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A Very Dangerous Citizen: Abraham Lincoln Polonsky and the Hollywood Left
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About A Very Dangerous Citizen: Abraham Lincoln Polonsky
Product description When he was summoned before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951, Abraham Lincoln Polonsky (1911-1999) was labeled "a very dangerous citizen" by Harold Velde, a congressman from Illinois. Lawyer, educator, novelist, labor organizer, radio and television scriptwriter, film director and screenwriter, wartime intelligence operative, and full-time radical romantic, Polonsky was blacklisted in Hollywood for refusing to be an informer. The New York Times called his blacklisting the single greatest loss to American film during the McCarthy era, and his expressed admirers include Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, Warren Beatty, and Harry Belafonte. In this first critical and cultural biography of Abraham Polonsky, Paul Buhle and Dave Wagner present both an accomplished consideration of a remarkable survivor of America's cultural cold war and a superb study of the Hollywood left. The Bronx-born son of immigrant parents, Polonskyin the few years after the end of World War II and just before the blacklisthad one of the most distinguished careers in Hollywood. He wrote two films that established John Garfield's postwar persona, Body and Soul (1947), still the standard for boxing films and the model for such movies as Raging Bull and Pulp Fiction; and Force of Evil (1948), the great noir drama that he also directed. Once blacklisted, Polonsky quit working under his own name, yet he proved to be one of television's most talented writers. Later in life he became the most acerbic critic of the Hollywood blacklist's legacy while writing and directing films such as Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1970). A Very Dangerous Citizen goes beyond biography to help us understand the relationship between art and politics in American culture and to uncover the effects of U.S. anticommunism and anti-Semitism. Rich in anecdote and in analysis, it provides an informative and entertaining portrait of one of the most intriguing personalities of twentieth-century American culture. From Publishers Weekly Called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) in 1951, Polonsky was called a "very dangerous citizen" by Illinois congressman Harold Velde. Blacklisted in Hollywood for refusing to inform on his political associates, this brilliant screenwriter lived a life that offers a unique window on the Cold War in Hollywood. Buhle (Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist) and Wagner have produced a fine biography of Polonsky (who wrote such classics as Body and Soul and Force of Evil) that is also a visceral and engaging study of the Hollywood blacklist and its broader context: the 1950s right-wing backlash against progressive politics. Buhle and Wagner carefully detail Polonsky's actual leftist political activities (as opposed to the innuendo and misinformation that circulated in the HUAC) and map out the permutations of Polonsky's artistic career from working with Gertrude Berg on The Goldbergs to later work such as the 1969 Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. Sympathetic the book is dedicated "To the Memory of the Blacklisted Generation" without being hagiographic or dishonest about their subject's political ideas, Buhle and Wagner have written an exceedingly well-researched, nuanced and highly informative biography and social history. It's a welcome addition not only to film literature but to the political history of the 1950s. 18 b&w photos. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Was Polonsky dangerous? He was certainly active. He wrote modernist and realistic fiction and film as well as radio and television scripts and directed the noir classics Body and Soul and Force of Evil before the blacklist brought his Hollywood career to an end. After writing under pseudonyms in the 1950s, Polonsky directed several post-blacklist films, notably Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here and Romance of a Horsethief, but was sidelined in the 1970s by health problems. He continued to w
