Document Archive

From the moment I first discovered this project in the papers of Dore Schary, I have been head over heels in love with my primary sources. While writing my dissertation I often bemoaned the fact that I had to choose the pithiest of supporting or illustrating quotations, when I really wanted to share entire documents with other scholars and especially with students. With the electronic publishing format, I’ve gotten my wish – a digital archive filled with primary sources in all their richness, depth, and complexity.

Though copyright restrictions and licensing fees did impact my choices in minor ways, as a whole this digital archive represents a broad cross-section of documents from my research. Reflecting my staunch belief that the history of a film’s production and reception is crucial in shaping what we see on the screen and how we interpret its meaning and significance for audiences (then and now), I have incorporated as much material as I could to reconstruct the backstory of Scott’s films, including inter-studio memos, correspondence with the Breen Office, Scott’s production notes and public and private writings on the creative process. The promotion and public reception of Scott’s films is also amply documented here. In addition to film reviews representing a variety of perspectives, from the New York Times to the Daily Worker, I have compiled an array of documents that I find particularly exciting and revealing, from the summaries of preview cards submitted by film-goers and the Exhibitors Manual for Crossfire to a provocative series of audience testing materials produced by social scientists and Jewish defense organizations concerned about the public response to an anti-anti-Semitism film.

The archive also contains a rich variety of documents about the history of progressive Hollywood and the industry blacklist. The excerpts from the FBI files of Scott, Dmytryk and Schary are particularly intriguing, enabling glimpses into the activities of the Hollywood left as well as important insights into the workings and internal logic of the FBI and HUAC during World War Two and the Cold War. The internal industry response to the 1947 HUAC hearings is also well represented here. Alongside familiar documents like the statements the Hollywood Ten prepared for the hearings and the Waldorf Statement that instituted the blacklist, you will find more unusual sources. The survey of the public response to the HUAC hearings prepared by Audience Research, Inc., for example, offers a glimpse into the concerns the studio executives. Scott’s notes from his strained meetings with RKO executives following his testimony; his public writings and speeches, and especially his private correspondence trace the road from the hearings to prison to life on the blacklist. In contrast, the FBI file excerpts and especially the Saturday Evening Post article “What Makes a Hollywood Communist?” suggest the complex political pressures and moral challenges faced by those who sought a middle ground between defiance and collusion.

For film clips and even stills, questions of copyright and fair use in this brave new world of digital publishing are still being slugged out. Julie Heath, Executive Director of Clip and Still Licensing at Warner Bros., was very generous with her time and expertise, but also frank in her acknowledgement that the legal department, fearful of setting a precedent, had balked at the broad permission I was seeking. Ultimately, I decided that rather than trying to include just a few seconds worth of film clips or a series of static stills, I would take the chance that that readers and scholars would be intrigued enough to seek out and watch the films in their entirety. Happily, both Murder, My Sweet and Crossfire have been released on DVD and are easily available for rental through Netflix or purchase either singly or as part of multi-film noir collections through Amazon.com. Cornered is somewhat harder to find. Not yet released on DVD (though I recently ran across a Spanish-language version, under the title, Venganza available through Amazon.com), it is screened occasionally on Turner Classic Movies and is available on VHS through Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee (http://www.ebsmvideo.com/), an amazing resource for classic film buffs.

Chapter 1: Reel Reds, Real Americans

John Paxton, Adrian Scott, and Edward Dmytryk, fall 1947.

Yearbook entry for Robert Adrian Scott, The Olio, Amherst College, 1934.

Chapter 2: Raising the Cry of Alarm

Leaflet from 1930s Los Angeles, depicting Hollywood as a hotbed of Jews, communists, and moral degenerates.

PDF document: FBI memo on Edward Dmytryk, March 10, 1951. PDF document: FBI report on Adrian Scott, March 3, 1944.

Chapter 3: Progressive Producer in the Studio System

PDF document: Dick Powell, "The Role I Liked Best," Saturday Evening Post, October 21, 1946.	RKO head Charles Koerner to the "boys," August 3, 1944.
PDF document: PCA head Joseph Breen to RKO's William Gordon, April 13, 1944.	Local censor board report on Murder, My Sweet, February 6, 1945.
PDF document: Breakdown of preview cards, Murder, My Sweet, October 5, 1944.	"Farewell My Lovely," Showmen's Trade Review, December 9, 1944.
Eileen Creelman, "A Hard-Boiled Thriller, 'Murder, My Sweet,'" New York Sun, March 9, 1945.	Adrian Scott socializing with Norma Barzman, Jeannie Lees, Bobby Lees, and Anne Shirley (seated on floor), c. 1946.
Mary Morris, "No Make-Believe in Hollywood's Democratic Group," PM, October 6, 1944.	Related link: New York Times

Chapter 4: They Must Not Escape

RKO memo, William Gordon to Adrian Scott, April 3, 1945.	PDF document: RKO memo, James Francis Crow to William Dozier, April 24, 1945.
Gene Kern, Office of War Information, to William Gordon, July 5, 1945.	PDF document: Breakdown of preview cards, Cornered, November 5, 1945.
PDF document: Don Craig, "The New Powell Tackles Fascists in Argentina," Washington Daily News, February 15, 1946.

Chapter 5: You Can't Do That

Chapter 6: It Can Happen Here

Chapter 7: Is it Good for the Jews?

Chapter 8: Hate is Like a Loaded Gun

PDF document: Breakdown of preview cards, Los Angeles screening of Crossfire, May 19 and 22, 1947.	PDF document: Breakdown of preview cards, Yorkville screening of Crossfire, May 14, 1947.
Adrian Scott, Joseph Losey, Al Leavitt, Ben Barzman, and Albert Sharpe	PDF document: Otis L. Guernsey, "The Playbill: Its Director Defends Lines in 'Crossfire'." New York Herald Tribune, August 10, 1947.
David Platt, "'Crossfire,' An Exciting Mystery with a Purpose," Daily Worker, July 11, 1947.	PDF document: David Platt, "'Crossfire' Hits Target," Daily Worker, July 23, 1947.
Robert Ryan, "My Role in 'Crossfire,'" The Worker-Southern Edition, July 20, 1947.	Cecelia Ager, "Crossfire Names Names"
David Platt, "'Crossfire' Box Office Terrific, Says Variety," Daily Worker, August 1, 1947.	PDF document: Exhibitors manual for Crossfire, 1947.
PDF document: "'Crossfire' Takes New York by Storm!" The Radio Flash, July 26, 1947.	Related link: New York Times

Chapter 9: Americanism on Trial

PDF document: HICCASP pamphlet, "Introducing . . . Representative John Elliot Rankin," c. June 1945.	Adrian Scott's subpoena to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee, September 18, 1947.
Smoking gun memo, AS FBI File	Smoking gun memo, ED FBI File
PDF document: Adrian Scott and Edward Dmytryk telegram to J. Parnell Thomas, October 18, 1947.	PDF document: Adrian Scott's statement to HUAC.
Cecelia Ager, "Movie Colony's Free Speech Group Practices What It Preaches," [no source or date].	PDF document: FBI report on Adrian Scott, June 29, 1949.
PDF document: Adrian Scott, "The Real Object of the Investigation," October 15, 1947.	PDF document: Scott's notes on meetings with Dore Schary, November 1947.
PDF document: Dore Schary to Adrian Scott, c. October-November 1947.	PDF document: FBI memo on Dore Schary, January 2, 1951.
PDF document: Progressive Citizens of America, "The Other Side of the Story," October 29, 1947.	Scott, attorney Bartley Crum, and Dmytryk in Washington for the HUAC hearings, October 1947.
Adrian Scott to Charlotte Weber, November 12, 1947.	PDF document: Adrian Scott to Charles Katz, notes on his meetings with Peter Rathvon, c. November 1947.
PDF document: Audience Research, Inc., "What the Public Thinks," December 17, 1947.	Related link: Waldorf Statement

Chapter 10: The Triumph of Anti-Communist Americanism

PDF document: Progressive Party of Massachusetts flyer, "How Much Is Your Freedom Worth?" April 22, 1948.	PDF document: Adrian Scott speech, March 5, 1948.
PDF document: Virginia Wright column, Los Angeles Daily News, March 20, 1948.	Adrian Scott to Marian Avery, February 13, 1949.
Norma Barzman and Adrian Scott in Paris, 1949	Adrian Scott, "Europe Recognizes the Symptoms," Film Sense 1:3 (Fall 1949).
PDF document: Adrian Scott, "Address at Meeting in Honor of Howard Fast and Adrian Scott," September 13, 1950.	PDF document: Adrian Scott to Robert Kenny, November 25, 1950.
PDF document: FBI memo on Dore Schary, October 29, 1951.	PDF document: FBI memo on Edward Dmytryk, February 13, 1951.
PDF document: FBI memo on Edward Dmytryk, April 2, 1951.	PDF document: Richard English, "What Makes a Hollywood Communist?" Saturday Evening Post, May 19, 1951.
PDF document: Adrian Scott's "fundraising" letter, November 17, 1952.	PDF document: Ralph Friedman, "Someday We'll Uphold the Right to Have Ideas, Says Adrian Scott," Labor's Daily, February 11, 1958.
PDF document: Typescript outline of plans for Independent Productions Corporation, c. May 1952.	Adrian Scott in swimming pool
PDF document: Adrian Scott to Edward Kook and Sidney Cohen, 1948.	Members of the Hollywood Ten and supporters rally to the cause.

Conclusion