An Introduction to Hollywood and the Red Scare

This is a political cartoon depicting Senator Joseph McCarthy, perhaps the most visible and vehement anti-communists of the 1950s, beginning the investigations of the United States federal government into the Hollywood motion picture industry. McCarthy, dressed in the American flag, holds a list probably containing the name of suspected subversive individuals (all red) and dumps them into a pot surrounded by members of Congress. It is also worthwhile to note that the Hollywood sign is illuminated by a probe light and the entire image is bathed in shades of red. This cartoon is an excellent visual representation of the tense relationship between the Hollywood motion picture industry and the Red Scare policies of the United States government.

Riddle me this: What do Lauren Bacall, Walt Disney and J. Edgar Hoover have in common?

No guesses?

Well then, let me just tell you: All three were deeply entangled in the investigations and subsequent Congressional hearings into the American motion picture industry at the height of the Red Scare during the 1950s. While Lauren Bacall boycotted the Congressional hearings, Walt Disney denounced the communist influence in Hollywood, and J. Edgar Hoover spearheaded the investigations, all three are representative of the difficult relationship between Hollywood and the United States government during the Red Scare.

Hollywood has maintained a long-standing reputation as being one of the most socially and politically liberal industries in the United States, housing some of the most prominent political contributors. But at the height of the Red Scare during the 1950s, nothing could have been further from the truth. Industry members would refuse to work with fellow artists considered a little too left - leaning for fear of being or being associated with a communist. Artists could be blacklisted, or barred from work in the motion picture industry, for alleged membership in or sympathizing with the Communist Party, involvement in ‘progressive’ political causes that may have been associated with communism, and/or refusal to assist governmental investigations into the Communist Party influence. The original blacklisted Hollywood members consisted of a group of ten writers and directors, later dubbed ‘The Hollywood Ten,’ who were cited for contempt of Congress after refusing to testify to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1947.

It is apparent that that the investigative proceedings of the United States government, especially towards prominent members of the Hollywood elite like Lauren Bacall and Walt Disney, were indeed representative of the many of the government’s Red Scare policies during this decade. In the same manner, many of the actions taken by suspected communists and virulent anti-communists in Hollywood were similar to those being taken by citizens all over the United States. Basing my research off official Congressional records from the late 1940s and early 1950s, I will be able to investigate the actions and reactions of the American Communist Party in Hollywood, the impact of having a relationship with a suspected communist, and the pushback from the public against the federal government.  While these Congressional records contain the actual policies and investigation techniques employed by the United States government to probe into the lives of suspected communists in Hollywood, they will also reveal the wider socio-political consequences of the Red Scare on the American public.  

The purpose of this project is to investigate the nature of the relationship between Hollywood and the Red Scare, primarily through the published investigations and Congressional hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee. It is worthwhile to note that Hollywood’s relationship with communism and with the federal government was not unique; cities and individuals all over the United States were being investigated and probed by the federal government. However, Hollywood is unique and useful to study due to the fact that it had the most widely publicized and well-known relationship with communism during this time. Americans all over the country would have known about the Hollywood Ten or the involvement of Walt Disney in the House Committee investigations. Hollywood’s Red Scare history is thus worthwhile to study because of its unique and public place in the American lexicon from the 1950s. Many of the particulars of the investigations and hearings were hidden or whitewashed at the time, but are now available in their entirety.  It is crucial to investigate these documents and the relationship between these two uncomfortable bedfellows as they can reveal how much the United States government/Hollywood relationship was a reflection of the broader socio-political trends in American society during the 1950s regarding the fundamentally important and divisive issue of communism.