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Author A Professor Who Loves Old Movies
In a new book that’s just out, a Southern Virginia University professor delves into the history of blacklisting in Hollywood during the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s. “Policing Show Business: J. Edgar Hoover, the Hollywood Blacklist and Cold War Movies,” by Francis MacDonnell, professor of history emeritus at SVU, was published recently by The University Press of Kansas.
The author will present his work in a public lecture at the George C. Marshall Foundation headquarters on the campus of Virginia Military Institute, on Thursday, March 6, at 5:30 p.m.
MacDonnell’s book explores the starring role played by J. Edgar Hoover in the development of the Hollywood blacklist. As director of the FBI, Hoover poured resources into scrutinizing show business, a policy choice unjustified by any corresponding threat to public security.
Hoover directed agents to write regular reports on actors, screenwriters, lyricists, singers and studio executives. According to the book, the FBI director’s frequent handwritten comments on papers inside the files of film industry personalities demonstrate a level of interest bordering on obsession.
MacDonnell approaches the Red Scare through biography using FBI records on such luminaries as Walt Disney, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Lena Horne, Marlene Dietrich, Fredric March, Cecil B. DeMille, Burl Ives and MGM chief Dore Schary to present, in unexpected, surprising and sometimes poignant ways, the rich human dramas experienced by both targets of the bureau and its collaborators. The book evokes the passions and resentments, the courageous acts and calculated evasions, and the petty tyrannies and selfinterested campaigns of an ignominious episode in the annals of American freedom.
The book, MacDonnell explained in a recent interview, “comes out of my passion for old movies. My wife Suzanne and dad, Ken MacDonnell, fellow lovers of Turner Classic films, saw the outlines for a book project early on and urged me on. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the post-World War II movies of his youth, my dad pointed me toward films that I would not otherwise have watched. Early on in my research process I told him with enthusiasm that I had requested the FBI file of blacklisted actor Betty Garrett. Dad immediately answered: ‘Blacklisted? What the hell are you talking about, Francis? Betty Garrett appeared in “My Sister Eileen” in 1955.’
“And, of course she had. Yet, that’s how the blacklist often worked. Artists such as Betty Garrett and Betsy Blair, blacklisted in the early fifties, won a few plum supporting parts in the mid-50s, only to have the phone immediately stop ringing after that. Suzanne sat through dozens of old films with me – sometimes that meant rewatching old classics such as ‘The Best Years of Our Lives,’ or together discovering film gems that the two of us had somehow missed such as ‘The Farmer’s Daughter’ and ‘Crossfire,’ and on occasion sitting through clunkers such as ‘Plymouth Adventure.’ Suzanne and I shared our admiration for less well-remembered actors of the post-war era, such as Ethel Barrymore and Dorothy McGuire, and pondered together the mystery of how Glenn Ford and Robert Taylor ended up in so many plum parts.”
MacDonnell continued: “As I plugged away at different chapters of the book, the chance to immerse myself in the films of the forties and fifties brought me lots of pleasure. The tragedy of the blacklist most obviously impacted those who worked in the movie business –some who saw their careers ruined and others who betrayed longtime colleagues. Yet, for me, the American public were the biggest losers, both audiences of the Cold War era and those of today. Great art in Hollywood often brought together men and women from a diverse array of political points of view. It’s hard not to wonder about all the grand entertainments Americans lost out on, due to the exile of so many gifted artists from the motion picture industry.”
Preliminary notices on the book from major scholars in both film history and intelligence history have been positive. “Although there have been other books on the blacklist and the careers that it destroyed and derailed, “Policing Show Business” is the most authoritative. Names that ordinarily receive little or no attention such as Burl Ives and Fredric March are given their due. MacDonnell’s research is awesome but never overwhelming. If you are going to read any book on the blacklist, this is the one,” writes Bernard F. Dick, author of “The Anatomy of Film.”
Tony Shaw, author of “Hollywood’s Cold War,” declares, “This is a superb book. Mac-Donnell has scoured the archives to give us the fullest account yet of J. Edgar Hoover’s role in the Hollywood blacklist. Crisply written, the book will appeal to everyone interested in America’s domestic Cold War. It also speaks to today’s debates about cancel culture.”
MacDonnell earned his doctorate in history at Harvard in 1991. He moved to Lexington in 1995 when his wife, Suzanne Keen, took a job in the English department at Washington and Lee University. From 1997 to 2018, MacDonnell taught history at Southern Virginia University, where he is currently an emeritus faculty member. He has held teaching positions at Yale University and Hamilton College.
He is also the author of “Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front” (New York: Oxford U. Press, 1995.) This project emerged from an undergraduate research seminar on spies, subversion and counter-subversion in American history that MacDonnell teaches at SVU.
MacDonnell’s talk at the Marshall Foundation on March 6 is part of the Foundation’s Legacy Series. A book signing and reception will follow the lecture.
The event is free to the public, but reservations are required. To reserve a seat, or for more information about the event, contact [email protected] or call (540) 463-7103, ext. 138. The presentation will also be livestreamed on the Marshall Foundation YouTube channel (https://bit.ly/2Or0E8D) simultaneously. Viewers of the stream are encouraged to write questions using the live video chat (to the lower right of the video) or via email at librarian@ marshallfoundation. org. Chat will be monitored for abusive comments.
Interested readers can purchase “Policing Show Business: J. Edgar Hoover, the Hollywood Blacklist, and Cold War Movies,” locally at Downtown Books, 34 South Main Street, in Lexington.
