Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. ii, 107 p. : port.; 17 cm.

Subject

1. Group Theatre (U.S.)
2. Fagan, Myron C (Myron Coureval), 1887-1972 > Portraits
3. Motion pictures in propaganda
4. Motion picture industry > United States
5. Blacklisting of entertainers > United States > History > Sources
6. United States > Congress > House > Committee on Un-American Activities
7. Communism > United States
8. Communism and motion pictures
9. Motion pictures > Political aspects > United States

Call number

1. Berg Coll Fagan M67 1948

Note

1. Staple-bound pictorial card wrappers, with image of Stalin and the Kremlin's spires above a movie set, with profile of bald man beneath a movie camera lens observing a scantily clad female dancer in front of a female chorus line; title and author name flanked by Soviet star and Communist Party hammer-and-sickle logo.
2. First edition of Fagan's attack on alleged Communist infiltration of Hollywood, published about six months after Congress, on November 24, 1947, cited for contempt the "Hollywood Ten"--ten writers and directors who refused to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
3. Fagan's pamphlet includes the list of 100 Hollywood luminaries (chiefly actors, directors, and writers) whom he accused of Communist Party affiliation or sympathy, from the stage of the El Patio Theater, on the night of April 11, 1947, when he re-opened his anti-Communist play, "Thieves Paradise." The list includes Lauren Bacall, Joan Bennett, Alvah Bessie, Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplin, Delmar Davies, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., Henry Fonda, John Garfield, Paulette Goddard, Benny Goodman, Paul Henreid, Katherine Hepburn, Walter Huston, William Holden, Danny Kaye, Fritz Lang, Ring Lardner, Myrna Loy, Peter Lorre, Burgess Meredith, Graucho [sic] Marx, Clifford Odets, Gregory Peck, Edward G. Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Franchot Tone, Dalton Trumbo, Cornel Wilde, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Jane Wyatt, Keenan Wynn, and The Actors Lab. To this list he adds 50 more, whom he was unable to condemn from the stage in April 1947 because of "Lack of time." Among the 50 new names are Jean Arthur, Leonard Bernstein, Olivia De Havilland, Melvyn Douglas, Guy Endore, Ava Gardner, Dashiell Hammett, Rita Hayworth, Langston Hughes, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Frederic March, Henry Morgan, Thomas Mann, Dorothy Parker, Anthony Quinn, Elmer Rice, Artie Shaw, and Upton Sinclair. In the body of the text, other names are added, such as Ben Hecht, Donald Ogden Stewart, and John Huston. Singled out for praise are "such loyal Americans as Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, Adolphe Menjou, Ronnie Reagan, Clark Gable, George Murphy, etc."
4. Myron Coureval Fagan was a playwright and director, a major force behind the Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and an initiator of the "Illuminati" conspiracy theory. He began his career in the Broadway theater, in 1907, where he directed plays for the most successful producers of the era such as Charles Frohman and David Belasco. In 1916, he served as Director of Public Relations for Republican Presidential candidate Charles Evans Hughes. When offered a similar position by Herbert Hoover in 1928, he declined. In 1930, he arrived in Hollywood, where he served as writer and director with Pathe Pictures, Inc., 20th Century Fox, and other film studios. In 1945, Fagan claimed that he saw secret documents of summit conference attended by Roosebelt, Stalin, and Churchill at Yalta (Feb. 1945), shown to him by author John T. Flynn, which led him to write the plays "Red Rainbow" and "Thieves Paradise." Leftist groups in New York opposed the play's production, and Fagan could not get sufficient financial backing to produce it. He took the play to Hollywood where he encountered even more vehement protests. In the late 1940s, Fagan launched his crusade against a "Red Conspiracy in Hollywood,"and established the Cinema Education Guild, which was dedicated to his crusade.

Access (note)

1. Restricted access;

Author

1. Fagan, Myron C. (Myron Coureval), 1887-1972.

Title

1. Moscow over Hollywood / by Myron C. Fagan.

Imprint

1. Los Angeles, Calif. : R.C. Cary, c1948.

Access

1. Restricted access; request permission from holding division.

Connect to:

1. Request access to this item in the Berg Collection

LCCN

1. 48011814

Research call number

1. Berg Coll Fagan M67 1948