January 13, 2015 -- This is reportedly a re-edited and remastered release of a 1996 documentary film about the works of blacklisted Hollywood filmmakers. It isn't primarily about the blacklist (people on the blacklist were banned from working in the film industry in Hollywood) itself, the result of a communist scare after World War II. It is more about the ideas these filmmakers put into their movies and how movies affected the wider society.

The movie opens with scenes from Westerns, “Johnny Guitar,” directed by Nicholas Ray, opens with a scene of a young man being forced to reveal information, and ending with “Tell Them Willie Boy is Here,” directed by Abraham Polonsky, in which a defiant Indian (played by Robert Blake) on the run vows to fight to the bitter end against long odds. He indicates he might die in the end, “but they'll know I was here.” Both films featured people wrongly accused. Both films were directed by men involved in the blacklisting of Hollywood talent.

In between those two film clips are clips from 54 other films including one that blacklisted screenwriter and producer Paul Jarrico (Jarrico died in 1997 in a car accident) calls the grandfather of independent films in the U.S., “Salt of the Earth” (1954). The film about a striking miners in Mexico was a “noble experiment” in which people on the blacklist would make their own films outside the studio system. “No Hollywood film had ever shown a strike from the worker's point of view. No Hollywood film had ever portrayed a strike as just and rational. No Hollywood film had ever put Chicanos in leading parts and put Anglos in subordinate roles. No Hollywood film had ever shown women courageously and effectively taking over the work of men,” according to the film narration.

“Salt of the Earth broke all these taboos, but it never reached its intended audience,” said the narrator (Billy Woodberry). After a successful run in New York and good reviews, “A number of exhibitors wanted to play the picture,” Jarrico said, but the film itself was blacklisted and the major studios pressured exhibitors not to show it. As a result the blacklisted filmmakers lost their money on the project and their plans to make more films were broken. “Salt of the Earth” was chosen for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 1992.

Another remarkable film clip in “Red Hollywood” is from “I Can Get it For You Wholesale” (1951). Susan Hayward gives a remarkable performance as an independent woman long before modern feminism, at a time when women were being shown primarily in subordinate, domestic roles, or as villains. “Red Hollywood” makes the case that many films were crafted after the war to persuade women to give up their jobs and become housewives. This idea was resisted by the left-leaning filmmakers, who put their own ideas on film.

This film makes the case that many Communist-leaning filmmakers were pro-war and anti-Nazi long before the rest of Hollywood joined in. Hollywood took up the war banner enthusiastically after the attack on Pearl Harbor. After Pearl Harbor, and especially after the U.S. and the Soviet Union became war allies, the interests of the leftist filmmakers and the rest of the country were united, but that did not last, especially after the Cold War kicked into high gear.

Other film clips are meant to show the collectivist, pro-union leanings of the blacklisted Hollywood artists, fighting back against the anti-union message in many films made after World War II, but they don't always come across as convincingly as described in the film's narration. Film clips about racism from this same period tend to be a bit more convincing. The film is long on claims about relevance, but short on proof.

In the end, this film is an interesting, but disjointed look at the efforts of blacklisted filmmakers to influence greater society. It is also a look at how Hollywood reflected and influenced society in more conservative directions. It is not always successful in convincingly illustrating its claims, but is an important part of Hollywood history, nonetheless. This film rates a C.

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Copyright © 2015 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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