An Overview of the Communist Threat and Anti-Communist Movement in Hollywood

This is a political cartoon depicting the Soviet Communist takeover of the United States federal government. This image represents the widely held belief that the American Communist Party was attempting to infiltrate every aspect of American society, particularly Hollywood, and would eventually take over the United States.

In Hollywood and all over the United States, the menace of communism loomed as a villainous threat during the 1950s. Americans believed that the American Communist Party was attempting to infiltrate every aspect of American life and eventually take over the United States (as depicted in the image above). As such, Americans viewed any individual with strong left-leaning tendencies with suspicion, branding them ‘un-American.’ To investigate the subversive nature of communism in the United States, the federal government created the House Committee on Un-American Activities, an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, in 1938. The House Committee became a permanent committee only in 1945 and a major player in the fight against communism from them on. The explicit purpose of the House Committee was to investigate these ‘un-American’ threats to the safety and well-being of the United States government, especially well-known figures in Hollywood. The initial infiltration of communism into motion picture industry began a long and tense relationship between the Hollywood elite and communism. However, with the rise in frequency and intensity of the federal investigations, a backlash against the anti-communist movement began in Hollywood, the city most readily associated with the red menace.

Years before the investigations of the House Committee began, Hollywood had already developed a reputation for being associated with communism. In a personal testimony given before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on March 24, 1947, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover claimed that American communists began to attack Hollywood as early as 1935, seeking to infiltrate the labor unions and guilds that housed a majority of the Hollywood population. Hoover proposed that communism, which he alleged stands for “the creation of a “Soviet of the United States,” was successful in infiltrating Hollywood because most artists did not recognize their efforts (Hoover 1947, 3). Hoover argued that if the communists were able to insert a line or scene in a movie that conveyed a communist lesson, or if they could merely keep out anti-communist lessons, they were victorious.  Edward Dmtryk, a screen director jailed in 1950 for being a communist, confirmed Hoover’s statements in a 1951 interview with the Los Angeles Times. Dmtryk affirmed that the American Communist Party targeted Hollywood’s guilds and unions in an effort to infiltrate Hollywood with their members.

Dmtryk also claimed that another way that the Communist Party attempted and succeeded in permeating Hollywood was through donations. Dmtryk testified that the Communist Party has sought to set up a ‘tithing system’ within the elite Hollywood circle, encouraging prominent artists to frequently and generously donate to the Party. He added that the American Communist Party first went to Hollywood because they wanted the prestige and support from a strong Hollywood chapter. Paul Crouch, also a former communist, confirmed Dmtryk’s testimony of the importance of Hollywood financial contributions to the Communist Party’s livelihood. In a testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951, Crouch recalled that he was shown an official list from the American Communist Party with the names of 300 prominent and lesser-known Hollywood figures that were to be approached for contributions (as they had contributed in the past). Crouch stated that the Communist Party seat in the California District Bureau had specifically allocated large quotas of funds to be raised in the Hollywood area.

This initial infiltration began the strained relationship between Hollywood industry members and the American Communist Party. In a 2010 article studying the strained relationship between Hollywood and communism during the 1950s and appropriately titled “Stained Red,” University of Chicago Associate Professor Elizabeth Pontikes notes that while there were approximately 30,000 artists employed in Hollywood during this decade, only about 300 were officially blacklisted. However, this statistic does not include the hundreds more that were unofficially blacklisted as a result of their associations with suspected communists (for more, see post below). But the trend of blacklisting and investigating specific individuals is a smaller-scale reflection of the actions taken by the United States government, who also increased their investigations of specific citizens involved in ‘un-American’ activities at this time. Hollywood was not unique; it was just well-publicized. The revelations of the former communists-turned-witnesses also confirm the widely-held fear that communists were attempting to infiltrate themselves into every aspect of American society. Their testimonies help to reveal the widespread fears of the American public at this time.

Along with the growing menace of communism in Hollywood came a growing anti-communist movement, too. In his 1947 personal testimony before the House Committee, Hoover explicitly declared that the “best antidote to communism is vigorous, intelligent, old-fashioned Americanism with eternal vigilance” (Hoover 1947, 11). The idea that Americanism was a solution to communism was a sentiment later echoed by many other scholars. In her 1988 book Homeward Bound, University of Minnesota Professor Elaine Tyler May also states that in Hollywood, “a community notorious for its lack of attention to sexual propriety,” artists were proud to boast of their hometowns as paragons of American virtues (May 1988, 95). Additionally, conservative artists created and joined anti-communist organizations like the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA). This group pledged: “We believe in, and like, the American Way of Life; the liberty and freedom which generations before us have fought to create and preserve” (Frost 2010, 179). Even films created at the time advised private domestic values as the way to end the communist threat.

These anti-communist movements are important to understand because they are even more reflective of the wider social trends during this decade. With the threat of a communist takeover seeming inevitable, American families turned inward, strongly believing that a steady home life that promoted American values was the way to ward off communism. The belief in a strong private life and the growing visibility of anti-communist organizations in Hollywood echo the anti-communist actions taken by the American public at this time to combat communism. We can use the Hollywood anti-communist trends to understand the anti-communist movements being taken by the American public during the 1950s.