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Gerald Horne
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Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930–1950: Moguls, Mobsters, Stars, Reds, & Trade Unionists Kindle Edition

by Gerald Horne (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 17 ratings
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“A taut narrative in elegant prose . . . Horne has unearthed a vitally important and mostly forgotten aspect of Hollywood and labor history.” —Publishers Weekly
 
As World War II wound down in 1945 and the cold war heated up, the skilled trades that made up the Conference of Studio Unions (CSU) began a tumultuous strike at the major Hollywood studios. This turmoil escalated further when the studios retaliated by locking out CSU in 1946. This labor unrest unleashed a fury of Red-baiting that allowed studio moguls to crush the union and seize control of the production process, with far-reaching consequences.
 
This engrossing book probes the motives and actions of all the players to reveal the full story of the CSU strike and the resulting lockout of 1946. Gerald Horne draws extensively on primary materials and oral histories to document how limited a “threat” the Communist party actually posed in Hollywood, even as studio moguls successfully used the Red scare to undermine union clout, prevent film stars from supporting labor, and prove the moguls’ own patriotism.

Horne also discloses that, unnoticed amid the turmoil, organized crime entrenched itself in management and labor, gaining considerable control over both the “product” and the profits of Hollywood. This research demonstrates that the CSU strike and lockout were a pivotal moment in Hollywood history, with consequences for everything from production values, to the kinds of stories told in films, to permanent shifts in the centers of power.
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    468 pages
  2. Language
    English
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  4. Publisher
    University of Texas Press
  5. Publication date
    November 6, 2013
  6. File size
    1874 KB
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Walt Disney was famous in Hollywood for creating Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Communists: "Mr. Disney created more communists [than any other studio] with his substandard wage scales and the way he handled his people," claimed the leader of the Conference of Studio Unions, Herb Sorrell. But Disney's policies--which Horne contends were racist, anti-Semitic and sexist as well--were not unique in Hollywood. Tensions between workers and management had long roots: attempts at unionization began as early as 1918 and had ended up in a union lockout in 1921. In 1927, the industry attempted to sidestep the union's power by forming the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which was designed to give the appearance of a surrogate union. In the 1930s, attempts at organizing studio workers by the CSU or other unions were labeled "red." In this maelstrom of political, social and legal bitterness, noted historian Horne (Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising of the 1960s) focuses on the great postwar CSU strike of 1945, which after a studio lockout escalated into a full fledged Cold War culture war, with rabid red-baiting, anti-Semitism and, eventually, violence between striking union workers and scabs, and extensive police brutality. Crafting a taut narrative in elegant prose, Horne is sympathetic with the union's struggles, though his historical overview and blow-by-blow retelling of the strike and lockout never feels biased. Relying on a wealth of primary documents and with an eye for salient details, Horne has unearthed a vitally important and mostly forgotten aspect of Hollywood and labor history.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This book is destined to be a bombshell in the field and perhaps far beyond the field." (Paul Buhle, coauthor of Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist)

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00GINVARU
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Texas Press (November 6, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 6, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1874 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 468 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 17 ratings

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Gerald Horne

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
17 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mel Freilicher
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellently documented and researched. Fascinating account of the entanglements ...
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2017
Verified Purchase
Excellently documented and researched. Fascinating account of the entanglements among mobsters, Hollywood stars, and big business--the studio moguls being financed by major banks. Union busting is explored in some detail. A must for anyone interested in this period.
One person found this helpful
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Power Player
5.0 out of 5 stars NEED TO MAKE A MOVIE from this book
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2016
Verified Purchase
Love this book to help understand the Labor movement in HOLLYWOOD!! History is something we all can learn from, but Hollywood History is SO intense. NEED TO MAKE A MOVIE about these days in the film business.
3 people found this helpful
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DMF
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Account of Labor Unions in Hollywood
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2020
Verified Purchase
Excellent account of union conflicts in Hollywood.
One person found this helpful
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Brad Rockwell
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book on Hollywood politics during the period indicated.
Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2015
Verified Purchase
Excellent book giving in-depth perspective on the politics of Hollywood. I have read a fair amount on this topic and this book, while not all-inclusive, is the best.
One person found this helpful
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Tony Beamon
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2017
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excellent!!!
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Luc REYNAERT
5.0 out of 5 stars They who control the cinema can control the thought of the world (A. P. Giannini, chairman of The Bank of America)
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2016
Gerald Horne’s book is a very revealing one about the movie business in the US, a very important industry with, before the launching of television, up to 250,000 employees. It was a labor-intensive industry with a mix of ‘proletarians’ (carpenters, painters, electricians) and entrepreneurs (screenwriters, producers, directors). But, it was also one of the most profitable businesses in the country. Controlling a stake in it directly or indirectly was synonymous with very juicy returns.

The main players in the violent struggle for control were the shareholders of the major studios and their chiefs (the moguls), the mob (Bugsy Siegel controlled a union of employees who provided for the ‘extras’ in the movies) and the unions. The most important unions were the independent, but branded communist, CSU (Conference of Studio Unions, a federation of craft unions), and the IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees) linked to the mob. Moreover, the unions fought among themselves ‘debilitating jurisdictional battles’ in their search for new members, while the mob helped the studios bosses to break strikes. On the other hand, mobsters created with the unions they controlled labor monopolies and sold labor peace at a heavy cost for the producers. Some racketeers confiscated up to two-thirds of union member fees and were not afraid to murder union dissents.

G. Horne explains clearly that the ‘Red Scare’ argument (anti-communism) against the CSU was a cover-up for another agenda: attacking militant ‘unionism’. While big chunks of the business were dominated by organized crime, the ‘powers that be’ told the public that it was in the hands of the organized left.
Another aspect of the hypocrisy was the Hays office for censorship. While apparently created to provide a framework for ‘moral’ (sexual) content, its prime goal was to block the proliferation of progressive themes in movies.

Internationally, protectionism secured the profitability of the business. Foreign films were barred from entering the USA, while foreign markets (Europe, South-America) were captured and became big revenue sources. They were also very useful for money laundering.

This thorough investigation of a violent chapter in the history of cinema is a must read for all those interested in the movie business.
3 people found this helpful
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Douglas Doepke
5.0 out of 5 stars A Needed Light
Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2001
Reviewer Everitt's remarks capture the book's essential value. Several points however merit emphasis. First, Horne's book brings out the symbiotic relation between the studios' desire for non-independent company unions, on one hand, and organized crime's desire for corrupt unions, on the other. By taking in one another's washing during the tumultuous events of '45 - '47, these two representatives of private capital maintained an alliance that defeated efforts by the Conference of Studio Unions to emerge as an independent union of movie-making employees. Horne the historian is detailed about this sinister and under-reported alliance. Second, by using abundant primary sources, the author debunks the nurtured image of CSU as a communist-led movement, a scare tactic still in its infancy following the anti-fascist WWII and, as the book shows, a tactic used to increasing effect by the corporate-owned press of the day. Belated communist support for CSU strikers was willfully twisted by these flacks into communist domination. Third, the inability of the CSU to cross racial and gender lines of the day is emphasized. This had the unfortunate effect of reducing potential for attracting outside allies, especially among aggrieved African-Americans and women's groups, though it's hardly surprising that prejudices within the union would reflect those of the larger society from which it sprang. It's fascinating to follow this dark underside of the Hollywood dream factory, though I did find time shifts in the narrative confusing at times. Nonetheless, Horne has focused his word-camera on a worthy and neglected real life drama.
19 people found this helpful
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Michael Everett
5.0 out of 5 stars Hollywood's buried history
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2001
Amazingly, this is the first comprehensive work written on a key event in American labor history -- an event that was headline news in the mid 1940's, and that among many other things set the stage for the passage of Taft-Hartley and propelled Ronald Reagan into politics. While countless historians have left no stone unturned in examining the Hollywood Blacklist, the story of the Hollywood studio strikes has long been relegated to footnotes and chapters in more general works. With this work Gerald Horne has shined a relentless light of painstaking scholarship on what may well be the most neglected event in American labor history. The footnotes alone are worth the price of the book and will no doubt entice many readers to follow these myriad paths deeper into the hidden corners of Hollywood history.
This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in Hollywood history, labor history, the Hollywood Blacklist, American radical history, and the history of organized crime in America. It should especially be read by anyone who earns their living as a worker in the film and television industry or is a member of IATSE and wishes to know the true story of their union's dark history.
17 people found this helpful
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