Hollywood Court Cases

The censorship conflicts in the 1900s were extremely intriguing and intense. Around the end of the 1920s, individuals possessed immense moral shifts powered by religious groups during the Great Depression, which resulted in decisions that created a new revolution that dealt particularly with the regulation of content of films. Consequently, in 1934, at the same time that the “Golden Age of Hollywood” began, the Hollywood Production code was formally implemented. The film

Outline the main changes the paramount decree effected on the structure of the American film industry and discuss the measures the ex-studios took to remain in control of the film market.

The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), began investigating Communist influences in the entertainment industry. The HUAC believed that Communists were secretly sending messages in films through propaganda (“Blacklisting”). Due to these beliefs, the HUAC called ten witnesses to testify against the accusal of Communist practices within the entertainment industry, but the witnesses refused to speak (Littell). These ten men would soon be infamously known as the Hollywood Ten; these men decided not to cooperate with the hearings because they believed they were unconstitutional and due to that they were sent to prison (Littell). Because of this, Hollywood executives initiated a blacklist, which is a list of people whom they condemned for having a Communist background. The people McCarthy had blacklisted, about 500 actors, writers, producers, and directors, had their careers ruined (Hixson). Again, Joseph McCarthy is responsible for the diminishing of people’s careers and reputations due to his false accusations and strong anti-Communist beliefs; not to mention McCarthy had no evidence against the accusal, but they were still sentenced to prison, death, or banishment. These actions McCarthy committed are illegal and corrupt

Prior to the Paramount supreme court decision, the big five companies of Hollywood had a monopoly and gained great fortune. The United States v. Paramount Pictures antitrust ruling changed the artistic content of films and began the decline of the major monopolies. Prior to the war, vertical integration was used by the top Hollywood businesses. The system they utilized to gain total control of the film process and film entertainment industry was dominant, however the Hollywood blacklist, and Paramount decision altered the direction of the film making business in America.

The AAMP believed that the creation of the Blacklist was a way in which they could undeniably appear to back HUAC in their investigation and because of this they would be less likely to be targeted. Consequently, it was not only the Hollywood Ten who was condemned to unemployment, but as HUAC continued its investigation into the pasts of hundreds of Hollywood stars, the list grew rapidly. This is because the

Like all cultural products, films have always been implicated in ideology. This was never truer than the period in America between the beginning of WWII in 1937 and the end of the Cold War in 1991. During this time (in 1947) the HUAC or House Committee on Un American Activities held a hearing lasting nine days to uncover those with Nazi ties within the United States. After the committee blacklisted several producers, writers and directors, the state intervened saying that Hollywood was directly responsible as a producer of ideology for domestic and foreign consumption. It was this complicity that essentially silenced the war.

How did the Paramount decision of 1948 change the U.S. film industry? To what degree did the decision alter the way the industry did business?

Hollywood has influenced American history since it began. It boosted and shaped the morale of a nation for almost a century. But Hollywood has not only been the influencing American society, it has been influenced by American society. In the 1920s, American society was booming; people were getting rich, spending and borrowing money, and they thought life was looking good. Then in October of 1929 the stock market crashed. Many people lost all they owned. People had invested all their money into the banks before the Crash. After the Crash, the banks had nothing. People were destitute. They had no money to pay for their houses, electrical bills, and food. It became the Great Depression. Likewise, Hollywood was impacted by the Great

Of those nineteen ten refused to testify which then caused them to be referred to as the “Hollywood Ten”. These ten were indicted for contempt of congress and sentenced to brief imprisonment according to www.britannica.com. The Hollywood ten motion picture producers, directors and screenwriters, were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lander Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo. They were subsequently found in contempt of Congress and were given sentences of six months to one year. The blacklist was an underlying fear of Communism and the influence it had on society. Furthermore it revealed the distrust of Hollywood and the Jews who the committee believed owned and operated the movie business. The Blacklist prevented them from ever having employment in Hollywood, but some chose to write under pseudonyms. As “Robert Rich” Dalton Trumbo won an Academy Award for best screenplay for the 1956 movie the Brave One. Over three hundred writers, directors, producers, and actors were blacklisted from 1947 to 1957. The film industry utilized the blacklist to break contracts and refusal to pay fees for scripts which led to a rift between the actors and Hollywood that still rings true

The Hollywood Blacklist was one of the darker and highly controversial action by several film studios during the 1940s and 50s where scores of directors, screenwriters, actors, musicians, and other entertainment professionals were unofficially banned due to their real or perceived association with communism. The list was rarely made public but resulted in untold damage to the careers of many established and promising talent. They were betrayed in private, berated in public, and some of them were unable to ever work again in Hollywood. In October of 1947 a committee called 'The House Un-American Activities Committee' (HUAC) based on an article in the Hollywood Reporter called for questioning several entertainment professionals including Dalton

It was estimated that by the late teens of the 20th century, Zukor held 75% of the best talent in the filmmaking business. I was baffled by this statistic when I read it. For one studio to hold ¾’s of the best talent in the industry is nearly a monopoly. Another thing I found interesting was that Fox worked on 70 mm wide-screen techniques. This was thought provoking to me because this summer I saw the film Dunkirk, and my friends and I saw it with the 70 mm wide-screen edition. I had never seen a movie with this wide-screen 70 mm and it was definitely different from a regular screen. Another thing that caught my attention was the connection between film and politics. I was interested to learn that MGM used a film to bring down Upton Sinclair as he was running for office. I was also shocked to read that Charlie Chaplin was not let into the United States because of his progressive political views. I was baffled that a man that was once called the “king of comedy” in the United States was denied entry because of his political

My response: The Hollywood Blacklist was an event that occurred in America where some people who worked in Hollywood were accused of working with the communists. According to an article published by Online Highways LLC, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) brought in many Hollywood writers, producers, and directors to question (Hollywood Blacklist). Then, according to an article published by A&E Television Networks, a notable group of 10 people who were brought in for questioning directly challenged the HUAC’s authority to question people about communist involvement, which forced them to spend a year in prison, pay a $1,000 fine, and become blacklisted so that they couldn’t work on any future Hollywood projects (“Hollywood Ten”). Their defiance was very controversial, since some people saw them as heroic people who stood up against McCarthyism and the Red Scare, while others felt that they needed to be punished for being admitted communists.

My very first impression of what a children’s court was very different from what I was expecting it to be. First off, it was filled with families who had pending court cases dealing with neglect and/or abuse. I knew that those were the types of cases that we were going to be sitting in on, but I was just shocked by how many parents would commit such acts. Second, just at first glance all the family seemed happy on the outside, but once I got to observer some families, I discovered that most of these family members were hurting on the inside from all the pain and trauma caused to the children. Lastly, I was taken back by how friendly and inviting the court house and courtrooms were.

When the Cold war began producers were not allowed to film certain items, however, by the 1950s it was safer to produce films without any political or economic implications at all. “Although Broken Arrow (1950) had presented Cochise sympathetically

It was not until the mid-1910’s did the film industry shift “towards a model that prized business legitimacy. This shift ultimately marginalized the woman filmmaker” (Mahar 133).