A study on blacklisted Hollywood Scriptwriters

Matti Salo (born in 1933) is a researcher at the Finnish Film Archive. For many years he has been working on a big study on the Hollywood blacklist that was in effect during the Cold War years and after. The work in progress is written in Finnish. Its title would be in an English translation "The Silent Heroes: Comments on the Lives and Works of Ninety Blacklisted Hollywood Screenwriters". The book will include thorough lists of their films, TV work, books and other writings. A special emphasis will be on their non-credited work, that is, films and TV episodes written pseudonymously, anonymously or by using various fronts.

Mr Salo has corresponded during eight years with many blacklisted writers, their relatives and colleagues. He has compiled an astonishing amount of new information on the topic. His correspondents include Lindsay Anderson, Laszlo Benedek, Walter Bernstein, Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Paul Jarrico (who has been his greatest help and advisor), Elia Kazan, Howard Koch, Ring Lardner, Jr., Sidney Lumet, Carlton Moss, Abraham Polonsky, Martin Ritt, Earl Robinson, Waldo Salt, Bertrand Tavernier, Robert Wise, and Fred Zinnemann, among many others.

The pinning of the number of writers down to ninety was a practical decision. It was necessary to restrict the field to those relevant screenwriters who were active either just before, during or after the blacklist. That solution eliminated from consideration those writers whose careers were already over when the blacklist hit them. Those blacklisted writers who wrote solely or mainly for television were also omitted for reasons of space. In various appendixes their pseudonyms and fronts will be listed whenever possible.

The manuscript is in its final phase and should be completed during 1993. The publication will most probably follow in 1994 or 1995.

As offshoots of the study, Matti Salo has published two books on blacklisted American directors. "Joseph Losey - Vainottu Muukalainen" ('Joseph Losey - A Persecuted Stranger') appeared in 1989. "Musta Käytävä: Abraham Polonskyn Pitkä Vaellus" ('Black Passage: Abraham Polonsky's Long Walk') came out in 1991. Polonsky himself has had the latter book translated into English in 1992, but the translation has not yet found a publisher.

The fourth volume of National Filmography in 1993

The Finnish National Filmography is the major project of the Finnish Film Archive, in which complete information on the Finnish feature film production will be collected in ten large volumes, edited by Kari Uusitalo, the most distinguished Finnish film historian, and a team of researchers. The work started in 1981 and will be finished in 2003.

Each volume covers about one hundred feature films in circa 600 pages. The contents consist of detailed credits, production data, plot summaries, comments, press reactions, essays, lists of all possible source material. The first volume (part 5) was published in 1989, the second (part 6) in 1991, the third (part 4) in 1992 and the fourth (part 3) is to appear in autumn 1993. These four volumes cover the years 1942-61 in Finnish film history and provide (together with the future parts) an invaluable basis for all the research on Finnish cinema.

We dare say that the quality and the quantity of information make The Finnish National Filmography the most complete of its kind in the world. "For foreign researchers, the abundance of stills and production photographs mitigate the impenetrable thickets of the Finnish text, and there is also an English introduction and guide to credits". (Peter Cowie, International Film Guide 1990).

Jerusalem / Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive has published the first of three projected volumes listing the contents of Israeli newsreels. The publication, in English and well illustrated, deals with newsreels made between 1932 and 1956. Television came to Israel only in 1968, and until then the cinema newsreels were the only source of visual news. Their production continued till 1971. As in other countries, they were shown before the main feature as part of the cinema program. Video viewing copies of all material listed in the book are available at the Spielberg Archive.

The work of three pioneer filmmakers is represented in the catalogue: Yaakov Ben Dov, Baruch Agadati and Natan Axelrod. Editors Wendy Luterman and Hillel Tryster have presented the material in chronological order wherever possible and identified hundred of the personalities seen in the footage. A glossary section gives brief biographical data on over two hundred of the most prominent of these.

Much of what is seen in these films cannot be categorized as "hard" news; a large proportion of the items deal with the cultural and social life of the period. Reasons for inclusion were frequently quite mundane: the ability of the newsreel crew to arrive at an event, the limitations of the equipment available and the brief length of the newsreel. There were even occasions when there was simply no raw film stock to be had - there is a long break in the production of the Carmel Newsreel in the early forties because of the problems of supply from Europe during world war II.

It is an ironic fact that some of the most momentous events of the time are not represented in the collection. The declaration of the State of Israel, for instance, though filmed by Natan Axelrod, is not present in this listing because Axelrod sold the footage abroad.

All the information in the catalogue has been entered into the general computerized catalogue of the Spielberg Archive, which is part of the larger database (ALEPH) of the Hebrew University and the Jewish National and Univesrsity Library.

A novel use of modern computer technology lies in the fact that a diskette containing the complete text of the catalogue is included in the book's jacket in place of a conventional index. By importing the contents of the diskette into any word search or word processing program, the user may search for a character string to locate a desired subject. Abstract subjects have been appended to the diskette version of the text to further facilitate this process.

The catalogue is expected to be of interest to researchers, documentary filmmakers and historians alike. Priced at $25, it is available directly from the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, Box 65, Law Building, the Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 91905, Israel.

Marilyn Koolik

Matti Salo, investigador en la Filmoteca Finlandesa, ha elaborado un estudio sobre las listas negras confeccionadas en Estados Unidos durante y después de la guerra fría. Este trabajo, en curso de publicación, está escrito en lengua finlandesa. La traducción del título podría ser: "Los héroes silenciosis: commentarios sobre la vida y obra de noventa guionistas proscritos de Hollywood". En la misma linea de investigación, Matti Salo tiene publicados en finlandés otros dos libros: "Joseph Losey, un extranjero perseguido" (1989) y "Travesia negra: el largo camino de Abraham Polonsky" (1991).

Filmographie nationale finlandaise, 4ème volume, 1993

Editée par Kari Uusitalo et son équipe de chercheurs, la Filmographie nationale finlandaise comprendra 10 volumes en l'an 2003. Les premiers volumes parus dès 1989 correspondent respectivement aux parties 5, 6 et 4. Le volume à paraître en 1993 sera la partie 3.

Filmografía Nacional Finlandesa: vol.4° en 1993

Editada por Kari Uusitalo y su equipo de investigadores, la Filmografía Nacional de Finlandia, el proyecto más importante de la Filmoteca Finlandesa, comprenderá diez volumenes y quedará completa en el año 2003. Los tres primeros volumenes aparecidos entre 1989 y 1992, corresponden respectivamente a las partes 5, 6 y 4, mientras que el que aparecerá en 1993 corresponde a la parte 3.