Red Hollywood Page #2

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"Oh, you wrote

No Time to Marry.

He said, "Can you tell me

what was wrong

with that picture?"

And I said, "Wrong?"

And he said,

"Well, it was banned

in Argentina,

banned in Brazil,

"banned in Bolivia,

banned here, banned there."

He said, "I've run

that picture a dozen times,

"I cannot find why

they're banning it."

(CHUCKLES)

Well, the story about

Stander humming or whistling

The Internationale

entered into a kind of myth

about how Hollywood Reds

tried to

insert

Red propaganda

into pictures.

When there was a concept

and there was...

There was some values that

you felt were good in it,

you just felt better

about working on it.

But I never

was interested

in the idea of

slipping something

past the producer,

you know,

that kind of thing.

There were people

who would brag about

how they were able to slip

something past a producer

or head of the studio without

them realizing

what it really was,

you know.

There was no plot

to put social content

into pictures.

The plot was intellectual.

Social content is what

pictures are about.

You can't make a picture

about human life

without social content.

And social content

meant, in effect,

the social content

of these people.

How the world

was divided up,

how it worked

economically, socially,

morally, and so on.

You've got to show

the rich are shitty

and the poor are beautiful.

It's important that

you've got to show

that anybody

who works

is being exploited.

Those are general

professional ideas

that are current

among the least educated

among the radicals.

But there is

the social content

that comes from a general

philosophical attitude

towards the world,

of society,

that's what counts.

NARRATOR:

As the blacklist spread,

claiming Jarrico,

Levitt, Polonsky,

and hundreds of others,

it became evident

that more than two

of its victims had talent.

But talent is not enough,

as their critics

would point out.

Even the most talented

could be fatally

corrupted by Hollywood.

In the '30s,

everyone's favorite example

was Clifford Odets,

the brightest and bravest

of the left wing playwrights.

He journeyed west

to write romantic dialogue

for Gary Cooper

and Madeleine Caroll.

I'm trying to say

you're wonderful.

That makes me a sap,

I know,

but it doesn't make

any difference

one way or the other now.

You know

I'm wonderful, too.

You are.

Judy Perrie, darling,

we could've made

wonderful music together.

We could've worked

and made ourselves

a circle of light

and warmth.

O'Hara...

I'm so lonely for you.

NARRATOR:

And the critics jeered,

Odets, where is thy sting?

Yet even in this

apolitical film,

Odets managed to insert

a little lesson

about class oppression.

There they are,

refugees from Ar Chen,

or what used to be

Ar Chen

before General Yang

rode through it.

(CHUCKLES)

And who's General Yang?

Why, he's the warlord

of this province,

and a swell guy

to do business with.

But why does he want

to destroy his own towns?

Oh, because they refuse

to pay their taxes.

(SCOFFS) Well, I think

those people would learn

how to obey the law

rather than suffer this.

Ah, these people have

no nerves, no feeling.

They're used to suffering.

But they can't

get used to paying.

(BOTH LAUGH)

Excuse me, madam...

You got a match,

Colonel?

No, I don't smoke.

Colonel.

Refuse me a match,

will ya?

But I haven't a match!

And those people

didn't have the pennies

to pay General Yang.

Think it over.

NARRATOR:

But The General Died at Dawn

was not Hollywood's

first denunciation

of the actually

existing fascism

that threatened

the peace of the world.

That would come

two years later,

and it would be written

by a Communist.

Air raid!

(SIREN WAILING)

What?

The Spanish Civil War

was the big cause

for all of us

on the left then.

We felt it was the only hope

of defeating fascism,

that if the democracies

stood up to

what was going on there

and helped

the Spanish government

resist this invasion,

that a Second World War

could be averted.

And I still think it

probably could've have been.

We knew that Franco

had this Nazi

and Italian fascist support.

As a matter of fact,

that his whole revolt

would've collapsed

without German planes

that were sent

to carry troops over

from Africa into Spain.

So I was partisan

right away on that,

even though I was not

yet a member

of the Communist Party.

NARRATOR:

Only the Soviet Union

and the parties aligned

with the Communist

International

came to the aid

of the Spanish Republic.

In Hollywood,

the Republican cause

brought many into

the orbit of the party.

There were many committees

and fundraisers,

but just this one film.

The opposing sides

were never named

in Blockade,

but there could be

no doubt on whose behalf

Henry Fonda made his final,

desperate appeal.

Peace?

Where can you find it?

Our country

has been turned

into a battlefield.

There's no safety

for old people

and children.

Women can't keep

their families safe

in their houses.

They can't be safe

in their own fields.

Churches, schools,

hospitals are targets.

It's not war.

War is between soldiers.

It's murder,

murder of innocent people.

There's no sense to it!

The world can stop it.

Where's the conscience

of the world?

NARRATOR:

The conscience

of the world was stone,

the Spanish Republic

was defeated.

England and France

made a deal with Hitler,

and so too did Stalin.

What's the matter?

This radiogram came

a few minutes ago.

"Dear Mr. Ambassador,

our worst fears

are realized.

"This afternoon,

a non-aggression pact

"was signed between Germany

and the Soviet Union."

Then it's happened.

Hitler's closed

his eastern door.

God help the rest of us.

It was a shock, and yet...

We saw, I saw

the reasoning behind it

and almost

the inevitability of it

from the Russian

point of view that

even if they couldn't

get together,

with the West,

the least they could do

was have some

protection themselves.

Why did Stalin make

a deal with Hitler?

For self-protection.

He was left standing

alone against Hitler,

and he stalled because

his army wasn't ready.

What did Russia

ever do for us?

Russia has given us time.

It was an abrupt

switch of line.

It was stupid,

as far as the American Party

was concerned.

And there was

a lot of resistance to it,

even with people

who did not quit the party

at that point as many,

many people did,

because of

the change in line.

It was really

a reductio ad absurdum of,

"What's good

for Russia is good for us."

Because it wasn't

good for us.

Personally, I can remember

that in the...

The early part

of 1941,

Michael Kanin and I

were working on this

original screenplay,

Woman of the Year,

and when we finished

the story version of it,

we got... Katherine Hepburn

became involved,

having been

committed to the picture,

and having helped

sell it to MGM.

So we had many

discussions with her,

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