I read this shortly before I entered grad school, so it got a bit of a pass, since my critical faculties weren t yet as developed It is better than one might expect for a popular work pushing a political agenda, and some good points are raised in terms of the usual story presented in mass media regarding the Hollywood Blacklist and or McCarthy era While academic historians may be careful, it is not uncommon in the mainstream to hear McCarthy s name connected with the Hollywood Seven he was in n [...]

This was an interesting challenge to the accepted narrative concerning the persecution of Communists in Hollywood during the Cold War One chapter of the book, entitled Those Witches Did Not Exist Communists Do pretty much sums up the entire thrust of the author s argument Many noted stars and film making hands were influenced or affected by the congressional hearings covering the Communist infiltration of Hollywood and many are convinced nowadays that they were an unfairly persecuted group of pe [...]

This is a very interesting book and well worth the read If you are a fan of Hollywood movies, and I mean the great movies of the past like Spartacus, East of Eden, Splendor in the Grass, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and many, many this book will hold your interest from beginning until the end The influence of the Communist Party in Hollywood since the 1930 s is astounding Thoroughly cited, great appendices, and index this book delivers the goods it promises I recommend it highly [...]

FROM CAMBRIA First of all, the book s title is a bit of a misnomer It should be titled, How Communism Failed to Seduce the American Film Industry in the 30 s and 40 s but Succeeded in Doing So in the 60 s and 70 s, for what Kenneth Billingsley presents is a rather surprisingly ineffective campaign on the part of the communists to have a major impact on the type of films Americans viewed Plenty of screenwriters did become communists, but they never could bring themselves to write the communist pr [...]

Why do you suppose we had HUAC, the Red Scare of the 1950 s, McCarthyism, etc Because before there was a blacklist, and all the cruelty and suffering that came with it, there really was an organized attempt by Communists to impart their ideology through motion pictures.Did you know that decades before today s Hollywood imposed a voluntary variety of political correctness on much of its political product, there was a time when Communist writers actually submitted their scripts to a Party censor f [...]

Eye opening Very rich and dense with facts.