Hide In Plain Sight: Un Travail Bien Fait!

It feels natural to advocate for today’s reading, since Buhle and Wagner accomplish what they set out to do in chapters 5 and 6, heavily supporting their claims while at the same time not forcing the reader to sift through tedious lists of examples. In chapter 5, they reveal the ways in which the blacklistees succeeded in lifting the “cultural iron curtain.” The victories they catalogue transcended the silver screen: these exiles pushed forward off-camera through press releases and public appearances in the more welcoming political climate of Western Europe.

The section I found most fascinating was the description of the Hollywood victims’ experience abroad. As someone who loves the French language and culture, I was particularly interested in the French reaction to the American blacklistees. I was surprised to learn that while the English reception was at best lukewarm, the French accepted the blacklistees with open arms, offering them a “hero’s welcome!” (137). It seems counterintuitive for a few reasons – not only did the French have a language barrier not faced by the English, but it’s a generally accepted truth that they look down upon American culture. Buhle and Wagner dispel this myth of French cultural superiority with their accounts of Hollywoodites mingling with famous artists like Picasso and Braque and (incredibly awesome) poets such as Jacques Prévert!

The authors go on to provide even more compelling evidence of the strong French support for the exiled Hollywood stars with the example of Eddie Constantine, an American actor “whose face on billboards would become as familiar to Parisians of decades as Humphrey Bogart’s” (138). One minor problem I had with this example was the ambiguity of the language Constantine spoke French in these films. Was he fluent in French, or was the unlikely alternative the case: that the French had embraced one who hadn’t mastered their language as a cultural icon? (This brings to mind the final scene in the South Pacific, where Nellie tries to communicate to Emile’s children in mangled French.) I ended up finding out that Constantine was indeed francophone with a little help from my trusty friends google and youtube; maybe Buhle and Wagner neglected to mention it because it’s an obvious fact to those with any shred of cinema literacy (i.e., not me).

My favorite parts of these chapters were the authors’ occasional musings on what the film industry in the 1950’s would have been like without the blacklist, since it’s something I’d never thought about before and Buhle and Wagner are probably two of the most well-qualified people to speculate on that alternate world.