film is a more accurate representation of the world as we see it” (1). This was something I had never thought about before but it makes sense. This change made films more pleasant to watch, and was an important step in the development of film.

In their article, Hollywood's Conversion to Color: The Technological, Economic and Aesthetic Factors, Gorham A. Kindem writes about how movies began to use color. One interesting hiccup in the production of color films was actually the introduction of sound, “Hollywood's conversion to sound had impeded the proliferation of nonphotographic* color processes” (3). With films being a medium with so many different aspects, it’s interesting to hear how the steps to getting us where we are today weren’t linear, but instead often taken at the same time.

In their article, Witchcraft, Paul Thomas writes about the Hollywood blacklist. This presented a lot of problems with creative freedom with making films at this time as Thomas writes, “The studio heads could either resist HUAC and refuse to collaborate with people whose interference they resented—in which case they would risk accusations of disloyalty and “anti-Americanism”; or they could aid and abet HUAC and collaborate in a witch hunt.” (2). This essentially forced major studios to comply and blacklist certain films and people from ever working with them. The time after 1948 provided not only a lot of changes to America but also Hollywood as well.

Michael Jones

[mitchipedia]

"The African Queen" restored Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn and John Huston's public images after speaking out against the House Un-American Activities Committee

You Must Remember This podcast

[archivistic]

What could be better on a Friday afternoon than a trip down government publication memory lane? If you want me to look up something for you, lemme know.

[Image of book title page reading “Guide to Subversive Organizations and Publications (And Appendix) Revised. May 14, 1951. Prepared and released by the Committee on Un-American Activities, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington DC]