Of the many excellent movies I’ve seen this season, the one I’m recommending to booklovers is Trumbo, the true story of author/screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and the Hollywood Blacklist. I first became aware of Trumbo as the author of the groundbreaking antiwar novel Johnny Got His Gun. Published by J. B. Lippincott, the novel won one of the early National Book Awards: the Most Original Book of 1939. But Dalton’s greater fame came through his screenwriting (original or adapted screenplays) for some of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful movies, among them Kitty Foyle, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, Roman Holiday, The Brave One, Spartacus and Papillon.
In 1947, Dalton Trumbo was swept up in the hysteria of the Cold War with the paranoia stoked by certain people in politics and the media under the guise of patriotism. He became an upfront face in what became known as “The Hollywood Ten” — writers, directors and producers who were cited for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer questions from the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) about their alleged involvement with the Communist Party. As a result, these people were imprisoned and stripped of their livelihoods by being blacklisted by the movie industry.
The HUAC (1938-1969) continued blacklist hearings from 1947 to 1956. Over those years, the names of the defamed grew, destroying the lives of hundreds of others, including actors, authors, playwrights, composers, lyricists, musicians, comedians, dancers, artists, journalists and teachers. You know many of their names and I’m sure some of your favorites are on that list although you may be unaware, six decades later, of what they endured during this dark period in American history.
The HUAC gained its greatest notoriety under Sen. Joe McCarthy whose meteoric rise came from his increasingly egregious accusations against “known communists”. Tolerated by his Republican Party while he directed his unfounded attacks against the Democratic administration of Truman, the escalating erratic behavior became unpalatable to both parties once Eisenhower entered the White House in 1953.
McCarthy’s destructive path finally and dramatically started its downward spiral during open hearings when he, as Chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, charged that the U.S. Army was infiltrated by communists. Joseph Welch, special counsel for the U.S. Army, effectively countered McCarthy, summing up with, “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” Then he added the now famous question, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Exposed for who he really was, McCarthy was (finally) officially condemned by the U.S. Senate for contempt against his colleagues in December 1954.
The reason Trumbo is timely and important is because our current American political rhetoric is becoming as much of a threat to our democracy as it was in a past generation; it echoes the dangerous broad and unfounded demonization of individuals and groups whose views are different. How this plague was allowed to spread from the 1930s to the early 1960s is worth exploring further. Playwright Arthur Miller addressed the issue in his 1953 play, The Crucible. Rod Serling wrote and narrated the memorable 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone titled The Monsters are Due on Maple Street, which ended with this wise warning:
The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill – and suspicion can destroy – and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children – and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is – that these things cannot be confined – to the Twilight Zone.
There are notable heroes and villains in the movie Trumbo but the point of the movie is not so much to look back in time and point fingers (pointless). Rather, it is to reflect on how easily “good” people can be pulled into the vortex of paranoia, turning on each other, to the diminution and possible destruction of the accusers as well as the accused. See the movie Trumbo. Then, as a booklover, read more about a time in our past that should stand as a lesson for now and the future.