TRUMBO film review – Cate Marquis

Inspiring ‘Trumbo’ exposes anti-Semitism of Hollywood blacklist

– Film Review By Cate Marquis for the Jewish Light –

The Hollywood blacklist marked a dark period in American history. Cold War fear of communists gripped the nation, and a Washington-based witch hunt sought to find anyone with even an imagined link to communism.

Suspicion fell on Jewish movie stars, writers and directors in particular. In this climate of fear, movie studio heads, mostly Jewish themselves, created a “blacklist” of people who would be barred for 13 years from working in movies due to suspected communist sympathies.

“Are you now, or have you ever been, a Communist?” was the question asked by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). But in many cases, the question could have been, “Are you now, or have you ever been … a liberal, a supporter of labor unions or civil rights, or a Jew?”

The latter is an idea explored by writer Michael Freedland in his essay for the Jewish Chronicle Online, “Hunting communists? They were really after Jews.”

Six of the “Hollywood 10” targeted by HUAC and later blacklisted — Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz and Samuel Ornitz – were Jewish. But the list also included successful screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.

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