Hollywood leftists, their blacklist and their treason

Gerard Jackson Monday 19 January 2009 

Digging through some old magazines I came across an attack on Elia Kazan by the author of the Culture Vulture column (The Australian Magazine 19-20 September 1998) in which he used the word "odious" to describe Kazan whose crime was to reveal the names of Hollywood Stalinists. Now the left is very hot on free speech, especially for the left. But having a totalitarian mindset means that they define 'free speech' as complete agreement with their current 'party line'.

I know that many of us have heard or read about the fiendish Senator McCarthy and his Hollywood blacklist that denied work to patriotic American actors, producers, writers and directors because they had allegedly been associated with the CPUSA (Communist Party of the United States of America). Because of this infamy the mere mention of his name causes 'progressives' to turn apoplectic, even as they defend — as does Steven Soderbergh, Ed Asner, Benicio Del Toro, Robert Rederford, Sean Penn, etc. — sadistic leftwing killers like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

While Hollywood’s celluloid intellectuals blame McCarthy for the blacklisting and excoriate HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee) they overlook the simple historical fact that McCarthy was a Senator and was not elected until 1947 while HUAC had been set up in 1934 by Democrats.

At the time of the HUAC hearings McCarthy was running his own investigation into communist infiltration of the State Department and the military. He had nothing at all to do with any hearings on communism in the film industry which were conducted in the House of Representatives. Moreover, these investigations started in the 1940s and were requested by actors and studio executives, mainly as a reaction to the Communist Party's own blacklist, something the likes of Redford, Soderbergh, and the truly hateful Clooney would never think of mentioning.

The American left assiduously cultivate the myth that the CPUSA was never a threat to America anyway and that those associated with it were honest people motivated by idealism and a love of liberty. (Our left has used the same tactic to defend the treasonable activities of the Australian Communist Party). It follows that it is both absurd, as well as slanderous, to suggest that these people would use their positions in Hollywood to promote tyranny.

But the collapse of the Soviet empire and the subsequent opening of some the KGB's intelligence archives revealed the real story, the one the left is still trying to suppress by ignoring it. We now have the evidence that the CPUSA was, like the Australian Communist Party, fully controlled and financed by the Kremlin. In short, it was just a branch of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union). This is one story that you can bet your last dollar on that neither Soderbergh or Clooney will ever film. After all, that would be the patriotic thing to do.

There is also the little matter of the Hollywood left-wing blacklist, the one we never hear about. Those who were on this list were anti-communists who suffered for their beliefs because they identified Stalinist toadies. Morrie Ryskind was one such person. He was an award-winning film writer until he told a congressional committee the truth about communists in the film industry. Suddenly he was unemployable.

And just in case you think this blacklist is dead, some years ago two young leftwing writers on the Sony Studio Lot had Robert Montgomery’s name taken off a building because he had been a "friendly witness" for HUAC. Needless to say, Clooney and the rest of the Hollywood left remained unmoved by this intolerant act of left wing bastardry. Their silence is not surprising considering the degree of left wing intimidation that comes from the Hollywood elite.

(This reminds of a very revealing complaint by Clooney: "There used to be three networks. Now there's hundreds and hundreds." He believes that news broadcasting should be restricted to three networks controlled entirely by people who agree with him. Tom Hanks is another example of Tinseltown's political intolerance. He called Mormons who support California’s Proposition 8 of being "un-American". It logically follows from this that conservatives are also "un-American").

Now one might say that it is all history now, water under the bridge and all that. But then such a person would have no idea of the left's capacity for hatred and revenge, specially the Hollywood left and its fellow traveling media mates, even those in Australia. This was made sickeningly clear when the Hollywood left blocked the distinguished director Elia Kazan's nomination by colleagues for the lifetime achievement award given each year by the American Film Institute and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Kazan who had directed such masterpieces as On the Waterfront, East of Eden and A Streetcar Named Desire and who had won two Oscars as a director was ignored in favor of the left-wing Roger Corman who won lasting fame for Attack of the Crab Monsters, Swamp Women and other masterpieces of schlock. So heavy was the stench of hypocrisy that even The New York Times felt impelled to comment on Hollywood's vindictiveness.

The famed then 87-year-old Kazan's unforgivable crime was to have truthfully told the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities in 1952 that he and eight of his friends had been fellow members of the communist party, from which he had resigned in disgust. Some of these men later admitted that Kazan told the truth. Nevertheless, until his death in 2003 at the age of 94 Kazan remained a political leper among Hollywood's politically correct.

These are same people who in October 1997 streamed into the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills to see Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist, a film glorifying unrepentant Stalinists who wanted to turn the US into another Gulag. Needless to say, these are also same celluloid intellectuals who support cop-killers and murderous dictators – but only so long as they are socialists.

What is worthy of note here is the hypocrisy, political stupidity and moral baseness of these leftists. No wonder they feel comfortable supporting the Democrats.

It was Otto Katz who bragged: "I discovered Hollwood".  Katz was a Comintern agent sent by Stalin to turn Hollywood into an instrument of Soviet policy. He arrived in 1934 and was a great success with Hollywood leftists who fell over themselves to do his bidding. Some of those Stalinists lived long enough to attend the Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist love-in where they were enthusiastically greeted by the glitterati.

As proof that there is a divine providence, Katz (who was said to be implicated in the murder of Willi Münzenberg) was arrested in Prague in 1948 and became a victim of the Rajk-Slansky purges. He was tortured for months before being tried. He was convicted of treason and hanged the next day, His body was burnt and the remains put in a sack which was later dumped on the roadside. Not a tear seems to have been shed by his Hollywood pals. This would make a terrific film. It’s a great pity it will never be made.

 Editor's Note:  You may wish to view this 2015 piece with My Take:  Tinseltown Turns Back the Clock with Trumbo Tribute. RK)