Red Hollywood Page #3

---

You can't make a picture

about human life

without social content.

And social content

meant, in effect,

the social content

of these people.

How the world

was divided up,

how it worked

economically, socially,

morally, and so on.

You've got to show

the rich are shitty

and the poor are beautiful.

It's important that

you've got to show

that anybody

who works

is being exploited.

Those are general

professional ideas

that are current

among the least educated

among the radicals.

But there is

the social content

that comes from a general

philosophical attitude

towards the world,

of society,

that's what counts.

NARRATOR:

As the blacklist spread,

claiming Jarrico,

Levitt, Polonsky,

and hundreds of others,

it became evident

that more than two

of its victims had talent.

But talent is not enough,

as their critics

would point out.

Even the most talented

could be fatally

corrupted by Hollywood.

In the '30s,

everyone's favorite example

was Clifford Odets,

the brightest and bravest

of the left wing playwrights.

He journeyed west

to write romantic dialogue

for Gary Cooper

and Madeleine Caroll.

I'm trying to say

you're wonderful.

That makes me a sap,

I know,

but it doesn't make

any difference

one way or the other now.

You know

I'm wonderful, too.

You are.

Judy Perrie, darling,

we could've made

wonderful music together.

We could've worked

and made ourselves

a circle of light

and warmth.

O'Hara...

I'm so lonely for you.

NARRATOR:

And the critics jeered,

Odets, where is thy sting?

Yet even in this

apolitical film,

Odets managed to insert

a little lesson

about class oppression.

There they are,

refugees from Ar Chen,

or what used to be

Ar Chen

before General Yang

rode through it.

(CHUCKLES)

And who's General Yang?

Why, he's the warlord

of this province,

and a swell guy

to do business with.

But why does he want

to destroy his own towns?

Oh, because they refuse

to pay their taxes.

(SCOFFS) Well, I think

those people would learn

how to obey the law

rather than suffer this.

Ah, these people have

no nerves, no feeling.

They're used to suffering.

But they can't

get used to paying.

(BOTH LAUGH)

Excuse me, madam...

You got a match,

Colonel?

No, I don't smoke.

Colonel.

Refuse me a match,

will ya?

But I haven't a match!

And those people

didn't have the pennies

to pay General Yang.

Think it over.

NARRATOR:

But The General Died at Dawn

was not Hollywood's

first denunciation

of the actually

existing fascism

that threatened

the peace of the world.

That would come

two years later,

and it would be written

by a Communist.

Air raid!

(SIREN WAILING)

What?

The Spanish Civil War

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes