The reason the 1947 film, Crossfire failed
to win any Oscars was due to director Edward Dmytryk and producer Adrian
Scott’s refusal to testify before the House Unamerican Activities Committee
Not true by
a long shot. Crossfire was a B picture but it’s a very good film and it did
receive awards. In fact, it received five Academy Award nominations, including
Best Supporting Actor and for Best Supporting Actress. It was the first B movie
to receive a best picture nomination. Edward Dmytryk was nominated for best
director
The film
received high praise from the critics. Very high praise. It won Cannes Film
Festival: Award, Best Social Film 1947, the Edgar Allan Poe Awards: Edgar; Best
Motion Picture, John Paxton (screenwriter), Richard Brooks (author), Dore
Schary (producer), Adrian Scott (associate producer) and Edward Dmytryk
(director); 1948 as well as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts:
BAFTA Film Award, Best Film from Any Source, United States; 1949.
Dmytryk
lost out to a better director, Elia Kazan, who made a better picture with
Gentleman’s Agreement,(with the considerable backing of Darryl Zanuck and 20th
Century Fox) Both films were centered on the touchy subject of anti-Semitic
attitudes in the U.S.
Dmytryk had
a long standing rant that the reason he was called before the HUAC was because
he made Crossfire "In my last few years in Hollywood, I have devoted
myself” he said “through pictures such as Crossfire, to a fight against these
racial suppressions and prejudices. My work speaks for itself. I believe that
it speaks clearly enough so that the people of the country and this Committee,
which has no right to inquire into my politics or my thinking, can still judge
my thoughts and my beliefs by my work, and by my work alone." So basically, in his view, he, and he alone,
was called before the Congress of the United States of America because he
wanted to fight prejudice.
The film
was released in August of 1947. By then, Dmytryk had been a secret member of
the communist party in Hollywood for four years, having joined in 1944. He
later claimed that the main reason he joined was that he wanted to end world
poverty, a bizarre answer at best considering the Soviet blockade of Germany
after the war was intended to starve the Germans.
Almost four
months after the film was released, Dmytryk appeared before the HUAC on October 29, 1947 and refused to answer
questions about his membership of the Screen Directors Guild or the American
Communist Party.
At about
that same time, the Russians had their eyes on Greece and Turkey, forcing
President Truman to introduce the Truman Doctrine. The US gave $400 million of
military aid to Greece and Turkey in an effort to contain communism in the
Mediterranean, money that could have gone to US citizens or to combatting world
hunger.
This was
also when the Soviet Union formed the Communist Information Bureau (COMINFORM)
which dictated the actions of leaders and communist parties across its spheres
of influence. A few months later, Communist forced Romanian King Michael I to
abdicate allowing the Communist Party to begin its 42 year iron rule of the country.
Dmytryk
was, rightfully, found guilty of contempt of Congress and given the maximum
sentence of a year in prison. The case went before the Supreme Court in April
1950, but with only Justices Hugo Black and William Douglas dissenting, the
sentence was confirmed and Dmytryk spent twelve months in Mill Point Federal
Prison, West Virginia.
1950 was
the year that the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China signed a pact
of mutual defense, North Korea invaded South Korea, beginning the Korean War,
forcing the United Nations to go to war
against Communist North Korea while forces
from the People's Republic of China mobilized along the Yalu River and
intervened by sending 300,000 soldiers to attack UN Forces. When UN forces
approached the Yalu River, pushing the Chinese army back, China sent 500,000
troops and the UN troops withdrew to the Republican of South Korea
When
Dmytryk was released, own his own accord, he left the United States for
England. A year later, realizing his
recent divorce and legal costs had left him broke….the poor oppressed communist
was forced to sell his private plan and one of his three homes…..he decided it
was better for him to be a capitalist.
He had a ghostwriter knock out an article for him that was placed in the
Saturday Evening Post that explained how he now completely rejected his
communist past.
In 1951, he
reappeared before the House of Un-American Activities Committee again, answered
every question put to him and named twenty-six communist operating in
Hollywood. He made it a point to tell the HUAC that John Howard Lawson,
pressured him to make sure his films expressed the views of the American
Communist Party.
At the same
time, Chinese forces capture Seoul, South Korea and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
were busy stealing and passing atomic secrets to the Soviets.