Events Detail

Red Star over Hollywood

The Film Colony's Long Romance with the Left

with an introduction by

Ronald F. Maxwell

Director of “Gettysburg” and “Gods and Generals”

Friday, May 20, 2005

12:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Hudson Institute

1015 18^th St., NW

Suite 300

Washington, DC

For the first time in Hollywood history, Ronald and Allis Radosh deconstruct the Hollywood myth that the “nightmare” of the Red Scare victimized political innocents. They not only prove that the members of the Hollywood Party were loyal first and foremost to Joseph Stalin, but show that in fact many of the screenwriters who later became part of the Hollywood Ten succeeded in using films as a propaganda medium in behalf of Soviet cause.

Until now, Hollywood’s political history has been dominated by a steady stream of films and memoirs decrying the “nightmare” of the Red Scare. But in Red Star over Hollywood (Encounter Books, $25.95), the Radoshes show that the real drama of that era lay in the story of the movie stars, directors and especially screenwriters who joined the Communist Party or traveled in its orbit, and made the Party the focus of their political and social lives. The authors also show the Party’s attempts at influencing filmmaking; their greatest achievement being the film “Mission to Moscow,” which justified Stalin’s great purge trials.

Hudson Adjunct Fellow Ronald Radosh was the first writer to establish the guilt of Julius Rosenberg in his best-selling The Rosenberg File. He is also the author of Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left.

Space is limited and lunch will be provided.

Please RSVP to rsvp@hudsondc.org or 202-223-7770.