Blacklisted! America’s dalliance in pernicious censorship

Film · Ideas & Opinion

In anticipation of the major show, Blacklist: The Hollywood Red Scare which opens May 4 at The Skirball Cultural Center for the summer, comes a screening event, with guests, at the Hollywood Heritage Barn on Highland Avenue.

It’s an “Afternoon at the Barn” screening of a one-hour-long film, Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist, directed by Judy Chaikin and narrated by actor Burt Lancaster, exploring the lingering effects of The Hollywood Blacklist, which occurred in the late forties and early fifties as part of the Anti-Communist witchhunts conducted in our city as well as across the country. This film is seen through the eyes of the wives and children of the now-deceased Hollywood figures whose careers were destroyed when studio bosses, along with guild and union officials capitulated to the demands of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The film’s talking heads are estimable: Gary Cooper, Betty Garrett, Larry Parks, Evelyn Keyes, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, Adolph Menjou, Robert Taylor and Ronald Reagan along with noted screenwriters, Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner Jr., Michael Wilson, Herbert Biberman, and Lester Cole, among many others.

Joining Ms. Chaikin for a Q&A after the film will be a panel of some of the children who will share their own experiences with this dark period in history and how it has affected their lives in surprising ways.
Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist was released on PBS in 1988, earning a Cine Golden Eagle© Award and a Primetime Emmy© Award nomination.


Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist | Afternoon at the Barn, Hollywood Heritage | Sun March 26, 2 pm

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