Salt of the Earth (1954) The Hollywood Ten (1950)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour/March/15/Selected_article

Salt of the Earth From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Portal:Organized Labour/March/15/Selected article)
Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Salt of the earth (disambiguation).
Salt of the Earth

Video cover
Directed by Herbert J. Biberman
Produced by Paul Jarrico
Sonja Dahl Biberman
Adolfo Barela
Written by Michael Wilson
Michael Biberman
Starring Rosaura Revueltas
Will Geer
David Wolfe
Mervin Williams
David Sarvis
Ernesto Velázquez
Juan Chacón
Henrietta Williams
Music by Sol Kaplan
Cinematography Stanley Meredith
Leonard Stark
Editing by Joan Laird
Ed Spiegel
Distributed by Independent Productions
Release date(s) March 14, 1954 (1954-03-14) (New York City)
Running time 94 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Spanish
Budget $250,000

Salt of the Earth (1954) is an American drama film written by Michael Wilson, directed by Herbert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico. All had been blacklisted by the Hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement in communist politics.[1]

The film is one of the first pictures to advance the feminist social and political point of view. Its plot centers on a long and difficult strike, based on the 1951 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, New Mexico. In the film, the company is identified as "Delaware Zinc," and the setting is "Zinctown, New Mexico." The film shows how the miners, the company, and the police react during the strike. In neorealist style, the producers and director used actual miners and their families as actors in the film



Salt of the Earth

Video cover
Directed by Herbert J. Biberman
Produced by Paul Jarrico
Sonja Dahl Biberman
Adolfo Barela
Written by Michael Wilson
Michael Biberman
Starring Rosaura Revueltas
Will Geer
David Wolfe
Mervin Williams
David Sarvis
Ernesto Velázquez
Juan Chacón
Henrietta Williams
Music by Sol Kaplan
Cinematography Stanley Meredith
Leonard Stark
Editing by Joan Laird
Ed Spiegel
Distributed by Independent Productions
Release date(s) March 14, 1954 (1954-03-14) (New York City)
Running time 94 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Spanish
Budget $250,000
__________________________________________________________________________________
Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production
4 Reception
4.1 Critical response
4.2 Awards and recognition
5 Later history
5.1 Other releases
5.2 Adaptations
6 See also
7 References
7.1 Notes
7.2 Bibliography
8 External links
________________________________________________________________________________
The film opens with a narration from Esperanza Quintero (Rosaura Revueltas). She begins:

"How shall I begin my story that has no beginning? My name is Esperanza, Esperanza Quintero. I am a miner's wife. This is our home. The house is not ours. But the flowers... the flowers are ours. This is my village. When I was a child, it was called San Marcos. The Anglos changed the name to Zinc Town. Zinc Town, New Mexico, U.S.A. Our roots go deep in this place, deeper than the pines, deeper than the mine shaft..."
he issues the miners strike for include equity in wages with Anglo workers and health and safety issues. Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacon) helps organize the strike, but at home he treats his wife as a second-class citizen. His wife, Esperanza Quintero, pregnant with their third child, is passive at first and reluctant either to take part in the strike or to assert her rights for equality at home. She changes her attitude when the men are forced to end their picketing by a Taft-Hartley Act injunction. At the union hall, the women convince the men after a long debate that they should be allowed to participate and they join the picket line.

join the picket line.

CastProfessional actors

Rosaura Revueltas as Esperanza Quintero
Will Geer as Sheriff
David Wolfe as Barton
Mervin Williams as Hartwell
David Sarvis as Alexander
Non-professional actors

Juan Chacón as Ramon Quintero
Henrietta Williams as Teresa Vidal
Ernesto Velázquez as Charley Vidal
Ángela Sánchez as Consuelo Ruiz
Joe T. Morales as Sal Ruiz
The film was called subversive and blacklisted because the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers sponsored it and many blacklisted Hollywood professional helped produce it. The union had been expelled from the CIO in 1950 for its alleged communist-dominated leadership.[2]

Director Herbert Biberman was one of the Hollywood screenwriters and directors who refused to answer the House Committee on Un-American Activities on questions of CPUSA affiliation in 1947. The Hollywood Ten were cited and convicted for contempt of Congress and jailed. Biberman was imprisoned in the Federal Correctional Institution at Texarkana for six months. After his release he directed this film.[3] Other participants who made the film and were blacklisted by the Hollywood studios include: Paul Jarrico, Will Geer, Rosaura Revueltas, and Michael Wilson.

The producers cast only five professional actors. The rest were locals from Grant County, New Mexico, or members of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Local 890, many of whom were part of the strike that inspired the plot. Juan Chacón, for example, was a real-life Union Local president. In the film he plays the protagonist, who has trouble dealing with women as equals.[4] The director was reluctant to cast him at first, thinking he was too "gentle," but both Revueltas and his sister-in-law, Sonja Dahl Biberman, wife of Biberman's brother Edward, urged him to cast Chacón as Ramon.[5]
The film was denounced by the United States House of Representatives for its communist sympathies, and the FBI investigated the film's financing. The American Legion called for a nation-wide boycott of the film. Film-processing labs were told not to work on Salt of the Earth and unionized projectionists were instructed not to show it.[citation needed] After its opening night in New York City, the film languished for 10 years because all but 12 theaters in the country refused to screen it.[6]

By one journalist's account: "During the course of production in New Mexico in 1953, the trade press denounced it as a subversive plot, anti-Communist vigilantes fired rifle shots at the set, the film's leading lady [Rosaura Revueltas] was deported to Mexico, and from time to time a small airplane buzzed noisily overhead....The film, edited in secret, was stored for safekeeping in an anonymous wooden shack in Los Angeles."[7]
Critical response
Miners before they strikeThe Hollywood establishment did not embrace the film at the time of its release, when McCarthyism was in full force. The Hollywood Reporter charged at the time that it was made "under direct orders of the Kremlin."[8] Pauline Kael, who reviewed the film for Sight and Sound in 1954, said it was "as clear a piece of Communist propaganda as we have had in many years."[9]

New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther reviewed the picture favorably, both the screenplay and the direction, writing: "In the light of this agitated history, it is somewhat surprising to find that Salt of the Earth is, in substance, simply a strong pro-labor film with a particularly sympathetic interest in the Mexican-Americans with whom it deals...But the real dramatic crux of the picture is the stern and bitter conflict within the membership of the union. It is the issue of whether the women shall have equality of expression and of strike participation with the men. And it is along this line of contention that Michael Wilson's tautly muscled script develops considerable personal drama, raw emotion and power." Crowther called the film "a calculated social document."[10]

The film found a wide audience in both Western and Eastern Europe in the 1950s.[11]

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on eleven reviews.[12]

Awards and recognition
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival: Best Actress: Rosaura Revueltas; Crystal Globe Award for Best Picture, Herbert J. Biberman, Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), Czech Republic; 1954.
Academie du Cinema de Paris: International Grand Prize; 1955.[13]
In 1992 the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the United States National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[citation needed]

The story of the film's suppression, as well as the events it depicted, inspired an underground audience of unionists, leftists, feminists, Mexican-Americans, and film historians. The film found a new life in the 1960s and gradually reached wider audiences through union halls, women's centers, and film schools. The 50th anniversary of the film saw a number of commemorative conferences held across the United States.[14]

The "Salt of the Earth Labor College" located in Tucson, Arizona is named after the film. The pro-labor institution (not a college, per se) holds various lectures and forums related to unionism and economic justice. The film is screened on a frequent basis.[15]

Around 1993, Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguistics professor and political commentator Noam Chomsky praised the film because of the way people were portrayed doing the real work of unions. He said, "[T]he real work is being done by people who are not known, that's always been true in every popular movement in history...I don't know how you get that across in a film. Actually, come to think of it, there are some films that have done it. I mean, I don't see a lot of visual stuff, so I'm not the best commentator, but I thought Salt of the Earth really did it. It was a long time ago, but at the time I thought that it was one of the really great movies—and of course it was killed, I think it was almost never shown."[16]
Other releases
Union meeting.On July 27, 1999, a digitally restored print of the film was released in DVD by Organa through Geneon (Pioneer), and packaged with the documentary The Hollywood Ten, which reported on the ten filmmakers who were blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). This Special Edition with the Hollywood Ten film is still available through Organa at organa.com. In 2004, a budget edition DVD was released by Alpha Video. A laserdisc version was released by the Criterion Collection.

Because the film's copyright was not renewed in 1982, the film is now in the public domain and may be viewed, and downloaded, by using Google Videos.[17]

[edit] AdaptationsThe film has been adapted into a two-act opera called Esperanza (Hope). The labor movement in Wisconsin and University of Wisconsin–Madison opera professor Karlos Moser commissioned the production. The music was written by David Bishop and the libretto by Carlos Morton. The opera premiered in Madison, Wisconsin, on August 25, 2000, to positive reviews.[18]
AdaptationsThe film has been adapted into a two-act opera called Esperanza (Hope). The labor movement in Wisconsin and University of Wisconsin–Madison opera professor Karlos Moser commissioned the production. The music was written by David Bishop and the libretto by Carlos Morton. The opera premiered in Madison, Wisconsin, on August 25, 2000, to positive reviews.[18]

A drama film, based on the making of the film, was chronicled in One of the Hollywood Ten (2000). It was produced and directed by Karl Francis, starred Jeff Goldblum and Greta Scacchi and was released on September 29, 2000 in Spain and European countries. It has not been released in the United States as of 2011. The film has been shown at many film festivals around the world.[citation needed]

The film is preserved by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.


The Hollywood Ten From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search The Hollywood Ten

Promotional image
Directed by John Berry
Written by John Berry
Starring Herbert J. Biberman
Dalton Trumbo
Cinematography Nicolas Hayer
Distributed by Criterion Collection
Release date(s) January 15, 1950
Running time 15 minutes
Country United States
Language English

The Hollywood Ten (1950) is an American 16mm short documentary film. In the film, each member of the Hollywood Ten made a short speech denouncing McCarthyism and the Hollywood Blacklisting.[1]

The film was directed by John Berry. Berry was blacklisted upon the film's release, and, unable to find work, left for France.[2]

The documentary is available on the DVD releases of Spartacus and Salt of the Earth.

Contents [hide]
1 Featuring
2 See also
3 References
4 External links


[edit] Featuring
Herbert J. Biberman

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbiberman.htm
Bibliography of books/articles about Salt of the Earth
Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
Lester Cole
Lester Cole
Screenwriter Lester Cole will go down in cinema history as a member of the original "Hollywood Ten," one of the first unfortunate people in the film industry to be black-listed by the House Anti-American Activities Committee in 1947. Cole, the son of Polish immigrants, began writing and directing plays at age 16 after he dropped out of high school. During the 1920s and '30s he worked as an actor on stage and screen before embarking on his screenwriting career. While in Hollywood, he was a union activist and became a co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild in 1933. He was later black-balled for challenging the committee's right to interrogate him about his political beliefs. He then served 1 year in prison, leaving behind an unfinished script that was later finished by John Steinbeck for Kazan's Viva Zapata (1952). Following his release from prison, Cole worked a series of odd jobs. In 1961 he went to London, but eventually returned to the states where he began collaborating on screenplays under an assumed name. He also taught screenwriting at the University of California, Berkeley -- Sandra Brennan [from the All-Media Guide]



Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcoleL.htm
Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk Films in MRC

Walk on the Wild Side (1963)DVD X3924
Soldier of Fortune (1955)DVD 5956
The End of the Affair (1955)DVD X2459; vhs 999:3892
The Sniper (1952)DVD X2400
Christ in Concrete (aka Give Us This Day) (1949) DVD 3285
Crossfire (1947) DVD 4115; Video/C 999:1027
Back to Bataan (1945)DVD 2676
Cornered (1945) Video/C 999:3568
Murder My Sweet (1944) DVD 2718; Video/C 999:548
Rugglers of Red Gap (1935) Video/C 999:765
A messenger boy at Paramount in the mid 1920s, Edward Dmytryk became an editor in the 1930s and began directing in 1935. By the mid '40s he had such impressive credits as The Devil Commands (1941) with Boris Karloff; the anti-fascist Hitler's Children (1943); the noirs Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Cornered (1945), starring Dick Powell; and Crossfire (1947), one of the first Hollywood films to confront anti-Semitism. In 1948 Dmytryk became one of the "Hollywood Ten" when he was accused of having ties to the communist party and was sentenced to a year in prison for contempt of Congress. Following his imprisonment, Dymtryk was blacklisted in the U.S., so he directed three films in England, but returned to the States in 1951. Upon his return he went before the House Un-American Activities Committee again, this time as a "friendly" witness, and his name was dropped from the blacklist. He then resumed his American career and directed four films for producer Stanley Kramer, most notably The Sniper (1952) and The Caine Mutiny (1954). Dmytryk went on to make several notable films in the 1950s, including the westerns Broken Lance (1954) with Spencer Tracy, and Warlock (1959) with Henry Fonda, and the World War II drama The Young Lions (1958), starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. His subsequent work was well-made but unremarkable. [from the All-Media Guide]



http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdmytryk.htm
Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
Ring Lardner Jr.
Ring Lardner, Jr.
The son of a famed humorist, screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr. (born Ringgold Wilmer Lardner, Jr.) started out as a reporter for the New York Daily Mirror. Prior to that, he had briefly attended Princeton. He eventually became a publicist for David Selznick in Hollywood and after that worked uncredited as a script doctor before becoming a full-fledged screenwriter working alone or in collaboration. Lardner shared an Oscar in 1942 for Woman of the Year and his career looked quite promising until he refused to cooperate with the witch-hunts of the House Un-American Activities Committee and became one of the Hollywood Ten. For his refusal, Lardner spent a year in prison and then was blacklisted until the mid '60s. Though officially banned from Hollywood, Lardner continued working under pseudonyms and also worked uncredited. Lardner made a big comeback in 1970 when he wrote the script for M*A*S*H. -- Sandra Brennan [from the All-Media Guide]




Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlardner.htm

Ring Lardner, Jr. Films in MRC

M*A*S*H (1972) TV Series (1972-- screenplay)(uncredited) DVD 1000
M*A*S*H (1970) (screenplay) DVD 7590; Video/C 999:438
Cincinnati Kid, The (1965)(screenplay) DVD 5089
Cloak and Dagger (1946) DVD 8572; vhs Video/C 999:282
Laura (1944) (uncredited) DVD 3643; vhs Video/C 999:678
Woman of the Year (1942) DVD 1841
A Star is Born (1937)(contributing writer) (uncredited) DVD 3284; vhs Video/C 999:737
Nothing Sacred (1937)(uncredited) DVD 324
John Howard Lawson
John Howard Lawson
John Howard Lawson had an exciting life before becoming a screenwriter and a playwright. As a young man during WW I, he was a volunteer ambulance driver for the Red Cross; there his peers were Ernest Hemingway, Dos Passos, and e.e. cummings. Following the war, he began editing a newspaper in Rome and working as a publicity director for the American Red Cross. During the '20s and '30s, he began writing numerous plays, most of them promoting Marxism; some of these plays made it to Broadway. He sold his first movie screenplay in 1920 to Paramount, and eight years later moved to Hollywood to become a contract writer who created screenplays, original stories, and scripts for several films. Lawson became a co-founder of the Screen Writers Guild in 1933; that year he also served as its first president. Many of Lawson's films were political and embraced socialistic concepts, such as his tribute to the US-USSR alliance formed during WW II, CounterAttack (1945). The Spanish Civil War was also a favorite topic for Lawson in films such as Blockade (1938). In 1948, Lawson became one of the notorious Hollywood Ten when he refused to co-operate with the House Un-American Activities Committee investigators. He was sentenced to one year in prison and was subsequently blacklisted in Hollywood. Lawson then exiled himself to Mexico where he began writing books on drama and filmmaking such as Film in the Battle of Ideas (1953), and Film: The Creative Process (1964). Later he also went on lecture tours in American universities where he talked about theater and cinema. -- Sandra Brennan [from the All-Media Guide]




http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAlawsonJH.htm
Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database

John Howard Lawson Films in MRC

Cry the Beloved Country (screenplay) (originally uncredited) (1938) vhs 999:941
Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) (screenplay) DVD X3766
Action in the North Atlantic (1943) (screenplay) DVD 6275
Sahara (1943) (screenplay) DVD 5875
Blockade (1938) (writer) DVD 1524
Algiers (1938) (screenplay) DVD X519
Albert Maltz
Albert Maltz
Distinguished author, short-story writer, playwright and screenwriter Albert Maltz was among the notorious "Hollywood Ten," those artists who were first blackballed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for refusing to testify about communist affiliations. Following education at Columbia University and the Yale School of Drama, Maltz worked as a playwright for the left-leaning Theatre Union. During the early '30s, many of his plays were produced in New York. He also published his novels and stories. He moved to Hollywood to write screenplays in 1941 and primarily worked alone and in collaboration for Warner Brothers and Paramount. During WW II, he penned patriotic scripts for such films as Destination Tokyo (1944). In 1942, he wrote the script for the Oscar-winning documentary Moscow Strikes Back. Another documentary he wrote, The House I Live In won a special Academy Award in 1945. After refusing to cooperate with Congress in 1947, Maltz was sentenced to nearly a year in jail and was blacklisted. Though he continued to anonymously contribute to scripts, Maltz received no credit until his final film Two Mules for Sister Sara. -- Sandra Brennan [from the All-Media Guide]



http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmaltz.htm
Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database

Albert Maltz Films in MRC

The Beguiled (1971) DVD 5367
Two Mules for Sister Sara (screenplay) (1970) DVD X3222
Broken Arrow (front Michael Blankfort) (1950) DVD 8475; vhs Video/C 999:1444
The Naked City (1948) DVD 403; also VHS Video/C 999:1134
Cloak and Dagger (1946)DVD 8572; vhs Video/C 999:282
Destination Tokyo (1943) DVD 8215; Video/C 999:1578
This Gun for Hire (1942) DVD 2744; vhs Video/C 999:1706
Samuel Ornitz
Samuel Ornitz
The son of a prosperous New York dry-goods merchant, Samuel Ornitz could have followed the lead of his two older brothers by entering the business world. Instead, Ornitz turned his back on the capitalist system, making his first "progressive" public speech at the age of 12. Gravitating to writing, he achieved success with his 1923 novel Haunch Paunch and Jowl, a witty memoir of Jewish immigrant life. In Hollywood from 1929, Ornitz's screen credits were generally confined to pleasant but unremarkable programmers for such studios as RKO and Republic. His chief claim to fame in Tinseltown was as an early organizer and board member of the Screen Actors Guild. He was also one of the most outspoken of Hollywood's left-wing community, alienating many of his more cautiously liberal friends by doggedly insisting that there was no anti-Semitism in Stalin's Russia (he later backed off on this assertion when confronted by the cold, hard facts). Ornitz hadn't had a screen credit in two years when, in 1947, he was ordered to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Refusing to answer the HUAC's questions about his involvement in the Communist Party, Ornitz ended up as one of the famed "Hollywood Ten," in the company of such screenwriters as Ring Lardner Jr., Albert Maltz and Dalton Trumbo. He served a year in prison for contempt of Congress, during which time he published his last truly important novel, Bride of the Sabbath. Upon his release, Samuel Ornitz was finished in Hollywood, but continued writing novels until his death at age 66. -- Hal Erickson [from the All-Media Guide]



Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAornitz.htm

Samuel Ornitz Films in MRC

Imitation of Life (1934) (contributing writer) (uncredited) DVD 5246; Video/C 999:2027
Adrian Scott
Adrian Scott
Screenwriter/producer Adrian Scott was among the first ten Hollywood people to be called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1947. His name was provided to the committee by director/producer Edward Dmytryk, with whom Scott had worked for many years. After refusing to testify, Scott was sentenced to a year in prison. Following his release, Scott was blacklisted and never worked in films again. -- Sandra Brennan [from the All-Media Guide]




Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAscottA.htm

Adrian Scott Films in MRC

Imitation of Life (1934) (contributing writer) (uncredited) DVD 5246; Video/C 999:2027
Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo
Colorado-born Dalton Trumbo began his professional life as a newspaper reporter and editor and,like a lot of people in those professions, was drawn into the movie business in the mid '30s. His career as a screenwriter was rather routine during the later part of the decade, his most important scripts being Five Came Back (1939) and Kitty Foyle (1940). With the outbreak of World War II, the flashes of seriousness and spirituality that had shown up in his early work became more pronounced, and he wrote such classics as the fantasy A Guy Named Joe (1943) and the fact-based Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), which emphasized the need for sacrifice in order to win the war. Following the end of the war, Trumbo's career was blighted by the increasingly unfriendly political climate in Hollywood, where the studio heads had no use for men of ideas and ideals such as him. And then, in 1947, the roof fell in on him when he was called to testify about the alleged communist infiltration of the movie business and -- along with nine others -- refused to testify. Trumbo, who was suspect for his otherwise innocuous 1943 script for Tender Comrade (which was about communal living in wartime, not covert Communist propaganda), was cited for contempt of Congress and served a 10-month jail term. Unable to find employment in Hollywood, he moved to Mexico where he continued to write -- for fees far smaller than the $75,000 a year he'd been making from MGM before the contempt citation -- under assumed names. His script for The Brave One (1956, under the name Robert Rich) earned an Academy Award. That and other honors, most notably the Oscar earned by Michael Wilson's script for Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), helped undermine the blacklist, and Trumbo later worked openly on Exodus and Spartacus, two high-profile blockbuster productions released in 1960, as well as the more modest drama Lonely Are the Brave (1962). By the end of the '60s, with a new generation in control of Hollywood, Trumbo was welcomed back as a hero from a long war, and was permitted to direct a film adaptation of his 1939 antiwar novel Johnny Got His Gun (1971) -- the film was honored at Cannes, and got a huge amount of press coverage in the United States due to its seeming relevance to the Vietnam War, but many of the accolades were really intended to compensate for past injustice, rather than to recognize the movie, which was received as overly preachy and didactic, as well as unremittingly grim, by most viewers. Trumbo also contributed late in life to the political thriller Executive Action (1973), which dealt with an alleged conspiracy to murder President Kennedy, and the adventure drama Papillon (1973). [from the All-Media Guide]



Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAtrumbo.htm

Dalton Trumbo Films in MRC

Papillon (1973) DVD 5081
Johnny Got His Gun (1971) (also novel) DVD 7331
The Sandpiper (1965) DVD 8541
Spartacus (1960) DVD 2088; DVD 261
Exodus (1960) DVD X1091; Video/C 999:831
The Brothers Rico (uncredited) (1957) DVD X4142
Brave One, The (1956) (screenplay) (originally uncredited) (story) (originally as Robert Rich) Video/C 999:1752
Roman Holiday (1953) (story) (front Ian McLellan Hunter) DVD 7377; vhs Video/C 999:788
Gun Crazy (aka Deadly Is the Female) (screenplay) (front Millard Kaufman) (1950) DVD 2716; vhs 999:517
Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940) (screenplay) DVD 9735; vhs Video/C 999:197
Alvah Bessie

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAbessie.htm
Biographical and credit information from the Internet Movie Database
[edit] See alsoList of American films of 1950
[edit] References1.^ The Hollywood Ten at the Internet Movie Database.
2.^ The Hollywood Ten on the Ironweed web site.
[edit] External linksThe Hollywood Ten at the Internet Movie Database
The Hollywood Ten at Dalton Trumbo web site
The Hollywood Ten bios at University of California, Berkeley, Library
John Berry's obituary in The Philadelphia Inquirer
The Hollywood Ten trailer at YouTube
The Hollywood Ten film at Google Videos
[hide]v ·t ·eFilms directed by John Berry

1940s Miss Susie Slagle's (1946) ·From This Day Forward (1946) ·Cross My Heart (1946) ·Casbah (1948) ·Tension (1949)

1950s The Hollywood Ten (1950) ·Atoll K (1951) ·He Ran All the Way (1951) ·C'est arrivé à Paris (1952) ·Ça va barder (1955) ·Je suis un sentimental (1955) ·Don Juan (1956) ·Tamango (1958) ·Oh! Qué mambo (1959)

1960s-1970s Maya (1966) ·À tout casser (1968) ·Claudine (1974) ·Thieves (1977) ·The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)

1980s-2000s Voyage to Paimpol (1985) ·Maldonne (1988) ·A Captive in the Land (1993) ·Boesman and Lena (2000)

__________________________________________________________________

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/blacklist.html

Herbert J. Biberman
The socially conscious films of American director, screenwriter and producer Herbert Biberman are perhaps best known in Europe as he was blacklisted as one of the Hollywood Ten in 1950. Biberman was educated at the University of Pennsylvania. He also attended Yale and went to Europe. He then worked for a number of years in his family's textile business until 1928 when he joined the Theater Guild as an assistant stage manager, and quickly became one of the company's best directors. He entered films as a director and screenwriter of "B" movies in 1935. He was first accused of communist activities by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. Biberman refused to confirm or deny the allegations and in 1950 was sentenced to 6 months in prison and banished from Hollywood. His primary accusers were Budd Schulberg and Edward Dmytryk. Biberman's wife Gale Sondergaard was similarly accused and she too refused to testify. In 1954, Biberman independently made Salt of the Earth a provocative, moving chronicle of the terrible working conditions faced by miners in New Mexico. Though the film was backed by the miner's union and employed real workers and their families, other unions refused to show the film because Biberman was still blacklisted. The film was shown once in a New York theater were it received terrific reviews. Biberman then released the film in Europe where it won awards in France and Czechoslovakia. In 1965, the film was finally released in the U.S. Four years later, Biberman made his last film, Slaves (1969), an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Though it was not critically well-received in the U.S., it was highly regarded in France. -- Sandra Brennan [from the All-Media Guide]
__________________________________________________________________________________
The Hollywood Ten













Bibliography of books and articles on Hollywood and the movies in the 1950's

Documentaries about the 1950's



Web resources on the Hollywood blacklist (via Yahoo)
The Literature & Culture of the American 1950s (Professor Al Filreis, University of Pennsylvania)
The Red Scare: A Filmography(All Powers Project, University of Washington)
Screen Actors' Guild: 50 Years: SAG Remembers The Blacklist
Blacklist: A Different Look at the 1947 HUAC Hearings (via Modern Times)
Hollywood Blacklist (from: Buhle, Buhle, and Georgakas, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Left, [Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992])

Alvah Bessie

American novelist and journalist Alvah Bessie wrote screenplays for Warner Brothers and other studios during the mid and late '40s. As a screenwriter, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Story for the patriotic Warner's film Objective Burma(1945). No stranger to soldiering, Bessie had been a member of the International Brigades, and fought in the Spanish Civil War in 1938. Upon his return, he wrote a book about his experiences, Men in Battle. His career came to a halt in 1947, when he was summoned before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He refused to deny or confirm involvement in the Communist Party, and in 1950 he became one of the Hollywood Ten when he was imprisoned and blacklisted. In 1965, Bessie wrote a book about his experience with the HUAC, Inquisition in Eden. He wrote another book in 1975, Spain Again, which chronicled his experiences as a co-writer and actor in a Spanish movie of the same name. His Spanish Civil War Notebooks, a diary of his activities while in Spain in 1938, have been recently published (2001). Unfortunately, his screenwriting career was ruined by the blacklisting, and he never returned to Hollywood. [Information provided courtesy of Dan Bessie]
Alvah Bessie Films in MRC
Ruthless (1948) (screenplay) (originally uncredited) vhs 999:3567
Objective, Burma! (1945) (story) (uncredited) DVD X2865; vhs 999:1363
Northern Pursuit (1943) (screenplay) DVD X4605