The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten

9. Writing—and Fighting

9 Writing—and Fighting 149 The African soldier chased the escaping German prisoner across the hot sands of the fictional North African desert. He caught him, and a fierce struggle ensued. The African pummeled the German vigorously, then began to strangle him. Finally he choked the last breath out of the man’s body, just as white supremacy itself was being suffocated as a by-product of the antifascist war that had led to this startling cinematic chase scene. Such was the celluloid progressivism crafted by John Howard Lawson in his wartime epic Sahara. Helen Slote Levitt, one of Hollywood’s leading women writers,1 and Julian Mayfield, a leading black writer, were among the legions inspired by this still-stirring movie.2 • • • World War II and the resultant alliance between Moscow and Washington eroded the difficulties brought to Lawson and his Party by the 1939 nonaggression pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. Simultaneously, anticommunism itself was placed on the defensive, which allowed Lawson to flourish in Hollywood in a way that was unlikely before this war—and virtually impossible afterward. It was his wartime movies, as well, that burnished Lawson’s reputation as a filmmaker—particularly Sahara. Made with the cooperation of the U.S. Army, it portrays an intensely homosocial environment, with men making constant references to “dames” and at times treating their valuable tanks like lovers. Humphrey Bogart stars in this tale of Allied soldiers battling their German counterparts in the desert. There are references to the Spanish civil war and other progressive touches, such as when the German prisoner does not want to be searched—for “racial” reasons—by an African soldier; Bogart threatens to punch the prisoner after he utters a racial epithet . The Negro soldier is portrayed heroically; it is he who finds the lifesaving well in the desert. There is bonhomie shown between the African and a “white” Texan; they share cigarettes, and the former, a Muslim, tells the Texan, “We both have much to learn from each other.” A good deal of this film concerns the necessity of those from different backgrounds getting along—not a minor lesson to be imparted by a nation with an official policy of bigotry, then struggling to conduct a war against a foe that had proclaimed “race war.”3 On the other hand, there were no negative comments made about a white South African, and the insulting term “Jap” was used frequently. The penultimate scene—and a still reigning classic of cinema—occurs when the German prisoner seeks to escape and is chased down by the African. The African then is shot down by the enemy, but he gives a thumbs-up before collapsing. Lawson acknowledged that this movie was “patterned on a similar situation in The Thirteen, made by Mikhail Romm,” the Soviet screenwriter 150 / Writing—and Fighting figure 6. Lawson’s Sahara was hailed as an antiracist and antifascist classic. It also brought him into closer contact with Humphrey Bogart. (Courtesy of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and director, in 1937. Modestly, he added, “the Negro soldier” was “an unusual figure in American films, . . . played with great warmth by Rex Ingram .”4 There was an enduring humanity to this film that time could not erode. A half century later the cable television service Showtime produced another version with the actor Jim Belushi in Bogart’s role.5 As with other wartime films in particular,the script for Sahara was scrutinized by U.S.government authorities.“This script offers the basis for a picture which will be a real contribution to the war information program,” gushed one bureaucrat in a “confidential” report. There were problems, however: “The British government might feel that not sufficient credit is given to the achievements and heroism of the British forces in this story,” and “with the possibility of release of this picture in North Africa, care in the presentation of the Sudanese Negro,Tambul, a Mohammedan, is essential .” Moreover,“The presentation in the script might in certain respects be resented by other Africans.”The penultimate scene was questioned, since it “could possibly have an effect the opposite to that intended, and might be better omitted.”6 This scene also left Hollywood’s chief censor, Joseph Breen, a bit queasy. He instructed, “Please take care to avoid undue gruesomeness in this scene where Tambul strangles the German officer...