That shameless, shabby witch-hunt

Sixty years ago in October 1947, the US House of Representatives Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) held the infamous public hearings in Hollywood declaring that the film makers "employed subtle techniques in pictures glorifying the communist system".

Humphrey Bogart, wife, Lauren Bacall, and Hollywood artistes, writers and directors in a protest over the communist witch-hunt.

Even before the war, Hollywood was called a "hot bed of communism". It was a shameless and shabby witch-hunt that affected the creativity of the industry and the careers of many never recovered.

The summoned ten, called the Hollywood Ten, were convicted of contempt of Congress for not answering the question, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" They were imprisoned and blacklisted.

The screenwriter Dalton Trumbo cried out, "This is the beginning of an American concentration camp". Yet writing under a pseudonym, Trumbo won an Oscar for the Brave One. Nobody came forward to receive the award at the ceremony. The Oscar for The Bridge on the River Kwai, which was filmed in Sri Lanka, also went to two anonymous blacklisted writers, Foreman and Wilson.

Among the suspected communist sympathizers were the cream of Hollywood talent, liberal and progressive: Edward G. Robinson, Charles Chaplin, Gregory Peck, Katherine Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Orson Wells. All were award winners except the first and Wells is widely regarded as the creator of the best film ever made, Citizen Kane. Those who supported the HUAC were the likes of Ronald Reagan (later US President), Robert Taylor and Gary Cooper. None of them were award winners.

The amusing tail-piece to the story is that in 1949 J. Parnell Thomas, former Chairman of the HUAC and a guardian angel of decency and democracy was convicted of embezzlement and imprisoned.

By Asoka Weerakoon, Kandy