J. Edgar Hoover goes to the movies : the FBI and the origins of Hollywood's Cold War / John Sbardellati.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sbardellati, John, 1973-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

United States.

Motion pictures--Political aspects--United States--History.

Motion pictures.

Cold War in motion pictures.

Communism and motion pictures--United States.

Communism and motion pictures.

Cold War--Social aspects--United States.

Cold War.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : illustrations (black and white)

Edition:

2nd ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Between 1942 and 1958, J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a sweeping and sustained investigation of the motion picture industry to expose Hollywood's alleged subversion of "the American Way" through its depiction of social problems, class differences, and alternative political ideologies. FBI informants (their names still redacted today) reported to Hoover's G-men on screenplays and screenings of such films as Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946), noting that "this picture deliberately maligned the upper class attempting to show that people who had money were mean and despicable characters." The FBI's anxiety over this film was not unique; it extended to a wide range of popular and critical successes, including The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Crossfire (1947) and On the Waterfront (1954).In J. Edgar Hoover Goes to the Movies, John Sbardellati provides a new consideration of Hollywood's history and the post-World War II Red Scare. In addition to governmental intrusion into the creative process, he details the efforts of left-wing filmmakers to use the medium to bring social problems to light and the campaigns of their colleagues on the political right, through such organizations as the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, to prevent dissemination of "un-American" ideas and beliefs.Sbardellati argues that the attack on Hollywood drew its motivation from a sincerely held fear that film content endangered national security by fostering a culture that would be at best apathetic to the Cold War struggle at best, or, at its worst, conducive to communism at home. Those who took part in Hollywood's Cold War struggle, whether on the left or right, shared one common trait: a belief that the movies could serve as engines for social change. This strongly held assumption explains why the stakes were so high and, ultimately, why Hollywood became one of the most important ideological battlegrounds of the Cold War.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Hollywood's Red Scare

1. A Movie Problem

2. The FBI's Search for Communist Propaganda during the Second World War

3. Producing Hollywood's Cold War

4. The Coalescence of a Countersubversive Network

5. The 1947 HUAC Trials

6. Rollback

Conclusion: Three Perspectives on the Death of the Social Problem Film

Appendix: Analysis of Motion Pictures Containing Propaganda: An FBI Filmography of Suspect Movies

Notes

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780801464683

0801464684

9780801464218

0801464218

OCLC:

793494429