The
most defined and most spectacular incident regarding the film industry
politics, however, involved Hollywood’s New-Deal-era
infiltration by
the Communist Party USA, a subsequent House Un-American Activities
Committee (HUAC) probe, and the industry-wide blacklist of
unrepentant
Stalinists that followed.
Conveying that story to modern readers is Human Events Editor-at Large
Allan H. Ryskind’s
Hollywood
Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters – Agents of Stalin, Allies of
Hitler (Regnery
History, $29.99), a powerful indictment of such Communist Party
loyalists as the "Hollywood Ten," individuals that popular history (and
such films as Woody Allen's "The Front," Jim Carrey's "The Majestic,"
and the documentary "Trumbo") now paint as heroes.
[...]
Of 1943’s "Mission to Moscow," Ryskind notes, “No more pro-Soviet film
has ever been produced or promoted by a major Hollywood studio—or
possibly even by a Soviet studio.”
Ryskind, son of former Hollywood screenwriter Morrie Ryskind, might be
on to something.
The film features not only a defense of the indefensible Moscow Show
Trials of the late 1930s, but also such deathless dialog as this from
FDR’s Soviet Ambassador Joseph E. Davies (portrayed by Walter Huston):
"I am amazed at the boldness and imagination behind such a vast
industrial development. I can think of no other period in history where
so much has been done in so short a time."
To Stalin, Davies/Huston even gushes, "I’ve been deeply impressed by
what I’ve seen, your
industrial plants, the development of your natural resources, and the
work being done to improve living conditions everywhere in your
country. I believe history will record you as a great builder for the
benefit of mankind."
The going was truly good for Hollywood's Communist Party screenwriters.
[FULL]