Film Studies: Un-American Activities

At a time when politicians are again waging war on freedom of expression, our latest Film Studies series explores the works of leftist writers, directors and actors in the late 1940s, before the McCarthy era interrupted many careers through the House of Un-American Activities Committee hearings and Hollywood’s self-imposed blacklist. Each film in this five week series (Mondays at 11am) will be introduced in a 15-20 minute talk by writer and film critic Mike Archibald.

The 1940s is considered a golden age in Hollywood filmmaking. Looking back beneath the slick repartee, expressive lighting, flashback structures, and dazzling camera movement, we can see something half-submerged by history — a brief period where radical leftists could live, work, and communicate their ideas, even if somewhat furtively.

This series offers an exploration of Hollywood communism through five movies — a core sample of political ferment and strong social criticism, of cynical films created by idealists. Despite the suspicions of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the subsequent blacklist, none of these works explicitly promotes revolutionary socialism, but each is marked by it — by criticism of capitalism, by sympathy for the oppressed, by sharply critical views of America as it then existed.

The dramatis personae of Hollywood leftism were a motley bunch: many of them were card-carrying members of the Communist Party USA, while others simply leaned left in their politics. Chief among the latter was John Garfield, the industry’s first Method actor to achieve stardom and a truly unique screen presence. This series features three films from his rich and tragically foreshortened career: Body and Soul, Force of Evil, and He Ran All the Way.