
Red Star over Hollywood
The Film Colony’s Long Romance with the Left
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Riggenbach
About this listen
Until now, Hollywood's political history has been dominated by a steady stream of films and memoirs decrying the nightmare of the Red Scare and how it victimized political innocents. But Ronald and Allis Radosh tell for the first time the “backstory” behind this myth. They show how the Soviet Comintern targeted the film capital in the late 1920s, taking us inside the cells and discussion groups that Communist Party members formed, the guilds and unions they tried to take over, and the studios they aimed to influence.
The authors demonstrate that many of the screenwriters who later became part of the Hollywood Ten in fact succeeded in using film as a propaganda medium on behalf of the Soviet cause. While others were lionizing them as blameless victims of American nativism and paranoia, the Hollywood Reds themselves were beset by doubts and disagreements about their disloyalty to America and their own treatment by the Communist Party. Abandoned by their old CP allies, they faced the black list alone.
Getting behind the denial and apologetics, Ronald and Allis Radosh tell the real story of one of the most discussed but least understood episodes in our political history, whose long half-life continues to influence the equally turbulent cultural politics of today.
©2005 Ronald Radosh and Allis Radosh (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
very educational
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It Gets Better as it Goes Along
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The Communist Influence in Hollywood
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Well read, a little slow getting started, Red Star Over Hollywood establishes the main characters, then follows them through the years to the present.
I think if one has a favorite or hero from the Blacklist period---read this. If anyone thinks they know who the villains were--read this.
If I have a criticism, it's the one I have about most books about this subject. For the studio artists and workers, some Communist and some not, none famous, who were in the 1945 Warner Brothers Strike, the blacklist never ended. They never worked in the movie business again.
Good book. Worth reading.
Important History well told story
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Dang Commies Everywhere
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