The Hollywood blacklist: Written Assignment 4_FIL-110-OL009

This assignment evaluates how the United States v. Paramount Pictures decision and the Hollywood blacklist changed the filmmaking business in America. These two events had a cause-and-effect relationship where the decision led to the blacklist.

The United States v. Paramount Pictures Incorporated was a landmark antitrust case decided by the Supreme Court in 1948. The case overturned the vertical integration of film studios, which had been in place since the early 1920s. The ruling forced the studios to divest themselves of their movie theater chains and put an end to block booking, a practice whereby theaters were required to book entire blocks of films from a studio in order to get access to its most popular titles.

The ruling had a profound impact on the American film industry, as it ended the era of the studio system and ushered in a new era of independent filmmaking. The decision also had a ripple effect on the rest of the world, as it led to the breakup of the British Film Consortium, which had been modeled on the studio system.

The Hollywood blacklist was a list of people who were barred from working in the American film industry because of their suspected communist or socialist beliefs. The blacklist began in the late 1940s and continued into the early 1950s. It was started by private companies like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Warner Bros but soon expanded to include anyone who was deemed to be a threat to the industry's status quo.

The blacklist had a devastating effect on many careers, including that of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who was one of the most successful screenwriters of the 1940s and 1950s. Trumbo was blacklisted in 1947 and was not able to work under his own name for over a decade. He eventually resorted to working under pseudonyms, which he used to win two Academy Awards.

The blacklist also had a lasting impact on the film industry, as it made studios more reluctant to take risks on controversial or political films. The era of the blacklist is often seen as a low point in Hollywood history when creativity and free expression were stifled in favor of conformity and fear.