High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic
Glenn Frankel
Bloomsbury (February 2017)

Hunting witches in Hollywood: 1945-1960

As I often do, I read this book in combination with another, in this instance Noah Isenberg’s We’ll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood’s Most Beloved Movie. Both are undeniably “classics” but for different reasons. For example, whereas We’ll Always Have Casablanca is a biography of a great film, High Noon is a biography of the era during which it was produced. Carl Foreman rather than Gary Cooper is the lead character in a compelling story, well-served by Dimitri Tiomkin’s compelling music, with other members of a “cast” that includes members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, C-level executives of all the major film studios, columnists such as Luella Persons and Hedda Hopper, and dozens of actors too numerous to mention here. All are located within a color spectrum that ranges from red through pink and then white to blue.

Here is an excerpt from the website of the Stanford Graduate School of Business website: It provides a brief explanation of the situation when Hollywood’s “Red Scare” Spread Stigma by Association”:

Researchers explore the role of 1950s-era social networks in the Hollywood “Red Scare.”

In the early 1950s, 300 actors, writers and others suspected of being communists were blacklisted in Hollywood and excluded from the workforce. A recent study, coauthored by Professor Hayagreeva Rao of Stanford GSB, analyzes how social networks of the day resulted in hundreds of individuals whose names were not on the list being denied jobs.

Some 60 years later, lessons can still be drawn about how stigma may spread through relationships. For instance, proof of drug use by athletes with one team in a specific sport may result in advertisers pulling their support for the entire sport or from related sports. Companies accused of operating overseas sweatshops may see the taint spread to partners or suppliers despite upstanding labor practices.

During the Red Scare, artists not on the list drawn up by the House Committee on Un-American Activities saw their chances of finding employment drop by 13% if they previously had worked with someone named on the blacklist, even if they had worked with that person before the list existed.

For actors, the effect of working with a subsequently tainted writer was even greater than the effect of working with actors and other Hollywood professionals. Actors faced a 20% drop in employment if they had worked with writers who were later blacklisted.

Elizabeth Pontikes, of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Giacomo Negro of Emory University, and Rao coauthored the study, Stained Red: A Study of Stigma by Association to Blacklisted Artists during the “Red Scare” in Hollywood, 1945 to 1960, which is published in the June (2010) issue of the American Sociological Review.

A higher profile did not necessarily offer shelter. The researchers said artists who appeared in a top 10 box-office film were 16% less likely to find a job after a co-worker was blacklisted, compared to a smaller 10% drop for similar artists in less successful films. Oscar winners, however, were partly shielded. The odds of an Oscar-winning artist finding a job after a co-worker was blacklisted were reduced by 9%.

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This brief explanation gives you at least some idea of the era when High Noon was planned, produced, and then released.

Here are a few of what I consider to be key points that Glenn Frankel makes:

o Long ago, in the Inferno, Dante reserved the last and worst ring in hell for those who, during a moral crisis, preserve their neutrality. Frankel suggests a number of candidates to reside in that circle. More often than not, expediency trumped integrity.

o There was widespread confusion about terms such as socialist, communist, progressive, and liberal. Frankel carefully explains how and why Senator Joseph McCarthy and his followers failed to distinguish between those who really were UnAmerican and others who believed in the Bill of Rights.

o Many friends and even family members turned upon each other when careers were at stake. Desperation really does often lead to desperate behavior.

o Many powerful people (notably John Wayne) “hated” High Noon, viewing it as UnAmerican in its values and affirmations.

o Carl Foreman was among those who struggled to produce what is generally viewed now as “an enduring American classic” despite severe pressure from leaders of the “Red hunt.” As High Noon indicates, he succeeded, although haunted until the day he died by his restlessness and his anger.

Here’s the final paragraph of Glenn Frankel’s brilliant book: Carl Foreman once told historian Larry Ceplair, “he had been faithful to his own code. Like Will Kane, the character he had created, ‘I discovered that I could be scared and still come through a situation. I actually was the kind of person I thought I was.‘ Carl Foreman had faced his personal High Noon, had confronted his enemies and his fears, and he had survived.”