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Blacklisting Scandals
Subject Of Film

MICHAEL ELKIN

Special to The Jewish News

t was a question that
called into question one's
loyalty and love of coun-
try during the '50s: "Are you
now — or have you ever been
— a member of the Commu-
nist Party?"
Those who answered
positively answered with
their careers in a Hollywood
that screened good from evil
based on perceived leftist
leanings.
Irwin Winkler's new film,
Guilty by Suspicion, focuses
on the witch hunt that set
fire to freedom in a con-
flagration that threatened to
. consume the U.S. Constitu-
tion.
At stake were the careers
of actors, writers and film
makers as a tarnished
Tinseltown created its own
in-town drama with some
tragic results.
Casting light on
Hollywood's dark era of
blacklisting would seem to
come naturally to the award-
winning Mr. Winkler, whose
cinematic examinations of
society have earned him
worldwide acclaim.
As producer, Mr. Winkler
has garnered 11 Oscars in a
quarter-of-a-century career.
To his credit are such Acad-
emy Award winners and
nominees as They Shoo.t

I

Horses, Don't They? Raging
Bull, The Right Stuff,
GoodFellas and Rocky.

Indeed, Mr. Winkler has
produced all the Rocky films.
The finger-pointing scan-
dals that rocked Hollywood
40 years ago point to an era
gf intolerance. Times have
changed, indeed, says Mr.
Winkler, making his direc-
torial debut with Suspicion.
"The fact that we were
able to make this film," says
the director, "is the proof in
the pudding" of how
Hollywood has shifted direc-
tion over the years.
Or has it? When actress
Margot Kidder recently
complained about U.S. in-
volvement in the Persian
Gulf, she became engulfed in
a controversy that threaten-
ed to damage her career.
Jane Fonda's political ac-
tivism during the '60s and
'70s nearly subverted her
career.
Mr. Winkler disagrees.
"People are likely to separate

Michael Elkin is the enter-
tainment writer for the Jewish
Exponent in Philadelphia.

what an actor says in his own
life and what he does on the
screen," he says.
What Mr. Winkler has
done with Suspicion is pro-
ject an era of complicated
moral decisions and complex
compromises. It was a time
of name-calling and name-
dropping — when an actor
could name a friend as a
"communist" or sym-
pathizer and save his own
career while his accused col-
league would find himself
dropped from filmland's
employment file.
Is it mere coincidence that
the blacklisted Hollywood 10
included so many Jews? Or
was it a case in which ac-

It was a time of
name-calling and
name-dropping.

cusations of communist
leanings masked hatred
based on anti-Semitism?
"You can read between the
lines" of what happened dur-
ing the blacklisting era, says
Mr. Winkler. "A lot of the so-
called (accused) intellectuals
were Jewish. I don't pursue
that theme in my film — it
was not the route I wanted to
take — but you'd be in good
company if you believed in
that idea."
Yet, if the blacklisting was
based, at least in part, on an-
ti-Semitism,. Jews them-
selves were not totally exon-
erated.
"You had some Jews high
in the Hollywood hierarchy
who purged their own Jew-
ish brethren," says Mr.
Winkler.

Mr. Winkler is satisfied
that Suspicion will reel in
audiences with its tale of
morality lost and regained.

"I don't know if there is a
message in this film," but
there are questions raised,
says the director of Guilty by

Suspicion.

"It asks, 'What would I do?
How would I react in similar
circumstances?' " in which
naming names as a coop-
erative witness could mean
salvaging one's own career
at the expense of a co-
worker's.
It is easy to say one would
take the high moral road,
notes the director. But real-
ity can present its own built-
in obstacle course.
"I would hope that I would
do the right thing," says Mr.
Winkler. "But you really
don't know." ❑

