Hollywood on Trial: McCarthyism's War Against the Movies

This is the true story of how J. Parnell Thomas, chairman of the UnAmerican Activities Committee made a national name for himself by ruining the lives of hundreds of people in the movie industry. Two years later, Thomas would be jailed for embezzling government money, but in August 1953 he was riding high. Hollywood on Trial relates the story of the victims of this witchhunt. Through the Committee many of Hollywood's leading lights were denied the right to work. Stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Paul Robeson were denied the passports that would have allowed them to leave America, Oscar-winning writers were forced to give their scripts to others to offer in their own names and then share the proceeds. Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Danny Kaye, and John Huston went to Washington in defense of the "Hollywood Ten", the first writers to be blacklisted, yet when Bogart and Bacall were questioned, they too buckled. The humiliations continued until the end of the 1950s. The scars, however, have remained to this day.