Show Trial

Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist

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Pub Date 10 Apr 2018 | Archive Date 30 Sep 2018

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Description

In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the door—or had it shut in their faces.

In Show Trial, Thomas Doherty takes us behind the scenes at the first full-on media-political spectacle of the postwar era, a courtroom drama starring glamorous actors, colorful moguls, on-the-make congressmen, high-priced lawyers, single-minded investigators, and recalcitrant screenwriters, all recorded by newsreel cameras and broadcast over radio. Doherty explores the deep background to the hearings and details the theatrical elements of a proceeding that bridged the realms of entertainment and politics. He tells the story of the Hollywood Ten and the other witnesses, friendly and unfriendly, who testified; tracks the flight path of the Committee for the First Amendment, the delegation from Hollywood that descended on Washington to protest the hearings; and chronicles the implementation of the postwar blacklist. Show Trial is a rich, character-driven inquiry into how the HUAC hearings ignited the anti-Communist crackdown in Hollywood, providing a gripping new cultural history of one of the most influential events of the postwar era.

In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the...


Advance Praise

"Doherty is one of the best, if not the best, writers in the American studies world today, and has produced an excellent book that will command a great deal of attention. Show Trial sheds new light on the story of the Hollywood 10 and HUAC and does it in fresh and exciting ways. One of the book’s greatest strengths is that it stays away from familiar academic debates that focus heavily on politics and instead tells a character-driven story using quotes from a wide variety of contemporaneous participants. Doherty places the personalities of the era—left and right—on center stage. This is easily the most comprehensive and comprehensible study of HUAC and the Hollywood Ten to date, and I predict it will become the book to read on this topic."—Steven Ross, University of Southern California, Dornsife

"Thomas Doherty’s Show Trial is a uniquely pragmatic history of the Hollywood Blacklist—a big book on a big topic that ruthlessly defies and confounds orthodoxy at every turn. No book in print provides a fuller accounting of the hearings themselves. And no author to date gives his readers so much room to appreciate and understand who said what and why."
—Jon Lewis, author of Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles

"Doherty is one of the best, if not the best, writers in the American studies world today, and has produced an excellent book that will command a great deal of attention. Show Trial sheds new light...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9780231187787
PRICE $29.95 (USD)

Average rating from 11 members


Featured Reviews

Doherty, one of the most adept Tinseltown scholars, takes on the October 1947 House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) hearings targeting Hollywood in tick-tock fashion, moving methodically through all nine days of testimony and chronicling not only who said what, but how the press at the time covered it. This scrupulous approach offers insight and balance, Doherty keeping the broad cast of characters straight with a screenwriters' eye. He doesn't skimp on context or consequences, either. The book’s opening section dexterously lays out the many factors influencing the thinking of the moment, while its final section addresses the fallout, exploring why in the wake of the inconclusive hearings Hollywood sent up "a white flag just as the enemy had left the field without a fight" by instituting a blacklist. Doherty’s clean, controlled prose points out excesses and valid arguments on each side, while never losing sight of basic logic. Much has been written about this shameful period of American history, but rarely with the clear-eyed diligence brought to bear here. (Adapted from a review that originally appeared in NOIR CITY magazine.)

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A really great history read about how HUAC was a force that put a lot creative industries and workers in danger here in the States and the people on multiple sides of things politically and otherwise...definitely a timely read for these times.

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