Today marks the 75th anniversary of the Waldorf Declaration, which on November 25, 1947, officially launched the Hollywood Blacklist. On that day, the heads of the major studios, with a few notable exceptions, agreed after a contentious two-day conference at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City to ban the Hollywood Ten and to not “knowingly” employ Communists.
And so began one of the darkest chapters in Hollywood’s history.
Related Story Hollywood Blacklist: 75th Anniversary Of The Waldorf Declaration – Photo Gallery Related Story Donald Anthony St. Claire Dies: 'The Amazing Race' Oldest Competitor Was 87 Related Story Irene Cara Remembered By Colleagues, Friends And Fans
Just a few weeks earlier, the Hollywood Ten had denounced and refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee and later were sent to federal prison for contempt of Congress.
“We will forthwith discharge or suspend without compensation those in our employ,” the Waldorf Declaration stated,...
And so began one of the darkest chapters in Hollywood’s history.
Related Story Hollywood Blacklist: 75th Anniversary Of The Waldorf Declaration – Photo Gallery Related Story Donald Anthony St. Claire Dies: 'The Amazing Race' Oldest Competitor Was 87 Related Story Irene Cara Remembered By Colleagues, Friends And Fans
Just a few weeks earlier, the Hollywood Ten had denounced and refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee and later were sent to federal prison for contempt of Congress.
“We will forthwith discharge or suspend without compensation those in our employ,” the Waldorf Declaration stated,...
- 11/25/2022
- by David Robb
- Deadline Film + TV
Click here to read the full article.
Seventy-five years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (Huac for purposes of pronunciation) launched the first of its series of postwar investigations into alleged communist subversion in Hollywood.
The show trial was staged from Oct. 20 to 30, 1947, and you can probably rewind the newsreel images in your mind’s eye: the unhinged committee chairman, J. Parnell Thomas (D-n.J.), yelling over witnesses and furiously pounding his gavel; the compliant straight men accusing former colleagues of the most unpatriotic heresies in Cold War America; and the backtalking recalcitrants being hauled away from the witness table mid-harangue.
In countless documentaries and fictional reenactments, the confrontations are cast as a morality play pitting the craven Friendlies (as those who named names and sucked up to the committee are called) against the defiant Unfriendlies, who refused to cower before their inquisitors and would soon to be immortalized...
Seventy-five years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (Huac for purposes of pronunciation) launched the first of its series of postwar investigations into alleged communist subversion in Hollywood.
The show trial was staged from Oct. 20 to 30, 1947, and you can probably rewind the newsreel images in your mind’s eye: the unhinged committee chairman, J. Parnell Thomas (D-n.J.), yelling over witnesses and furiously pounding his gavel; the compliant straight men accusing former colleagues of the most unpatriotic heresies in Cold War America; and the backtalking recalcitrants being hauled away from the witness table mid-harangue.
In countless documentaries and fictional reenactments, the confrontations are cast as a morality play pitting the craven Friendlies (as those who named names and sucked up to the committee are called) against the defiant Unfriendlies, who refused to cower before their inquisitors and would soon to be immortalized...
- 10/20/2022
- by Thomas Doherty
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The death of actress-activist Marsha Hunt this week is a historical watershed and a personal loss. Marsha was one of the last living actors who began her movie career during the Great Depression in 1935. She became part of a now vanished Hollywood, initially at Paramount then at MGM, that bound contracted talent to studios with artists having little to no say over their choice of roles and careers. Nevertheless, she thrived in the studio system by becoming somewhat less than a genuine movie star and more of a consummate professional actress.
Marsha’s career was derailed by the Blacklist, a perfidious period of American history that has been endlessly chronicled and misunderstood. Never a Communist or radical, she was a forthright liberal who refused to accept her voice being marginalized by the endemic sexism and politics of the period. Marsha was the final survivor of the Committee of the First Amendment,...
Marsha’s career was derailed by the Blacklist, a perfidious period of American history that has been endlessly chronicled and misunderstood. Never a Communist or radical, she was a forthright liberal who refused to accept her voice being marginalized by the endemic sexism and politics of the period. Marsha was the final survivor of the Committee of the First Amendment,...
- 9/11/2022
- by Alan K. Rode
- Variety Film + TV
'Trumbo' movie: Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. 'Trumbo' movie review: Highly entertaining 'history lesson' Full disclosure: on the wall in my study hangs a poster – the iconic photograph of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, with black-horned rim glasses, handlebar mustache, a smoke dangling from the end of a dramatic cigarette holder. He's sitting – stark naked – in a tub surrounded by his particular writing apparatus. He's looking directly into the camera of the photographer, his daughter Mitzi. Dalton Trumbo's son, Christopher Trumbo, gave me the poster after my interview with him for the release of Peter Askin's 2007 documentary also titled Trumbo. That film combines archival footage, including family movies and photographs, with performances of the senior Trumbo's letters to his family during their many years of turmoil before and through the blacklist, including his time in prison. The letters are read by,...
- 11/7/2015
- by Tim Cogshell
- Alt Film Guide
As far as Hollywood was concerned, hardboiled pulp author Raymond Chandler was big news in 1944 and 1945, working with Billy Wilder on the Production Code breakthrough hit Double Indemnity, and getting two of his popular Philip Marlowe books transposed to the screen -- and not completely shorn of their racy content. Savant Blu-ray Review The Warner Archive Collection Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date September 15, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki. Cinematography Harry J. Wild Art Direction Carroll Clark, Albert S. D'Agostino Film Editor Joseph Noriega Original Music Roy Webb Written by John Paxton from Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler Produced by Sid Rogell, Adrian Scott Directed by Edward Dmytryk
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Many films noirs seem to come from the same stylistic universe, in terms of themes and visuals. But a few of the...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Many films noirs seem to come from the same stylistic universe, in terms of themes and visuals. But a few of the...
- 9/1/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The iconic building that once housed the Friars Club of Beverly Hills is being torn down.
Demolition of the building at 9900 Santa Monica Blvd., which housed the club until a 2007 lawsuit by the New York Friars forced the private Beverly Hills group to change its name, began this week and continued Thursday.
Milton Berle founded the club in 1947 as a West Coast outpost of the New York club. It became a showbiz hotspot, and members included Al Jolson, Jack Benny and the Rat Pack. In 1961, the Friars moved into the distinctive Santa Monica Boulevard building, known for its windowless facade.
"It's very sad, it was a wonderful place to meet and have dinner with fellow performers," said comedian Mel Brooks, who was not a member of the Friars Club but attended roughly a dozen events there over the years. "What I loved about it was the bizarre architecture -- it...
Demolition of the building at 9900 Santa Monica Blvd., which housed the club until a 2007 lawsuit by the New York Friars forced the private Beverly Hills group to change its name, began this week and continued Thursday.
Milton Berle founded the club in 1947 as a West Coast outpost of the New York club. It became a showbiz hotspot, and members included Al Jolson, Jack Benny and the Rat Pack. In 1961, the Friars moved into the distinctive Santa Monica Boulevard building, known for its windowless facade.
"It's very sad, it was a wonderful place to meet and have dinner with fellow performers," said comedian Mel Brooks, who was not a member of the Friars Club but attended roughly a dozen events there over the years. "What I loved about it was the bizarre architecture -- it...
- 1/27/2011
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Directed by Edward Dmytryk, written by John Paxton, and produced by Adrian Scott, Crossfire (1947) will be screened as the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Oscar Noir: 1940s Writing Nominees from Hollywood’s Dark Side” on Monday, August 9, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Crossfire, which stars Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, and Gloria Grahame, will be introduced by Oscar-winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential), with a post-film discussion with actress Jacqueline White, who plays Mary Mitchell in the film. Based on future filmmaker Richard Brooks‘ novel The Brick Foxhole, Crossfire is a taut, effective thriller focused on the evils of bigotry — in this case, anti-Semitism. Chiefly because of Crossfire‘s subversive sensibility, I find it more powerful than Elia Kazan‘s genteel Oscar winner Gentleman’s Agreement, another 1947 release dealing with anti-Jewish prejudice.
- 8/3/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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