Abraham Polonsky: Interviews

Interview with Abraham Polonsky

101 Interview with Abraham Polonsky Jim Cook and Kingsley Canham / 1970 From Screen 11.3 (1970): 57–73. Reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press. Jim Cook: What was the attraction of Communism for American intellectuals in the thirties and forties? Abraham Polonsky: Well I think it would be wrong to say the attraction of Communism for the American intellectuals—it’s the attraction of radical political activity—because a great many intellectuals became followers of Leon Trotsky—a great many intellectuals became radical socialists , and a great many more became attracted to standard Communism. They were all attracted to some form of Leftist activity. I think you’ve missed the point to say just Communism—because that’s the way the McCarthy committee talked about it—you’ve got to get the spectrum that was going on. There were several obvious reasons—one was the Great Depression which proved that Capitalism was a disaster when it didn’t work. The most important thing was the appalling lies of fascism and the terrifying notion that there was only one country that would ever fight them—the Soviet Union—the feeling was that the others were going to sell out all along the line. And for those American intellectuals who were Jewish—there were the Nazis’ concentration camps, for which they were destined obviously at some point—either by American Fascists or German Fascists. If that didn’t drive people to political activity nothing will. Cook: How much of this concern was reflected in films of the period? Polonsky: It was reflected in all the films, especially in the films of those who weren’t radicals, because they were freer from self-censorship. I think a lot of radical writers pick an attitude that you might call progressive or democratic and encourage democracy in good relations and good feelings—because they know that you can’t get any radical activity 102 abraham polonsky: inter views in films. People who aren’t radicals don’t know that; so they had the tendency to push stuff in, Frank Sinatra did anything he felt like—and he’s a conservative—or John Ford might do something tremendous, as in that film based on Steinbeck’s . . . Grapes of Wrath. But it would be a lie to say that American left-wingers didn’t do pictures with radical activity. They did pictures with humanist content and the flavor of democracy. Cook: Why did the 1947 hearings of the Committee of Un-American activities last only two weeks and end after only ten of the nineteen witnesses had been called? Polonsky: Because at the beginning, the whole of the film industry decided to resist the attack by the House of Un-American Activities Committee . A committee in Hollywood was formed called the Committee for the First Amendment, and its chairman was John Huston. He, Willie Wyler, and Philip Dunne gathered the full strength of the Hollywood community against the committee, so when these nineteen were subpoenaed and summoned to Washington, a planeload of Hollywood stars including Humphrey Bogart and Danny Kaye and many others went to see that these people had a fair hearing. It became such a row that the hearings were called off. Cook: The Committee for the First Amendment had issued certain statements after John Howard Lawson said in court that it was America that was on trial and not the ten people involved in the hearings. Do you feel that anybody connected with the Committee was in any way using it? Were there any Communists involved? Polonsky: Well the only left-wingers involved were me—maybe a few others. If we hadn’t associated with the Amendment, we wouldn’t have been subpoenaed. The Committee for the First Amendment was ripped asunder when the thing exploded in Washington. General Beadle Smith was sent to Hollywood owners. A policy was laid down to call these actors and directors off—the important ones. Pressure was put on them through their agents and the whole thing melted in about two weeks. I finally went to a meeting of the Committee of the First Amendment and Humphrey Bogart turned around and looked up a half empty room; the first meetings were held at [motion picture agent] George Chasen’s and you couldn’t get in—it was like opening night at the opera—everybody wanted to be in on this. Anyway Humphrey Bogart looked around this room and said: “You don’t think I’m going to...