Hollywood Ten (1947): HUAC Hearings and the Film Blacklist

The Hollywood Ten were ten screenwriters and directors who, in October 1947, refused to tell the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) whether they were or had been members of the Communist Party. Convicted of contempt of Congress and sent to prison, they became the first victims of the Hollywood blacklist, which kept hundreds of people out of the American film industry for more than a decade.

Their case is one of the best-known episodes of the early Cold War in the United States and of the wider Second Red Scare.

Background

HUAC was a standing committee of the House of Representatives, set up permanently in 1945 to investigate disloyalty and subversion. In 1947, chaired by Republican J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey, it turned to Hollywood, claiming that communists had placed propaganda in films. Communist Party membership had been legal, and a number of screenwriters had joined in the 1930s and 1940s, often out of opposition to fascism or support for trade unions.

The hearings

The hearings opened in Washington on 20 October 1947. In the first week “friendly” witnesses testified, including studio head Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Walt Disney, the novelist Ayn Rand and actors such as Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor and Adolphe Menjou. Ronald Reagan, then president of the Screen Actors Guild, also appeared.

From 27 October the committee called the “unfriendly” witnesses. The first, John Howard Lawson, tried to read a statement and argued with the chairman until he was removed from the stand. The others followed a similar strategy: they did not deny or confirm membership but argued that the First Amendment protected their political beliefs and associations. Each was asked the same question, “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” An eleventh witness, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, denied membership and left the United States shortly afterwards.

A group of stars including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye and the director John Huston formed the Committee for the First Amendment and flew to Washington in protest. The combative behaviour of the witnesses lost them some sympathy, and support from the group faded.

Contempt and the blacklist

On 24 November 1947 the House of Representatives voted by a large majority to cite the ten for contempt of Congress. At the same time, studio executives met at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and agreed on what became known as the Waldorf Statement, announcing that they would not knowingly employ communists and would fire or suspend the ten without pay until they cleared themselves.

John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo were tried first, in 1948, and convicted; the other eight agreed to be bound by the outcome of those test cases. After the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals in April 1950, the remaining eight were also convicted, and eight of the ten received sentences of one year in prison and Herbert Biberman and Edward Dmytryk six months, along with fines. Lardner and Cole served time at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut, where J. Parnell Thomas was also an inmate after being convicted of fraud for padding his office payroll.

The ten

The group consisted of Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo. Dmytryk later broke with the group: in 1951 he testified again before HUAC, named former associates and resumed his directing career.

Aftermath

HUAC returned to Hollywood in 1951, and the blacklist expanded to hundreds of actors, writers and technicians, aided by private publications that listed alleged communists. Some, such as Lardner and Trumbo, kept working under false names or through “fronts” who signed their scripts. Trumbo’s story for Roman Holiday (1953) won an Academy Award credited to his friend Ian McLellan Hunter, and his script for The Brave One (1956) won under the pseudonym “Robert Rich”.

The blacklist began to crack in 1960, when Otto Preminger announced that Trumbo had written Exodus and Kirk Douglas saw that he was credited on Spartacus. In 1993 the Academy formally awarded Trumbo’s Roman Holiday Oscar to his widow, Cleo. Lardner won an Academy Award for the screenplay of MAS*H in 1971.

Timeline

• 1947, 20 October: HUAC opens its hearings on communism in Hollywood.
• 1947, 27 October: John Howard Lawson is the first “unfriendly” witness.
• 1947, 30 October: Bertolt Brecht testifies and soon leaves the United States.
• 1947, 24 November: The House votes to cite the ten for contempt of Congress.
• 1947, 24–25 November: Studio heads meet at the Waldorf-Astoria and agree to bar the ten.
• 1950, April: The Supreme Court declines to review the convictions; the ten go to prison.
• 1951: HUAC holds new Hollywood hearings; Dmytryk testifies and names names.
• 1960: Trumbo is openly credited on Exodus and Spartacus.

Why it matters

The Hollywood Ten showed how Cold War fears could override free speech protections and ruin careers through private blacklisting as well as public prosecution. Their case foreshadowed later investigations such as the Alger Hiss case and remains a reference point in debates about political loyalty tests.