Writers in Hollywood 1915-1951 written by Ian Hamilton, published by Harper & Row, 1990.
Writers in Hollywood, by Ian Hamilton, is a fascinating look-back focusing on screenwriters in Hollywood during the years of 1915-51. The author delves into the history of virtually every film of importance produced during this period and painstakingly documents the contributions made by the writers who wrote the screenplays. The research is impeccable and practically every page is a teachable moment.
Most of the major studios were operating in Hollywood by 1920 but, by 1930, the introduction of "talkies" had doubled the audiences and what Hollywood desperately needed was more writers. The word went forth and soon thereafter there were over a thousand writers working in Hollywood. People like Anita Loos, Ben Hecht, Herman Mankiewicz, Frances Marion, Nathaniel West, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy Parker, Dudley Nichols, Nunnally Johnson, Preston Sturges, Jeannie Macpherson, Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner, Jr., Budd Schulberg, Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, W.R. Burnett, Phillip and Julius Epstein, and Raymond Chandler—just to name a few—answered the call and, on ridiculously short deadlines, began turning out scripts that captivated their audiences. But the process was less than harmonious and, in the words of the author, "most of them believed they had something to complain about."
In 1914, a group of writers created the Photoplay Authors League which led to the creation of the original Screen Writers Guild. In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was created. In 1933, the Screen Writers Guild was significantly revised at a meeting of writers at the Knickerbocker Hotel in response to a proposed 50% cut in wages by the Academy. Not long afterwards, the Guild considered a merger with the New York writers' guilds—namely the Authors League of America and the Dramatists League. This issue was put to a vote and was approved by the Screen Writers Guild but the outcome was muted by the objections of the producers and "oppositionists" within the Guild who wanted to create their own union called the Screen Playwrights. Membership in the Guild dropped dramatically but the Guild recovered its momentum when in, 1938, the National Labor Relations Board intervened and authorized an election by secret ballot. The Guild won which led to the demise of the Screen Playwrights but it wasn't until 1941 that the Screen Writers Guild was allowed a closed shop and granted arbitration authority to resolve disputes over screen credits.
In 1938, the House Un-American Activities Committee, led by Martin Dies, conducted "loyalty hearings" in Los Angeles. In 1941, a Senate sub-committee called the Nye Committee scrutinized Hollywood's use of war propaganda but the committee was suspended following Pearl Harbor. Once America entered the war, scripts were submitted to the Hays Office and the Bureau of Motion Pictures and, if necessary, the Office of War Information prior to release. In 1943, a three-day Writers' Congress was convened at UCLA. Over thirteen hundred people attended. Senator Jack Tenney, a member of the California State Un-American Activities Committee, reported that the Writers' Congress was being "promoted and controlled by communists;" whereas Darryl Zanuck, head of 20th Century-Fox, addressed Hollywood's post-war need "to assist the healing process." In 1944, a spin-off of the Screen Playwrights was created called the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. In May 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee, under the direction of J. Parnell Thomas, commenced hearings in Los Angeles at the Biltmore Hotel to address Communist infiltration of Hollywood. As a result of the hearings, nineteen individuals who had been named as Communists were subpoenaed to appear at a public hearing in Washington, D.C. scheduled to take place in October, 1947. This prompted the creation of the Committee for the First Amendment and a trip to Washington by a number of Hollywood celebrities who were keen on supporting the so-called Nineteen. Ten of the Nineteen were cited for contempt for refusing to answer the key question posed by the Committee: "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" The Nineteen thus became the Hollywood Ten. Perhaps of more consequence, however, was the meeting which took place on November 24, 1947 in which fifty members of the Motion Picture Association met at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City. In a statement released two days after the meeting, it was announced that Hollywood would not employ any Communist, or member of any group, that "advocates the overthrow of the Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional means." This declaration constituted the formal establishment of the "Hollywood Blacklist."
Share
Save
Follow Me