rifkin_cover

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/reviews/respite-refugees-sun-stars/"></div>Not everyone was fortunate enough to escape Europe before Hitler’s tyranny took hold, but Salka and Berthold Viertel beat the odds. The Jewish couple moved from Berlin to Los Angeles in 1928 on the recommendations of German theater peers who’d found greener pastures in California. Salka was a stage actress; Berthold, a screenwriter who had landed a contract with Fox Film Corporation. As the two watched the rise of fascism from an ocean away, their welcoming abode in Santa Monica, California, grew essential to fellow émigrés as a reprieve from the pressures of assimilation and an escalating world war.
Hollywood’s salon of outsiders — and Viertel, an unsung Hollywood hero — are celebrated in Donna Rifkind’s The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler’s Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Born in 1889, Viertel was raised in present-day western Ukraine, the daughter of a magnanimous father who regularly hosted needy strangers and organized soup kitchens and food drives. Viertel’s mother imbued the home with culture, complete with musical performances and intellectual debate. Viertel internalized this hospitality, and it resurfaced during a pivotal time: as she worked her way into the 1930s Hollywood film industry, first an actress and then as a screenwriter for an ascendant Greta Garbo, cells of domestic fascists like the Silver Shirts and German American Bund operated throughout Los Angeles hosting marches and planning cultural sabotage.
Against this climate, Viertel’s home increasingly became a hot spot for many European Jewish immigrant artists, as well as luminaries like Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, and Sunset Boulevard writer-director Billy Wilder. And as international frictions grew with President Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Bill and Germany’s invasion of Poland, her Sunday parties became increasingly necessary as a release from the grueling news cycle. Viertal also hosted gatherings following Hollywood Anti-Nazi League events, an organization united against fighting fascism. Many of Viertel’s guests also supported the European Film Fund, a nonprofit she founded with associates such as Universal Studios founder Carl Laemmle (born in Germany), which helped provide money to refugees and affidavits to secure them jobs in Los Angeles. In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Viertel’s home was one of the few that could be seen and heard at night during the blackouts, music blaring through wide-open windows. The place, as Rifkind writes, was an oasis “where a houseful of enemy aliens who had barely escaped their deaths in Europe let off steam” and advocated for those less fortunate.
As the war waged on, so did news of Hitler’s Final Solution. Viertel’s brother was killed in the Holocaust, while many Hollywood friends, like Wilder, received similarly grim news about their own families. These survivors all faced varying degrees of guilt, having been unable to save their loved ones from destruction a world away. Although much would change for Viertel after the war. Her once patriotic anti-Nazi activity would be questioned by red baiters as communist sympathy. Work dried up as she found herself on Hollywood’s gray-list and Salka was forced to sell her Santa Monica home, after which she would relocate to Switzerland.
Rifkind’s book captures the nuances and humanity that makes history entertaining, engaging, and insightful. Not only do we learn about the lives of expatriates on the West Coast, but we can also picture Viertel’s parties and understand their necessity during a terrifying time for many. Rifkind carefully recreates time and place through the eyes of the immigrant artists who escaped Hitler’s Final Solution and lived to shoulder the guilt of knowing others less fortunate. While Salka did write her own 1969 autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers, Rifkind’s work corrects some of Viertel’s modesty and puts her reputation on the pedestal it deserves.
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Chris Yogerst is author of the upcoming book Hollywood Hates Hitler! Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures (University Press of Mississippi, 2020).
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A Respite for Refugees: The Sun and Her Stars

A Respite for Refugees: The Sun and Her Stars

joker

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/essays/shouldnt-fear-joker/"></div>At an early age most of us are taught not to judge a book by its cover. That’s exactly what happened this summer, when the Universal/Blumhouse release of The Hunt was shut down following political pushback. The film is based on an updated version of The Most Dangerous Game that gave some, including President Trump, discomfort with its political implications without having watched the movie. It has become far too common for people to jump to conclusions based on a film’s synopsis or advertising. The most recent controversy follows Joker, a film based in the Gotham City universe, that has led some to feel the story will inspire real-world killers. The problem, of course, is that <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/09/27/joker-the-hunt-rambo-dc-films-matrix-dark-knight-rises-movies-violence-controversy-problematic-oscars-box-office/#174101bf1b46" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/09/27/joker-the-hunt-rambo-dc-films-matrix-dark-knight-rises-movies-violence-controversy-problematic-oscars-box-office/#174101bf1b46', 'a film about an unhinged murderer isn’t any more likely to provoke imposters than the news coverage of the same events in real life');">a film about an unhinged murderer isn’t any more likely to provoke imposters than the news coverage of the same events in real life</a>.
The highly anticipated Joker was released this past Friday amidst a wave of press coverage that has been building for weeks. Similar to The Hunt, the pushback started as soon as trailers launched. Law enforcement went as far as to increase security in some theaters. Two advocacy groups — Survivors Empowered and Guns Down America — wrote a letter of protest to Warner Bros. fearing the film’s potential influence. Sandy Philips, whose daughter was killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting, said, &#8220;My worry is that one person who may be out there — and who knows if it is just one — who is on the edge, who is wanting to be a mass shooter, may be encouraged by this movie. And that terrifies me.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/aurora-shooting-victims-voice-concerns-joker-emotional-letter-warner-bros-1241599" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/aurora-shooting-victims-voice-concerns-joker-emotional-letter-warner-bros-1241599', 'Warner Bros. responded with a statement');">Warner Bros. responded with a statement</a> that shared sympathies with victims of recent shootings. The studio also defended their film, writing that “Warner Bros. believes that one of the functions of storytelling is to provoke difficult conversations around complex issues. Make no mistake: neither the fictional character Joker, nor the film, is an endorsement of real-world violence of any kind. It is not the intention of the film, the filmmakers or the studio to hold this character up as a hero.&#8221; <a href="https://uk.ign.com/articles/2019/09/25/joker-dangerous-movie-joaquin-phoenix-todd-phillips-interview" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://uk.ign.com/articles/2019/09/25/joker-dangerous-movie-joaquin-phoenix-todd-phillips-interview', 'Director Todd Philips and star Joaquin Phoenix have also come out in defense of the film.');">Director Todd Philips and star Joaquin Phoenix have also come out in defense of the film.</a>
Joker executive producer and longtime caretaker of Gotham City on the big screen Michael Uslan was asked about his thoughts on the potential danger the film poses in our society. Uslan told the <a href="https://www.app.com/story/entertainment/movies/2019/09/26/joker-executive-producer-michael-uslan-interview/2387307001/" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https://www.app.com/story/entertainment/movies/2019/09/26/joker-executive-producer-michael-uslan-interview/2387307001/', 'Asbury Park Press');">Asbury Park Press</a>, “I would almost turn that question over to the teachers of film around the world, to the academicians, as to what is the role of cinema, thematically (and with regard to) responsibility.” As a film historian, I’m happy to oblige this suggestion.
Uslan describes how his favorite films have “held up a mirror to our society, and there are times when people don’t want to see that reflection, they want to run from it. They don’t want to acknowledge it because sometimes the reflection shows warts and all, whether it’s biases and prejudices or what’s happened to our society, reflecting the times.” With the number of high-profile instances of violence, the Joker is a perfect metaphor for our society. He isn’t easy to look at, but he represents the true dark side of humanity that many prefer to ignore. Uslan continued, “If anything, I believe movies can shake people up and bring issues to attention, whether it’s about guns or the need to treat mental illness or the need for civility and for us to start talking with each other instead of at each other again. You can’t suppress that, you can’t censor that.”
Crime films have long been controversial, not only with audiences and censors but also with law enforcement. Gangster films were all the rage coming out of the Roaring Twenties. Popular crime films like Little Caesar and The Public Enemy made Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney stars in 1931. The genre ultimately played a central role in the Payne Fund studies, which began in 1929 and monitored the influence of movies on youth. On September 23, 1931, amidst all the discussion of crime films, New York mayor Jimmy Walker came to Chicago and declared, “Take the gangster off page one and you will take him out of existence.” This novel idea relies on the assumption that films about criminals glorify their lifestyle. When Scarface (1932) was released after a nearly two-year battle with local and industry censors, the film was banned in Chicago and other places around the country. After John Dillinger was killed in 1934, the head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association released a memo stating that there would be no release of any film based on bank robber’s harrowing crime spree.
Despite the inconclusive findings of the Payne studies, and fearing possible government interventions, Hollywood still gave into social and political pressure against movies. Hollywood revamped their Production Code in 1934, which included rules against “throwing sympathy to the side of crime, wrongdoing, or sin.” Of course, these measures changed movies and watered down the risqué content that was prevalent in early 1930s Hollywood. However, these measures of changing the image of the gangster certainly did not stop the rise of real-life gangsters Johnny Rosselli, Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen, Frank Costello, and scores of others. We are interested with these characters because versions of them exist in our world.
In 1948, social critic Robert Warshow wrote one of his most famous essays, titled <a href="http://crmintler.com/AGH/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Warshow-GTH.pdf" onclick="__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'download', 'http://crmintler.com/AGH/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Warshow-GTH.pdf');">“The Gangster as Tragic Hero.”</a> Warshow muses on how the gangster personifies the city and becomes a voice of mass culture. “Not the real city,” writes Warshow, “but that dangerous and sad city of the imagination.” Gotham City, where the Joker presides, is a prominent city of our imagination Warshow argues that the gangster is also a “creature of the imagination.” The Joker has long served as a similar villain of our worst nightmares (unless it’s the Caesar Romero one, of course). “The real city,” Warshow continues, “produces-only-criminals; the imaginary city produces the gangster: he is what we want to be and what we are afraid we may become.” Warshow understood both that the gangster on the screen was not the gangster on the streets of Chicago and the human potential to fall into a life of crime. Movies should be considered for their mimetic quality that help us understand the world around us. The Joker in all its variations has the ability to put us into relationship with parts of life we may not know.
Those who take the time to see Joker will find that it isn’t the ultra-violent juggernaut some have anticipated. Instead of being action-driven like most superhero films, Joker is a nuanced look at mental illness and the impact of trauma in a society that prefers to look the other way. The film is a throwback in style to 1970s filmmaking and has direct nods to both Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1980), which Robert De Niro alluded to in a recent interview. Viewers may also see some comparison to Network (1976), the prophetic film about a television personality taking his anger out on the world with his contagious line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
In Joker, Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is mad as hell and has very good reason to be. Society has failed him. Nobody took his concerns seriously. Fleck was seeing a social worker, but the city cut funding for his services and medications. Fleck isn’t stupid, though he has suffered deep traumatic experiences that have shaped his life. He knows he needs help, but that assistance falls short at every turn. There is nothing fantastical, alluring, or glamorous about it. This Joker isn’t funny, suave, or cool in any way.
Once Fleck snaps, we cannot help but be reminded of all the times his violence could have been prevented. We often hear talk about calling out red flags of instability, though it doesn’t happen often enough. If this becomes common practice, tragedies like the shooting in Aurora can be avoided. Certainly, the victims and families associated with such crimes don’t need any reminders about that. However, there are many out there that still do. Fleck is told unequivocally by his social worker, “they [city officials] don’t care about people like you.” Anyone who has worked with or around the mental health field understands the stark truth in this scene.
Fleck doesn’t hurt anyone during the first half of the film. “Hurt people, hurt people,” is a line you may hear from a mental health professional. That’s exactly what Fleck is, a hurt person who has endured great trauma throughout his life. He doesn’t just fall into a vat of toxic sludge and go crazy; he was molded by a society that could have molded him into something else. Both Uslan and Warner Bros. hope this film will spark discussion, the deluge of press coverage is proof that it has. To some critics’ dismay, Joker is a cold tale about the social and cultural isolation created by individual trauma. When audiences see the complexity of Fleck’s trauma history, and how society responds to it, they will not be surprised by his trajectory. Joker works to draw attention to the ripple effects of trauma.
Just before the Joker premiere in Hollywood, director Todd Philips told the audience, “I think it’s time to let the film speak for itself.” Simple, yet revelatory, because films can and should speak for themselves. Our society often gets revved up about popular culture it hasn’t seen or knows nothing about — always eager to throw down over ill-informed presuppositions. After watching The Hunt get effectively blacklisted, it’s all that much more important to let films speak before making assumptions about them. None of this is to say that concern over violence is overstated, but we should be more cognizant of the root causes such a general lack of funding and support for mental health.
Instead of pushing the crime and murder off of our screens, maybe we should instead work to rid it from our culture. That way, when movies reflect our world, we will be looking at a much better image flickering back at us.
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Chris Yogerst is assistant professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee whose writing has appeared in The Washington Post and The Hollywood Reporter. His next book about the 1941 Senate investigation into motion picture propaganda is due out in 2020.
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Why We Shouldn’t Fear Joker

Why We Shouldn’t Fear Joker

dreyersenglish

<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/reviews/everyone-can-benefit-dreyers-english-especially-scholars/"></div>We’ve all heard adages such as “actions speak louder than words,” “you are what you eat,” and “don’t judge a book by its cover.” We might as well add another: “behind every good writer is a great copy editor,” which is always true. Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, has issued his “Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style,” affably titled Dreyer’s English. Dreyer’s thoughts and explanations are both helpful and witty. We could describe it as a 279-page version of Weird Al Yankovic’s “Word Crimes.” Dreyer’s English is The Elements of Style for the 21st century, but you can read this straight through for fun.
With his realistic expectations (“everyone mistypes things”) and the ability to connect to his readers (“we’re all of us writers”), Dreyer offers a useful handbook that should help all of us improve our writing and communication on many levels. Whether you are writing a book, crafting a press release, drafting an email, or thumb-typing a rushed Tweet from your phone, there is likely something you could improve on. Dreyer’s guide is not just a rulebook, though it has plenty of those. It also offers context for why certain things matter, such as why we need the Series comma — also referred to as the Oxford comma — because it clarifies lists. If you disagree, Dreyer will simply argue, “only godless savages eschew the series comma.”
Dreyer’s English is part memoir and part down-to-earth writer’s guide. “Everyone mistypes things,” Dreyer understands, which is reason enough to never refer to him as a Grammar Nazi. Speaking of German, one word that Dreyer brings up is deppenapostroph, or “idiot apostrophe,” as in a sign at my local gas station car wash that warns, “no dually’s.” Some mistakes are easy, others should never happen. Dreyer understands that nobody memorizes the English language so we shouldn’t feel bad looking up words to remind ourselves of definitions, uses, spellings, etc. In fact, Dreyer would encourage it (he would also delete “in fact” from this sentence).
One of Dreyer’s pet peeves is a crime regularly committed by scholars: scare quotes. Dreyer defines the additional punctuation as used when an author feels a word is too “slangy” to stand on its own. For Dreyer, if the word simplifies your point you should use it. “Avoid scare quotes,” advises the copy chief, “They’ll make you look snotty today and, 20 years on, snotty and comically obsolete.” While many scholars wouldn’t have a problem with being snotty (it’s a hazard of the job), I’m guessing most would likely prefer not to become comically obsolete.
While reading Dreyer’s English, I couldn’t help but think of how this book could apply to the culture of academic writing. In my primary research area of film and media history, the issue of readability has been a discussion for many years. This topic came up recently with a widely published senior colleague, who sardonically mused, “Only in academia would accessible prose be considered a liability.” Graduate students and tenure-track faculty are often pressured to increase jargon to make their work appear more serious and academic. Such an emphasis results on scholars feeling they have to write in clunky prose that overcomplicate narratives as a way to survive in higher education.
Back in 2004, University of Southern California historian Steven J. Ross wrote to the film studies field about the “crisis of readability in film history.” Ross is a decorated author who was recently a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Hitler in Los Angles. As a top scholar in his field, Ross was concerned about the impact of too much theory on historical projects. “Theory should not be used to flaunt our knowledge and show how clever we are,” he argued, “It is our obligation — indeed, our job — to translate complex ideas into comprehensible prose.” What is the purpose of scholarship that never moves beyond academia?  We should treat our scholarship like we do our classroom, as a platform to bring in a new audience our area of expertise.
Going further, Ross added, “It is not enough to write for a handful of scholars hip to the jargon that passes as analysis.” Many of us have seen the graduate student at conferences speaking in a manner they think will impress professors. Using lofty language to camouflage impostor syndrome is part of the graduate student identity. However, Ross argues, as professors “We are paid to think and communicate ideas to others: to our students, our colleagues, and our potential public audience.” Perhaps some academics may feel that using communal language to showcase their research will somehow undermine its importance. Ross’ recent books are perfect examples of top-notch scholarship presented in a digestible manner.
One could also look at the latest work from Brandeis professor Thomas Doherty and journalist Vanda Kreeft as good examples to follow. Doherty published Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist through Columbia University Press and Kreeft released The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox through Harper. One might assume Doherty’s book is more scholarly (academic press) and Kreeft’s is more of a light read (mainstream press). One would be wrong, however, as each book is comprehensible and expertly researched. These books have been widely read, discussed, and positively reviewed — the best response to any work of scholarship.
As both Dreyer and Ross undoubtedly understand, clarity is an essential part of writing. Incorporating flashy or trendy prose will only overshadow the heart of one’s work. Why not cut through the fog and write exactly what you mean instead of making readers do mental gymnastics in order to get your point? As an author and junior faculty member, I want my work to be read beyond the academy. I am always working on my writing and looking for the most effective ways to communicate my research in the classroom and in print. Most of us in higher education have picked up a book with great interest only to put it down because the bloated prose style took all the life out of the subject.
Dreyer has unquestionably reviewed a wide range of works at Random House, as evidenced by his many colorful stories throughout his manuscript. Random House works with myriad genres in the non-fiction worlds of history, science, biography, and politics. There are many scholars working in these fields who could be presenting their research to a wider audience through mainstream presses. Of course, professors need to publish with academic peer-reviewed presses to achieve tenure. However, why not work to expand the reach of one’s research after tenure?
As readers of the Los Angeles Review of Books know, the world of writing should be viewed as an ongoing conversation. Dreyer argues, “You don’t finish writing a book. You stop writing it.” The semantics here are important because there is rarely, if ever, a final word on anything. Human knowledge is an ongoing discussion that should be embraced as such. Always be thinking about adding to the conversation you are engaged in, but remember there doesn’t necessarily need to be a final word. As Dreyer reminds us, “there’s no last word, only the next word.”
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Everyone Can Benefit from Dreyer’s English — Especially Scholars

Everyone Can Benefit from Dreyer’s English — Especially Scholars

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<div class="at-above-post-homepage addthis_tool" data-url="https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/reviews/women-knew-howard-hughes/"></div>On a sunny Southern California day in 1946, Howard Hughes crashed an XF-11 prototype into an unsuspecting Beverly Hills neighborhood. Narrowly escaping with his life, the accident was the aviator’s highest profile crash but certainly not the only one in Hughes’s life. Some have wondered if the regular battering of Hughes’s body led to his increased eccentricities over the years — something that can be seen in his treatment of women during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
The latest foray into Hughes’s life is Karina Longworth’s Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes’s Hollywood. Longworth is the creator and host of You Must Remember This, a popular podcast that focuses on Hollywood’s Golden Age.
As Longworth told The Hollywood Reporter, “Whenever I hear that so-and-so was famous for having slept with a lot of women, I wonder what the women felt about that. And so I just thought it would be more interesting talk about the experiences of the women and how they perceived Hughes, and what their experiences were like being involved with him professionally or personally.”
Seduction is not a biography, but a meandering journey through Hollywood’s Golden Age as seen through the lens of women who met, and often slept with, Howard Hughes. The book begins with a story about Hughes’s family — his father, a businessman in Houston who made the family fortune by patenting drill bits, and his uncle Rupert, a writer in Los Angeles known for the book and adaptation of Souls for Sale (1923). When Howard Sr. died, family tried to take the fortune from Howard Jr. (who was then a minor), an experience that would lead Hughes to remain childless — no one to steal his fortune when he grows old. Once his father passed, Howard moved from Houston to Hollywood.
One of many film companies Hughes would found or take controlling stock in was the Caddo Company. Caddo’s first production was Lewis Milestone’s The Racket (1928), a bootlegging tale that was highly censored around the country. When pushed by censors about the film’s depiction of brutality, Hughes responded, “I won’t tone anything down. I believe the screen is a powerful instrument. It bores through opinions like my father’s bits bore through rock.” Battles with local and national censors would be a defining element of Hughes’s time in Hollywood.
By 1927, Hughes had his focus on the aviation epic Hells Angels (1930), which began as a silent film and was reshot as a talkie. Overconfident, Hughes was willing to spend half a million dollars on the project. Once the film got off the ground, that half a million was spent on antique World War I airplanes, pilots, and mechanics alone. Those who have seen Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator can get a sense of the careless spending that was going on during the production of this film, including the abrupt move from Los Angeles to Oakland to reshoot dogfight scenes with clouds in the background.
In addition, four people died during the filming, three of the deaths were connected to the film. Two airplane crashes killed pilots while another crew member died moving a plane. During one shoot, Hughes pushed his pilots to enact a low-altitude maneuver. The pilots said it could not be done. Never responding well to pushback, Hughes attempted the stunt himself. Having only earned his aviation license in 1928, the newly minted pilot failed and crashed horribly resulting in reconstructive surgery that marred his appearance.
During this time, Hughes would do two things that helped solidify his place in Hollywoodland. First, he hired Lincoln Quarberg to help with publicity. Hughes was obsessive about many things, so it should surprise no one that he not only monitored how the press covered him but he also fed the media information as a way of controlling what they covered. Second, Hughes began a relationship with the sexy Hollywood starlet Billie Dove — creating a true representation of the “beautiful girl” and “rich man” stereotype.
After purchasing a production company that would release The Front Page (1931), Hughes continued to cast Dove in his productions in hopes of keeping her career alive. Like many stars of Silent Hollywood, Dove’s career was waning after she starred in The Age of Love (1931) and Cock of the Air (1932) — a film for which Hughes would get serious censorship pushback. The censorship squabble over Cock of the Air did not do Hughes any favors when Scarface (1932) went into production.
Hughes’s relationship with Dove wouldn’t last as her career was waning just as Hughes’s was lifting — perhaps a real life version of A Star is Born.
While Hughes’s next girl was Ginger Rogers, the dancing beauty who was on the rise in a series of musicals for Warner Bros, Longworth shifts focus to Jean Harlow. Hells Angels instigated Harlow’s &#8220;blonde bombshell&#8221; status, and how Hughes needed to find her work. Loaning her out to other studios, Harlow appeared in such films as The Public Enemy (1931), Platinum Blonde (1931), and Red-Headed Woman (1932). While many insinuated a sexual relationship between Hughes and Harlow, the formal communication between shows the more likely story of a contentious business relationship. Harlow made good money for her films, but Hughes raked in major cash because he owned her contract — one of the benefits of making and maintaining a star. Hughes would sell her contract to MGM in 1932.
The next woman associated with Hughes was the indispensable Katherine Hepburn. Although Hepburn would largely consider her life’s great love to be Spencer Tracy, the affair between Hughes and Hepburn was also cemented into Hollywood lore. Seduction traces the relationships and conspiracies over the years, including the notion that perhaps both Hepburn and Tracy were gay and served as beards for one another. Hughes would ultimately meet Hepburn by forcing himself into her golf lesson. In true Hughes fashion, the aviator landed a plane on the Bel-Air Country Club fairway. This undoubtedly got Hepburn’s attention, but she would instead run off with director John Ford after filming Mary of Scotland (1936). Eventually Hughes and Hepburn would connect. The two would their mutual interest in dodging crowds and still managing to get attention.
It wouldn’t be long before Walter Winchell’s gossip column featured a headline about Hughes&#8217;s next, though brief, affair with Bette Davis. Moving on to another Warner Bros. actress, Hughes took Olivia de Havilland to a party at Jack Warner’s house and continued to court her. Interested in career over love, de Havilland would also brush Hughes away.
Circling back to Ginger Rogers, Hughes professed his love, proposed marriage, and promised to build a house for her with a view of Lake Hollywood and the Hollywood Sign itself. Rogers was smart enough to wonder if Hughes just wanted to build a house for a beautiful woman so she could be his co-recluse. The relationship would dry up when Ginger confronted Hughes about his infidelities.
Many of the stories throughout Seduction move beyond Hughes, but always come back around to connect with Hughes’s obsessive personality. Hughes regularly purchased contracts of rising stars so he did not have to negotiate with a studio — and so he could control their life. Control was paramount for Hughes. Between airplanes, movies, and women, Hughes sought to maneuver everything in his life like puppets on a string. Many women featured in Seduction grew wise to Hughes and went on to have strong careers. Others were not as lucky, as Hughes became increasingly restrictive with his significant others.
In addition to actresses like Hepburn and Davis, Jane Russell would find herself as resident sexpot in The Outlaw (1943) a Western directed by Howard Hawks before being ousted by Hughes for not following orders. Another brunette temptress, Ava Gardner, fell into a lengthy relationship with Hughes in the 1940s. When Gardner starred in The Barefoot Contessa (1954), she believed her character was modeled after her own time with Hughes.
As Hughes aged, his relationships became increasingly questionable. For example, Hughes purchased the 1941 studio contract for Faith Domergue and proposing marriage to the 17-year-old (when Hughes was in his late 30s). Instead of helping her career, Hughes became more interested in war contracts after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The result was Domergue finding herself less and less connected to the outside world, increasingly gaslighted by Hughes about gallivanting with the likes of Lana Turner, Rita Hayworth, and others.
Like the many illuminating episodes of the You Must Remember This podcast, Seduction reads like a scandal sheet tempered with primary and secondary research. Listeners familiar with Longworth’s recent series investigating Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon will find a similar set of gossipy tales sorted through a historiographical lens. Seduction is a fun read, providing a sense of what it could have been like sitting at a table at Ciro’s in Hollywood, listening to the stars gab.
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The Women Who Knew Howard Hughes

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Image from Lantern Database via the Media History Digital Library

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History has a way of repeating itself.
The shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, coupled with the latest increase in anti-Semitism, bears a cold resemblance to the tumultuous climate in the United States prior to World War II. In 1941, the United States Senate approved a subcommittee to investigate Hollywood for alleged warmongering. What followed was an exposure of institutionalized anti-Semitism on the national stage. 
This weekend saw a mass shooting at a synagogue, leading many to ask why? Perhaps we have reached a point where our culture’s race discussions overlook racism against Jews. History shows us that prejudice will be normalized and mainstreamed when it goes unchallenged. As a culture, we need to continue acknowledging that there is still a battle against anti-Semitism that needs to be waged in our own country and this weekend was a tragic reminder of that.
In the 1930s, white nationalist and pro-Nazi groups, like those that influenced the Pittsburgh shooter, saw increased activity. Groups like the Nazi-influenced German-American Bund penetrated the culture, radio priest Charles Coughlin filled the airwaves with hate, journalist G. Allison Phelps published a xenophobic and anti-Semitic pamphlet about Hollywood, and politicians spoke openly about their animosity towards the Jews. Much of the hate flew under the auspice of pro-Americanism and in opposition to European interventionism. The isolationist movement, headed by the America First Committee, regularly hosted rallies that featured anti-Jewish remarks. Most famously, celebrity aviator Charles Lindbergh described the ‘Jew-controlled’ media industry as a danger to the United States.
Senators Gerald Nye (North Dakota) and Burton K. Wheeler (Montana) used the America First movement to promote similar ideas and get Senate backing to investigate Hollywood for both war mongering and monopolistic practices — whichever angle would defeat the Jewish-run industry. By the late 1930s, Hollywood was producing a small number of anti-Nazi films that were based on real stories and popular novels. Films such as Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), The Mortal Storm (1940), and Foreign Correspondent (1941) kept a close eye on the growing impact of prejudice during the rise of fascism. These films were enough to incite isolationist-leaning politicians and on September 9, 1941, a Senate subcommittee opened an investigation on Hollywood. 
On the morning of the investigation, many opened their newspapers to a statement from recent presidential candidate Wendell Willkie who had been hired to defend the Hollywood moguls. Willkie offered a denunciation of anti-Jewish sentiment, especially the words from Senator Nye who had regularly argued that anti-Nazi movies are made by immigrants hoping to drag the United States into ‘their war.’ In addition to regularly referring to the interests of ‘real Americans,’ meaning those born in the United States, Nye infamously referred to the Hollywood studios as “gigantic engines of propaganda.” Although Willkie would get substantial press during the investigation, the isolationist Senators muzzled him in the courtroom. 
The first days of the Senate investigation featured statements from Hollywood critics such as Senator Nye and Senator Bennett Champ Clark (Missouri). Both Senators chastised Hollywood for warmongering, however, when pressed by then junior Senator Ernest McFarland (Arizona), it was learned that neither of these vocal isolationist Senators had actually watched any of the films in question. McFarland urged the subcommittee to watch the films being discussed, an action suggested throughout the hearings that would never come to fruition. 
John T. Flynn, a journalist and America First organizer who also helped orchestrate the hearings, gave additional testimony. Flynn argued that the anti-Nazi films didn’t provide a balanced view of the European conflict. Willkie mused in the press that Flynn must feel that for every anti-Hitler production there should be a pro-Hitler film. Another deposition was given by critical Hollywood journalist Jimmie Fiddler, who largely made a fool of himself trying to defend his gossip columns. Senator McFarland grew increasingly frustrated at how the discussions moved from war propaganda to irrelevant topics such as Fiddler’s connection to a Los Angeles dress shop. 
The first days of the investigation were a disaster for the isolationists, who now had to face a lineup of Hollywood power players. Columbia President Nicholas Schenck, Warner Bros. President Harry Warner, Paramount President Barney Balaban, and 20th Century Fox executive Darryl Zanuck all took turns defending the industry against isolationist accusations. 
Schenck schooled the subcommittee on theater operations while Zanuck embarrassed the xenophobic Senators by pointing to his American birthplace. Harry Warner delivered the largest blow, arguing that his studio’s interest was only in delivering engaging films based on real stories. Warner then presented a letter that Senator Nye wrote to the studio after seeing Confessions of a Nazi Spy. Nye turned beat red when Warner read Nye’s claim that anyone who loved democracy should enjoy the film. 
At this point the subcommittee was a national joke, but it didn’t stop Senators Nye and Wheeler from pushing forward and speaking out against alleged foreign interests in Hollywood. Ultimately, the attack on Pearl Harbor would render mute any argument for isolationism. By the end of 1945, the United States helped defeat the greatest cause of anti-Semitism in the twentieth century. However, the mainstream prejudice from political and cultural leaders before the war has largely been forgotten. 
Today, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that Anti-Semitic incidents rose almost 60 percent in 2017. The ADL stated that in 2015 anti-Jewish hate crimes were up 35 percent and 57 percent in 2016. In 2017, President Trump invalidated ongoing threats to Jewish community centers, claiming the threats were not real and only orchestrated (possibly by the Jews themselves) to make others look bad. On October 17th of 2018, religious activist Louis Farrakhan took to Twitter with a video featuring the quote, “I’m not anti-Semite, I’m anti-Termite.” When criticized for allowing such rhetoric on Twitter, the social media company stood behind him. 
In the wake of increased anti-Jewish prejudice that has displayed itself in the Pittsburgh shooting, we must remain both aware and critical of those that project anti-Semitism today. It may not be as easy to identify as a single cartoonish villain like Hitler, which means our lenses must be clear enough to see the warning signs before shots are fired.
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Wave of Anti-Semitism Today Resembles Prewar Attitudes Towards Jewish-Led Hollywood

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Chris Yogerst, a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, is an associate professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Chris is the author of two books, From the Headlines to Hollywood: The Birth and Boom of Warner Bros. and Hollywood Hates Hitler! Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures. His work can also be found in The Hollywood Reporter, The Washington Post, The Journal of American Culture, and Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Find him on Twitter @chrisyogerst

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Chris Yogerst, a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, is an associate professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Chris is the author of two books, From the Headlines to Hollywood: The Birth and Boom of Warner Bros. and Hollywood Hates Hitler! Jew-Baiting, Anti-Nazism, and the Senate Investigation into Warmongering in Motion Pictures. His work can also be found in The Hollywood Reporter, The Washington Post, The Journal of American Culture, and Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television. Find him on Twitter @chrisyogerst