Hate in the Morning

By J. C.

HOLLYWOOD ON TRIAL Directed by DAVID HELPERN JR.

Here is a handy, breezy re-creation of one of the cold war's early frosts: the House Un-American Activities Committee's red-baiting in Hollywood. This period has been undergoing some rueful re-examination of late -- most notably in The Front (TIME, Oct. 11). While history has done no one proud, it has at least demonstrated that some held up better than others under the gruesome, improbable pressures of the congressional test.

Hollywood on Trial, which concerns the HUAC investigations and the subsequent blacklisting of several hundred writers, directors, producers and performers in both movies and television, focuses primarily on the men who went to jail for contempt of Congress. These ten -- the group included Dalton Trumbo, Ring Lardner Jr. and Director Edward Dmytryk -- declined, sometimes indignantly, sometimes bemusedly, to answer the persistent questions of the committee chairman concerning their alleged Communist Party affiliations. "I could answer your question," Ring Lardner told the committee, "but I'd hate myself in the morning." Since Communist Party membership was not illegal, the ten argued -- with good reason -- that such inquiries were in flagrant breach of the First Amendment. They stood, accordingly, on their rights, until it became clear that they did not have many. Trumbo, shrewd and charming, is the cornerstone of the film. When asked whether he would have behaved differently if he could have anticipated the consequences, he answers immediately, "I don't know. And I don't think that anyone knows. I hope I wouldn't have, and I think probably I would not have. But I really can't say more than probably."

Old Frenzy. Movies make us expect that in such situations of heavy stress, heroes emerge. Trumbo, and other members of the ten, had the same kind of fantasies. When their moment came, however, reality interfered. The ten all grandstanded, and today, looking at the old newsreel footage, they seem not heroic but very human and slightly absurd. A short fund-raising film for the Hollywood Ten, unearthed by Director Helpern, shows the group addressing the camera with starchy informality and faint condescension. But this impression of haughtiness compares favorably with the shrill, uproarious melodramatics of The Red Menace, an anti-Communist crime buster included to illustrate the degree of frenzy that gripped Hollywood. Hollywood on Trial contains no revelations and no tough questions addressed to any faction. It does keep a decent, compassionate political equilibrium, and is to be admired accordingly.

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