Ed Dmytryk (right) and Ilya Salkind, 1972
In 1951, Edward Dmytryk got out of prison after serving a number of months for contempt of Congress. Dmytryk had directed a couple of decent noirs — Crossfire and Murder, My Sweet — before getting himself crosswise with the House Committee on Un-Aamerican Activities (HUAC) as part of the “Hollywood Ten”. He was in jail because he’d refused to name the names of others of his colleagues who’d been involved with the Communist Party.
The Hollywood Ten. Dmytryk is top row center.
Prison must have softened him up, because when he got out he had no such scruples, and proceeded to sing like a bird bird each time he was called before HUAC. One of the people he named was fellow director Jules Dassin, another maker of films noir. Dassin had left the country the previous year to make Night and the City, after being warned he was under suspicion by Daryl Zanuck. When Dmytryk named him, he was touring the country directing a touring review Bette Davis, one of the only artists who’d work with him. After he was named, the offers for work totally dried up, and he moved to France to try and find work. He had a wife and three children to feed, after all.
Jules Dassin ca. 1948
Dassin was one of about 300 Hollywood professionals eventually blacklisted; many of them moved to Europe to find work. For a time, the Dassin household became kind of a center for U.S. artists in exile, many of whom were trying to restart their careers. But only about ten percent of blacklisted artists were able to do so.
Dassin had been briefly a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in the 1930s, but left in disillusionment in 1939. The modus operandi of HUAC, however, was to blacklist anyone who’d been even briefly associated with the party, and they were very effective.
Shortly after he arrived in France, Dassin was offered a film. A few days before production was to begin, the producer was told that if he worked with Dassin, it would not be released in the States, and neither would any other film he produced. That riled the French up, who made it a cause celebré. He was quickly granted membership in the French director’s guild, but it didn’t help. Instead, it got worse: he was offered a film in Italy, but was ejected from the country as an undesirable; when he turned to the American embassy for assistance, the ambassador — one Clare Booth Luce — refused to see him.
Jules Dassin and wife Melina Mercouri, 1960
To his dying day, he was hurt and puzzled by all of this — he couldn’t understand how his friends and colleagues could turn on him. “I had a double shock with Edward Dmytryk,” he said in a 2006 interview. “When he was in prison, I took care of his children. It was very personal, and that hurt very much when he named me. It was so hard to understand that period.”
Finally, of course, he was able to direct another picture, the classic heist film Rififi in 1955. It revived his fortunes as well as his career: because he was paid little up front, he took a cut of the receipts; the film was a major international hit. At Cannes, Dassin was awarded Best Director, a major embarrassment for the Americans. Still, none of his old friends from Hollywood would be photographed with him; only Gene Kelly had the guts — he took Dassin’s arm and led him past all the photographers and reporters.
HUAC hearing, 1947
Although the most visible, the Hollywood blacklist was only the tip of the iceberg. Anti-communist hysteria — the HUAC investigation being only a part — was responsible for the destruction of thousands of careers. And it’s important to remember that this fear was used by members of our own government to cynically maintain and consolidate power; it shows that the United States — land of the free and home of the brave — is not immune from that sort of thing.
Jules Dassin, 2006
In these times we have fresh evidence of that. Profiling, the so-called “Patriot” Act, the imprisonment of foreign nationals without representation or trial, the co-opting of telecoms for shady wire-taps, all the while evoking 911 at every turn. It seems certain people are always willing to abrogate our rights — though rarely their own — in the dubious name of national security. And, as always, the perpetrators wrap themselves in the flag, branding those who disagree as unpatriotic, and whispering about their loyalty. Some things never change.
Note: This was inspired by a string of comments over at Jonathan Lapper’s Cinema Styles, as well as my preparations for a piece on Rififi to be posted later this month at MovieZeal.
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And some things have been happening from the beginning. Sadly. Just after the United States got out of the starting gate as a country the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed. With the Alien Act President Adams could expel anyone who “aroused suspicion.” How’s that for vagueness. The Sedition Act of course made it a crime to criticize the government. Jefferson pardoned everyone in the first week of his presidency but it shows how tenous this experiment of ours is. It shows how close to the edge we walk and how the wrong man at the wrong time can take us in directions that may be impossible to return from.
In writing about such things in The Demon Haunted World Carl Sagan wrote,
From across two centuries, it’s hard to recapture the frenzied mood that made the French and the ‘wild Irish’ seem so grave a threat that we were willing to surrender our most precious freedoms… But that’s how it always works. It always seems an aberration later. But by then we’re in the grip of the next hysteria.
Those who seek power at any price detect a societal weakness, a fear that they can ride into office. It could be ethnic differences, as it was then, perhaps different amounts of melanin in the skin; different philosphies or religions; or maybe it’s drug use, violent crime, economic crisis, school prayer, or “desecrating” (literally, making unholy) the flag.
Whatever the problem, the quick fix is to shave a little freedom off the Bill of Rights… The pretexts change from year to year, but the result remains the same: concentrating more power in fewer hands and suppressing diversity of opinion – even though experience plainly shows the dangers of such a course of action.
Sagan wrote those words four years before Bush was “elected.” It was valid then, now and will remain so into the future. Because no matter how beautiful our Constitution is, it is only as strong as the men and women we entrust to protect it.
Those in power — and they are interchangeable — seek scapegoats … The word is from a goat that ancients would ritually place all their “sins,” all their problems upon, and send out into the desert. Scapegoats are usually marginal, outsiders, those with no power, folks that aren’t like us. If those in power can place all society’s problems on their backs, they can avoid taking any of the blame, or doing the really hard work of change.
Hitler, of course, scape-goated the Jews, the Republican congress the Communists during the blacklist years, right now it’s illegal “aliens.” Our leaders are placing the blame for the results of decades of bad policies, designed to feather their own nests and those of their cronies in private industry, squarely on the backs of those with no rights, no power. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses indeed.
Great quote from Sagan, Jonathan.
I think there is a new documentary out about this scary time in film and American history called TRUMBO.
I’m sure by the title you can figure out who it’s about.
Love Dassin and love RIFIFI. Can’t wait for the post.
Ummm … Dalton Trumbo? According to Netflix, it’ll be released on DVD in November.
Yeah. I think it was recently playing at one of the art houses here in Chicago.
Talk about badass. Trumbo was the man.
Indeed, he was. But so was my man Dassin.
This is a great piece, Rick. The blacklist was absolutely horrid. You have to wonder what is happening in our country today that is similar to what happened then, and whether or not we’re doing anything about it.
Not much, I’m afraid … we have not really done anything to roll back, for instance, the legislation over the past few years that has gnawed away our personal freedoms, nor have any of the favoritism in awarding contracts for Iraqi “rebuilding” and etc., ever been looked into. The government is very bad at investigating itself.
Hi! I am kind of new to the “World” of “eBlogging” and after reading the article “Paint It Black,” (I think that I read your very nice article about both directors while cruising the web in early August) every “ounce” of my sympathy went out to the “plight” of the late director Jules Dassins and what he had to endure during that period in his life!
Because I just “discovered” film noir 2 and half years ago, along with the film noir achievements of the late director Jules Dassin’s (The Naked City, Night in the City, Rififi and his Thieves’ Highway) Which I just recently purchased from Criterion…What a very interesting interview on the dvd(That featured Director Jules Dassin, talking about the ending of the film Thieves’ Highway, in which he said, was Zanuck’s idea and not his (Dassin)…Wow! I wasn’t aware of the fact, that the “cop out” ending of the film Thieves Highway was Zanuck’s idea! (and the “pure,” but “greedy” sweetheart of Richard Conte’s actress Barbara Lawrence, Dassin didn’t want her in the film… period!)
What you can learn from those bonus extras on dvds!…”It is amazing!”
Thanks,
Hi, welcome to Coosa Creek. I love the extras on the Criterion disks; they’re a lot of times almost like a “film school in a box”
If you are into noirs — and I see by your excellent blog that you are — you might be interested in MovieZeal’s just completed “noir month,” for which I contributed a review of “Rififi” here.
I think — but have no data to back it up — that forced happy endings on pessimistic noirs were more common than one would think. Wouldn’t wanna disappoint the audience, which love its happy endings!
Thanks for the comment!
Hi! Rick,
Do you know what age (Director Edward Dmytryk) would have been today?
Because I want to write a paragraph or two about him(Btw, this man noir credentials…are great!) on my eBloggerspot page, but 2 different websites has his age listed at 99 and 100 years old respectively….
Thanks,
ps The website coffeecoffeeand morecoffee list his age at 100 years old….
dcd
IMDB has him at 100; so does Wikipedia. His noir creds were great, alright, but he doesn’t seem to have been much of a person. Dassin watched his kids, for God’s sake, and he still stabbed him in the back.
“but he doesn’t seem to have been much of a person. Dassin watched his kids, for God’s sake, and he still stabbed him in the back.”
Rick, Thank~you!…for saying (in print and “outloud”) what I was “thinking” about director Edward Dmytryk, behavior toward director Jules Dassin during that period in their lives.
Thanks,
dcd