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Mir Clarion Clarion Hotel &Executive Suites Farmington Hills 31525 W. 12 Mile Road at Orchard Lake Road DYSAUTONOMIA Beau Jac Food & Spirits EARLY DINNERS NOW 7 DAYS Monday Thru Sunday 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Entrees priced from $5.75-$9.95 4108 W. Maple • Birminaham. MI • 78 FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1991 1 block VI of Telearaoh • Help meet the needs of Dysautonomic children. Dysautonomia Foundation Inc. 626-2630 3000 Town Center, Suite 1500, Southfield, MI 48075 (313) 444-4848 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." ❑