Book Review--High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic

High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
Glenn Frankel
Bloomsbury USA, 2017

It's hard to believe, but during its production the classic Academy Award-winning western High Noon (1952) was not expected to attract much more attention and acclaim than a standard 'B' picture. It had a low budget, brief production schedule, and had become almost an afterthought to producer Stanley Kramer, who was occupied with a new production deal he had made with Columbia Studios. In a new book, Glenn Frankel describes the major players in the film's creation, its production, and the way the blacklist affected the tone of the final product and the lives of its creators.

Cooper and Kelly in High Noon

All the major players of the film are profiled, with enough backstory to explain how they came to be on an isolated western film location in the early fifties. It's an interesting juxtaposition of personalities and careers, from the seasoned Montana cowboy and established movie star Gary Cooper to the less assured Philadelphia socialite Grace Kelly in her first major role. You also get a sense of the inner workings of the production company that Stanley Kramer ran with the film's screenwriter Carl Foreman, and the challenges of pulling together a strong cast and crew for a low-budget film.

These personal histories are alternated with stories of the film's production and the simultaneous black list drama. Those story lines intertwined when former Communist Foreman's script started to reflect the increasing pressure he felt from HUAC as he continued to refuse to name names or confirm his political beliefs. A standard story of a honorable lawman became a portrait of his own frustrations. The writer's isolation ultimately closely mirrors that of Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper), who becomes similarly disillusioned when even the people he felt he could rely upon the most abandon him. Ironically, the initially firmly loyal Cooper would be one of the men to step back in his support of Foreman, though he was essentially forced to do so.

Screenwriter Carl Foreman in 1961

I've read a lot about the Hollywood blacklist, and while I've found the more sweeping histories of this time fascinating, I've learned that the more personal the stories are, the better I understand the effect of that time on Hollywood. Through Foreman's fear, desperate strategizing, and depression, the damage of the blacklist can be understood with excruciating clarity. It is possible to understand how many in the movie industry acted in ways that seem cowardly to modern eyes, and even to contemporaries at the time, but who were too focused on survival to consider the consequences of naming names and caving to HUAC.

Foreman is one of the men who didn't cave and he never stopped feeling angry about being punished for it. Frankel shows how the screenwriter's defiance of committee pressures put stress on his career and personal life, even destroying his marriage. While his is a bleak story, it is made clear that he comes out ahead of many of his colleagues simply because his conscience allowed him to sleep at night. The brash, but brilliant writer becomes the heart of the story, sometimes unsympathetic, but always worth rooting for.

This is an effective account of the production of High Noon and the tense atmosphere surrounding it, expertly mixing politics and entertainment until it is evident that there is often very little difference between the two.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury USA for providing a copy of the book for review.

Book Review--Joseph Mankiewicz, Cecil B. DeMille and a Legendary Directors Guild Meeting

Hollywood Divided: The 1950s Screen Directors Guild Meeting and the Impact of the Blacklist
Kevin Brianton
University Press of Kentucky, 2016

On October 22, 1950, over 500 members of the Screen Directors Guild met late into the night at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was a special meeting, called to discuss Cecil B. DeMille's rather sneaky attempt to recall Joseph Mankiewicz as the group's president, due to the director's opposition to an anti-communist loyalty oath, while he was vacationing in France. This tension-filled gathering, dominated by the most powerful directors in Hollywood, led to dramatic changes for the Guild, in addition to decades of exaggerations and fabrications about the events of that night.

In the short but substantial Hollywood Divided, Brianton describes this HUAC-era conflict in detail, picking apart each rumor to find the truth about an event that would shake up the guild's board, and revealing how it would affect the film industry. He describes the events that lead to the meeting, including a brief background of HUAC and the black and gray lists enforced by the studios that affected many filmmakers. He describes the main players, focusing Mankiewicz and DeMille, digging into their histories and describing their reputations, so that the events of October 22 can be better understood.

Hollywood Divided is a window into the intellects of the men whose works drove Hollywood (Ida Lupino, the only female director present that evening at least gets a hat tip) and how they related to each other. While directors like George Stevens, John Huston and Rouben Mamoulian showed their disapproval of DeMille with varying degrees of passion, John Ford commanded the room at a key moment to defend C.B., claiming he didn't like him, but that there should in essence be a civil resolution to the conflict. This uneasy brew of anger, fear and adherence to gentlemanly codes of conduct seems to speak to the changes to come in Hollywood and American society at large; the young directors had a different way of approaching the issue than more established filmmakers like Ford.

While I have some interest in the politics of the HUAC era, I had my reservations about reading this book. As a person who avoids meetings at all costs, how fascinating could it be to read a book about one? But to be serious, Brianton's account of the night of October 22 is as riveting as a big screen thriller. With several of the best minds of Hollywood all speaking passionately about the matter at hand, it should be no surprise that the whole thing played like a drama, and Brianton captures all the details that made the evening fascinating, frustrating and consistently surprising. The best section of the book describes the event in great detail, capturing the mood of the night and providing insight into the words of each speaker.

It's an interesting window into mid-century politics in Hollywood and the inner workings of the boy's club that shaped American cinema during the studio age.

Many thanks to University Press of Kentucky for providing a copy of the book for review.

Book Review--Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical

Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical
Larry Ceplair and Christopher Trumbo
University Press of Kentucky, 2015

Screenwriter and novelist Dalton Trumbo is most famous for the eleven years he spent on an unofficial Hollywood blacklist, as one of the notorious Hollywood Ten, a group of movie industry professionals who refused to answer questions about their political affiliations before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the late forties. Even without that life-changing scandal, this sharp-witted, tart-tongued master of the screenplay would have made his mark in the movie industry. In Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical, biographer Larry Ceplair draws heavily on the notes and memories of the writer's son Christopher to craft an epic take on one of Hollywood's greatest characters.

For his defiance of HUAC, Trumbo was convicted of contempt of court in 1947 and sentenced to a year in prison, after which he supported his family working through the black market. Before the committee, the writer had made his mark with successes like Kitty Foyle (1940), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945). His best work was yet to come though. Using pseudonyms under the blacklist, he won two Academy Awards: for the script of Roman Holiday (1953) and the story for The Brave One (1956).

While journalists speculated as to who was writing these award-winning scripts, Trumbo was finally credited for his work on Exodus (1960) and Spartacus (1960), a process which the book covers in detail. It was a one man breakthrough though; the blacklist was still largely in effect. He was just too good to ignore anymore. 

The situation had gotten absurd. In one case when a studio informed him he was in competition with another writer for work, he learned that they did not realize the name of the supposed other writer was one of his many pseudonyms.

To his credit, Trumbo worked just as hard to end the blacklist for other writers as much as he did for himself. While his methods were not always appreciated by his peers, he was generous with his time, writing articles and making appearances in support of them and giving his extra work to writers in need (sometimes he would have to go back and fix a job he'd referred. He truly was the best at his craft.)

Though the blacklist years were detrimental to his own health and sanity and that of his family, Trumbo had the intelligence and strength to persevere and even thrive. After all, in his early career he had supported his mother and sister working nine years at a bakery, writing and getting volumes of rejection slips in his spare time. The man understood struggle.

Trumbo was a prickly, but fascinating character. While he had good instincts about when to play nice to better his circumstances, most of the time he spoke his mind freely and with great conviction. Often tethered his typewriter, his loyal wife Cleo and three children didn't get much of his attention. When he did focus on them, it was never dull. One son received an extensive letter from his father about masturbation upon his entry into college.

After breaking the blacklist, Trumbo nearly wrote himself to death catching up financially. He worked hard and he was passionate about his output. His dream of writing great novels was constantly put on hold, but he was not entirely unsuccessful in that regard, even writing the anti-war classic Johnny Got His Gun. He also seems to have gotten a certain satisfaction from creating great stories for the screen.

Aided by the notes and memories of Trumbo's son Christopher, who wanted to write the biography but became too ill to continue, Larry Ceplair has written an epic-length examination of this most colorful of writers. The writer's dust-up with HUAC and the fall-out alone provide enough material for a book, but the rest of his life was just as busy and vibrant.

Ceplair's decades of study about his subject have paid off with a fascinating tale. Christopher's insights seem to have led him to investigate the richest veins in Trumbo's life and he has supported that inside information with his own detailed research. When you feel like you can hear the subject speaking, you know you are reading a well-rounded account.

For readers looking for a juicy Hollywood read, this book has its moments, but with its often dense analysis of the politics around the HUAC years and fall-out, it is definitely not a frothy read. It is an important book though, putting the life of an important figure in the Hollywood blacklist in perspective and celebrating the unique talent of one of the best screenwriters and wits in the history of cinema.

Many thanks to University Press of Kentucky for providing a copy of the book for review.

HUAC Tension in Guilty by Suspicion (1991)

The communist witch hunt of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the resulting blacklisting of several Hollywood talents, is one of the darkest episodes of the studio age. It destroyed careers, friendships and families, and created an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. 

Guilty by Suspicion, recently re-released on DVD by Warner Archive, attempts to capture the tone of the times, and occasionally it does, though the results can be uneven.

Robert De Niro stars as David Merrill, a Hollywood director based on real life blacklist victim John Berry. He is liberal, and all but apolitical, but when his friend Larry Nolan (Chris Cooper) names him as a Communist sympathizer while testifying before the committee, he is suddenly the focus of HUAC himself. His offense: attending a few meetings out of curiosity in his youth.

Merrill resists testifying, knowing that he will also be asked to name names. His independent-minded ex-wife Ruth (Annette Bening) stands by him, while everyone else he knows falls away, fearful of scandal. Finally giving in to the pressure, he testifies, only to find that he cannot influence the committee as he had hoped.

Guilty By Suspicion is a glossy, expertly-conceived Hollywood product. It looks good, the actors are slick and it glides through its story with a fair amount of ease. Something about it rubs me the wrong way though. It felt so calculated, so performed rather than felt. I could see the gears turning in the actors' heads. I wondered if a lower budget and a little added grit could have given it more authenticity.

Part of my irritation was with De Niro, who would drag out a version of his "you talkin' to me?" Taxi Driver speech every time he got angry. He'd repeat himself with the same cadence and in the same tone. It was distracting. I kept seeing De Niro, not Hollywood director David Merrill.

In an interesting contrast, Martin Scorsese steals his few scenes as director Joe Lesser (based on Joseph Losey), who chooses European exile over testifying. I'm glad that Scorsese focused his career on directing, but can't help wishing he'd devote a little more energy to acting. He's always an exciting presence on the screen, charismatic, natural and full of the verve you'd find in a classic Hollywood character actor.

Overall, I felt like most of the film could have been about most any kind of scandal affecting an individual. It was almost too personal, focusing so much attention on Merrill that the larger picture suffered. I don't know how much meaning it would have had for me if I didn't already know so much of the real story.

It is only in the last scene, where Merrill testifies, that I fully felt the frustration and fear imposed by HUAC. The bullying tactics of the committee, and the director's futile attempts to reason with them, or even to be heard, get your blood boiling. You can see how rotten the whole process is and how nothing good could come of it. If only the rest of the film felt this intense and painfully real.

Many thanks to Warner Archive for providing a copy of the film for review. This is a Manufacture on Demand (MOD) DVD. To order, visit The Warner Archive Collection.