HUAC and High Noon

The HUAC and High Noon:

An Examination of the Darker Side of Post-War Hollywood

By Peter Morris

“Five years after a world war has been won, men’s hearts should anticipate a long peace—and men’s minds should be free from the heavy weight that comes with war. But this is not such a period—for this is not a period of peace. This is a time of “the cold war.” This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps—a time of a great armament race...Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down. ^[1]”

-          Senator Joseph R. McCarthy - Wheeling, West Virginia, February 9^th, 1950.

And so, less than five years after the end of the second world war, a war in which fifty million people died, another war is declared, not a war of bombs and bullets, of bravery and duty, of courage and moral responsibility, but a war of ideologies and political conviction, a war of opinion, a cold war where people fight not with rifles but with words and outlook, a war in which people are not killed but muted, where the battle lines are not black and white but a shade of grey where opposing forces cross each others paths daily.  The war declared by Senator McCarthy used fear as its primary weapon.  And this fear would be a weapon stronger and more violent than any moral person could estimate. 

The people who were victims of this savage and autocratic tool were often not the “modern champions of communism” that the Senator from Wisconsin made reference to, but rather honest Americans whose rights to freedom of expression and political affinity were no longer tolerated due to the emergence of another opposing ideology in the East, beyond the Iron Curtain. It is legal to be a Communist in America ^[2] and it is these rights that American people can boast about, it is these rights that America was built upon, and it was these rights, which were removed and abandoned when some conservative aspects of the cold war era felt it was necessary; when fear took hold.  It for this reason that fear is such a powerful weapon and this weapon was harnessed to its full ability by Senator McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities Committee set up to flush out the far left socialist aspects of American society and banish them from actively influencing the minds of good, hard-working Americans.

One of the most influential spheres of American society came in the form of Hollywood and so began, in 1947, the investigations into the film industry that would have far reaching consequences on, not only the people who worked there, but on the industry as an entity of entertainment production.  The initial hearings took place in September 1947 and consisted of the committee subpoenaing forty-one witnesses from Hollywood who were to testify as to their connections to, or knowledge of, Communist influences in the film industry. The assault on the film industry was in many ways a predictable aftermath of the recent release of films of predominantly liberal sentiment ^[2].  The innovative moods of film noir was cresting in the forties and its unsympathetic view of life under any government were surely cause for concern for the members of the investigation committees, led by New Jersey Republican J. Parnell Thomas.  However, the studio system in Hollywood was based heavily on a policy of studio heads deciding on the final cut of any projects under their names and many of the Hollywood heads concurred with Sam Goldwyn’s sentiment of “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.” ^[3] Hollywood was in the business of entertainment and that was that. 

Some of the best–known friendly witnesses to the HUAC hearings were Jack Warner and Louis B. Mayer, representing the studio heads, as well as Gary Cooper, Robert Taylor, Robert Montgomery, and Ronald Reagan, representing actors.  These witnesses were not under suspicion, but, instead, were willing to testify about any Communist activity that they were aware of in Hollywood. ^[4] Of the forty-one witnesses called to the 1947 HUAC hearings, nineteen declared that they were to be “unfriendly” and would not answer any questions regarding their political affiliations, citing their fifth amendment rights within the constitution.  Of these nineteen, eleven were found in contempt of court and sentenced to up to one year in jail.  One of these eleven, Bertolt Brecht, left the country to repatriate to his native East Germany while the rest would become known as the infamous “Hollywood Ten” and consisted of one director (Edward Dmytryk) and nine screenwriters (John Howard Lawson, Dalton Trumbo, Albert Maltz, Alvah Bessie, Samuel Ornintz, Herbert Biberman, Adrian Scott, Ring Lardner, Jr., and Lester Cole) ^[5]

Hollywood initially led a campaign against the HUAC investigations fronted by Humphrey Bogart and wife Lauren Becall along with John Huston, Gene Kelley, and others, known as the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA) and Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, pledged that he would "never be party to anything as un-American as a blacklist”^[3], however, a day after the Hollywood Ten were found in contempt of court a secret meeting was held by over fifty executives from the Hollywood studios to discuss the situation.  The two-day meeting at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel discussed the matter and decided that regardless of the outcome of the hearings, they faced huge losses at the box-office.  On November 24^th they capitulated to the investigations and released a statement known as the Waldorf decree which announced that the Hollywood Ten were suspended without pay and furthermore “We, will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force, or by any illegal or unconstitutional method.” ^[4] The infamous blacklist of Hollywood had begun.

Marshall Will Kane stands alone in the town of Hadleyville, New Mexico.  His townspeople have abandoned him to his fate as he waits for the arrival of Frank Miller – released criminal seeking revenge on the lawman for putting him away.  It’s almost high noon and the train with Miller on board is fast approaching.  Marshall Kane is not going to bow down and submit to what’s coming.  He feels a sense of honour and duty that the other people in the town do not.  He has the moral courage to stand up to the tyrants coming to remove him from his life and the people around him don’t.  The people of Hadleyville make their excuses and hang him out to dry.  And so the narrative of the 1952 western High Noon is set. 

Directed by Fred Zinnemann, High Noon starred Gary Cooper in the role of Will Kane – the lawman left stranded by his fellow towns people in the face of the incoming gang of outlaws.  Carl Foreman wrote the film at the height of a new and more expansive wave of HUAC investigations into the Communist persuasions of Hollywood, this time led by Georgian Democrat John S. Wood, which continued until the fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1954.  These investigations, which started in March 1951, named three hundred and twenty-four people who were, or have been, active members of the Communist party in America, working in Hollywood. ^[4] The fates of these subpoenaed Hollywood workers had already been decided by the committee, and only the “naming of names” could prove some sort of allegiance to the democratic system. Regardless of their political leanings or beliefs and regardless of what sort of testimony (friendly or unfriendly) that was given, these people were unofficially blacklisted by Hollywood and removed from work.  High Noon writer, Carl Foreman, was one of these people, subpoenaed while writing the western and had to flee to Britain before the filming could be completed.  Having originally began writing the script as an metaphor for the United Nation, his subpoenaing by the HUAC investigations led him to use the story of High Noon as an “indictment of the fear in America that led to people doing nothing while brave men stood up for what they believed in, in this case the right not to incriminate themselves by revealing their or their comrades present or former Communist affiliations” ^[7] This allegory, about the evils of naming names and the political persecution by people like Senator Joseph McCarthy and the HUAC investigations, studied the isolation that overwhelmed people who tried to stand up for what is right, even if it meant standing alone; ^[8] a theme also shared by Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” released the same year.  Foreman had been producer on the film along with long-term friend Stanley Kramer, however after Foreman’s subpoenaing Kramer insisted that his friend’s name be removed from the producing credit and asked Foreman to name names at the hearings but Foreman refused.  The two men never talked to each other again. Other ex-Communists such as Budd Schulberg and Elia Kazan (writer and director of On The Waterfront) felt there was a Communist conspiracy and that it was proper, if not patriotic, to expose it. ^[3]

The film went on to be nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Screenplay for Foreman’s script, Best Picture and Best Director however it did not pick up any of these awards on the night. However, Gary Cooper did win his second Oscar for his role in High Noon.  Ironically Cooper had testified as a “friendly” witness at the 1947 HUAC hearings, however he did not name names but did state that he “turned down quite a few scripts because I thought they were tinged with communistic ideas” ^[10] Cooper was considered a conservative minded actor but would go on to disapprove of the blacklisting that took place as a result of the HUAC investigations in the early fifties.  In another ironic twist, Cooper asked screen legend John Wayne to pick up the Oscar for him, as he was ill at the time of the awards ceremony.  Wayne, along with director Howard Hawks and friend Ward Bond, were strong supporters of the HUAC blacklisting and actively tried to expose Communist influences within Hollywood.  He criticised High Noon heavily, describing it, in a famous interview for Playboy Magazine in May 1971, as “the most un-American thing I've ever seen in my whole life” ^[8], he also stated in the same interview that he never regretted helping the blacklisting of liberal writer Carl Foreman from Hollywood.  However, he did collect the Oscar for Gary Cooper.  Wayne and Hawks would go on to make Rio Bravo in 1959 which was seen as a right-wing response to the “un-American” liberal peachiness of High Noon, where Wayne refuses the help of the towns people and does his duty as Sheriff. ^[11]

At the end of High Noon, Kane stands his ground and fights off Frank Miller and his posse and survives the struggle on his own. Disillusioned with the place that he once lived and worked, and throws his lawman’s badge away.  The people of Hadleyville, New Mexico watch in a fickle, irresolute silence, as he rides out of town.  Carl Foreman continued to write scripts under the guise of various pseudonyms from abroad but never worked in Hollywood again. After his death in 1984 he was honored with the Oscar for Best Screenplay for his part in co-writing Bridge on the River Kwai (1956) with fellow blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson.  Carl Foreman, and the character of Will Kane, represents the moral honesty and courage to stand up for one’s own beliefs.  In the time of the HUAC investigations, 1947 – 1954, Hollywood entered a period of suspicion and bitterness that destroyed many working and personal relationships.  It epitomized the loss of civility across a nation of free thinkers and free expressers, a loss of courage in a community torn apart by fear and disquiet.  The Golden Age of Hollywood had truly ended, and ended bitterly, as on the horizon the power of television was growing and the fallout from this dark period in the cold war would tarnish the film industry for many years to come.  Dalton Trumbo, blacklisted screenwriter and member of the Hollywood Ten, describes it quite generously, he simply states, “We were all victims.” ^[3]

Bibliography:

1. Speech of Joseph McCarthy, Wheeling, West Virginia, (February 9, 1950) (Online) http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456

2. Mills, Michael (2007) A Different Look at the 1947 HUAC Hearings (Online) http://www.moderntimes.com/blacklist/

3. Buhle, Buhle, and Georgakas, ed. (1992) HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN LEFT, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992) (Online) http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/blacklist.html

4. Basinger, Jeaaine (1994) American Cinema: One Hundred Years of Filmmaking: HUAC and the Censorship Changes (Online) http://www.moderntimes.com/huac/

5. Slantchev, Branislav L. (2004) High Noon (1952) English Review (Online) http://www.gotterdammerung.org/film/reviews/h/high-noon.html

6. Wikipedia (2009) High Noon (1952) (Online) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon

7. Lequidre, Zorikh (2006) The HUAC, McCarthyism, and Witch-Hunts Through Captain Marvel Comics (Online) http://www.captainmarvelculture.com/witchhunt.html

8. Weidhorn, Manfred High Noon Liberal Classic? Conservative Screed? Or something else…(Online) http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/47/highnoon.htm

9. Everhart, Karen (June 3, 2002) Documentary Settles Hollywood Score from Blacklist Years (HUAC Pitted Liberal Against Liberal) (Online) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1448905/posts

10.  Isaacs, Jeremy (1998) Actor Gary Cooper: Testimony to House Un-American Activities Committee, from documentary Cold War (Online) http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/06/documents/huac/cooper.html

11. Dirks, Tim High Noon (1952) Review (Online) http://www.filmsite.org/high.html

Further References:

·         Weinraub, Bernard (April 18, 2002) 'High Noon,' High Dudgeon (Online) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/movies/18CRED.html?rd=hcmcp?p=042sOn042sXx43HPe012000mfzyTfzu_

·         Graham, Don (April 10, 2008) Western Films, History and Criticism (Online) http://www.franklin.library.upenn.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?bbid=535540

·         IMDB (2009) High Noon (Online) http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=high+noon

·         IMDB (2009) Rio Bravo (Online) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053221/

·         Barasanti, Chris (2000) Rio Bravo: A Review (Online) http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/Rio-Bravo

·         IMDB (2009) Carl Foreman (Online) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0286025/ 

·         IMDB (2009) Fred Zinnemann (Online) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003593/   

Filmography:

1. High Noon (1952) Dir. Fred Zinnemann

2. On The Waterfront (1953) Dir. Elia Kazan

3. Rio Bravo (1959) Dir. Howard Hawks

4. Bridge on the River Kwai (1956) Dir. David Lean